Spirit Camp (2009)

***Friday the 13th meets Bring It On***

A cheerleading squad from the suburbs of Houston goes to summer camp to improve their camaraderie and cheer skills, but a masked killer is on the loose and most of the youths end up dead one-by-one.

“Spirit Camp” (2009) is a satirical meshing of the Friday the 13th and Bring It On flicks. It’s a spare change Indie, but the director/writer (Kerry Beyer) is proficient and so the filmmaking is professional with quality locations, lighting, photography, gore, sound and score/soundtrack. Even the no-name cast rises to the challenge with an amusingly campy approach, although there are a couple of scenes with noticeably dubious “acting.”

Beyer wisely includes all the staples of the slasher genre and, best of all, knows how to photograph women. The standouts are Katy Rowe (Amber), Denise Williamson (Monica), Amy Morris (Lindsay), Julin (Rachel) and Sarah McCulley /Thygeson (Beth); superb job on this front.

With the campy vibe I had doubts that the story would remain compelling over the course of the slightly overlong runtime (for an Indie slasher, that is), but Beyer keeps things moving and I eventually found myself taking the events fairly seriously (surprisingly). A plus is that I couldn’t predict who the killer turns out to be. A minus is that he shoulda toned down the crudity, but it’s not as bad as some flicks, e.g. the tasteless “American Pie," and he was obviously aiming to amuse.

The film runs 1 hour and 36 minutes and was shot in Cleveland, Texas (a 2.5 hour drive south of Lake Tyler), with the suburban scenes done in Houston.

GRADE: B/B-

Decent watch, probably won't watch again, and can only recommend for horror fans to see particular aspects.

Done in a very 1980's style, this movie combines the concept that a camp would have a manager, a groundkeeper, and 2 counselors for 6 cheerleaders....all from the same squad.....at the same school. At best I guess it was a bootcamp.

Regardless, the characters are mostly flavorless, and the dialogue and cinematography is pretty low quality. Roxy Vandiver carries the movie for most of it, but she arguably has the most poorly developed character in the story.

The movie's biggest strength is a clear knowledge and application of horror tropes, using them in both an expected manner and refreshingly surprising manner. I think that's what the movie is probably best known for: a few great moments.

Horror fans will probably like this, but I imagine it will disappoint a lot of general audiences.