- Directed by John Logan
- Written by John Logan
- Stars Kevin Bacon, Theo Germaine, Anna Chlumsky
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 44 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGxtpvXy8nM
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was kind of good on viewing, but it starts to crumble around the edges the more you think about it afterward. It’s a slasher at an isolated camp, which has certainly been done before, but it’s different enough to be interesting. We give it a weak thumbs up.
Spoilery Synopsis
A woman drives down the country road at night and gets a flat tire. She looks in the road and sees tire spikes back there; that wasn’t an accident. She gets scared by a deer, but we see a masked killer out there as well. She gets the chop while we see that “Whistler Camp” is just over the hill. In the morning, a bunch of kids get off the bus at the camp as credits roll.
Owen comes out to talk to the kids. “Gay people are A-OK with me. I can’t make you straight. You start hearing the words ‘gay conversion camp’ and you get the wrong idea.” He does, in fact, make it all sound very relaxing and not traumatic at all. He introduces Cora, Molly, Zane, Sarah, and Balthazar, the staff of the camp. He takes their cellphones, cigarettes, and medications. He sends the boys to the boys’ cabin and the girls to the girls’ cabin.
Jordan wonders which cabin they should use, as they are nonbinary. Owen is completely reasonable about it, which impresses everyone, suggesting they go to the boys cabin for now. We soon meet Toby, who’s a theater nerd. Veronica hates herself for being bisexual. Kim doesn’t want to pretend anymore. Some of them are just there because their parents made them. Jordan’s family made them come.
Balthazar the handyman creeps out watching the girl campers, and Veronica tells him off that they’re the wrong team. Alexandra gets caught showering alone early in the morning, and she hasn’t been quite honest about who she physically is below the waist. We don’t see it, but one of the staff does, and she’s sent to the boys cabin. She wants her hormone pills, and Molly gives them to her.
Then we have a camp activity montage, and it looks like everyone is having a good time. In the middle of the night, Zane wakes them all up and leads them out into the woods handcuffed in pairs. Owen is there, and this is all some kind of self-reliance exercise. He wants them to wander around in the woods and find their way back to camp by morning handcuffed to their partners.
Jordan tells Alexandra that they think something is wrong with the camp; there’s not enough Bible thumping and queer bashing. They both get a glimpse of the masked killer in the woods, but he’s gone when they look again.
Back at camp, Cora and Sarah go through everyone’s stuff. In the morning, everyone is back at camp. Jordan gets to talk to Dr. Cora about his life and psychological issues. She’s… not encouraging to Jordan, and they gets upset. All the campers then break out in song as Owen watches from outside. There is supposed to be a killer in this, isn’t there?
That night, Jordan sneaks into the park office and finds pictures of beaten, scarred, and abused people. Former campers that have been coming there for decades, Owen’s ancestors started the place. Molly comes in, and he shows her the photos; she didn’t know. She warns Jordan that things could get a lot worse.
We see Balthazar watching closed-circuit cameras of the girls’ shower. The killer comes up behind him and lets him have it.
In the morning, the girls all work together to make pies while the guys shoot guns. Molly goes out to a shed and finds a locked room there, at least until Cora finds her and makes her leave. Jordan is an excellent shot, and Zane seems to take offense to that. They have a little contest and Jordan easily wins. Owen wants Toby to shoot his sickly old dog. It’s all very stressful until Jordan shoots the dog first.
Back in the kitchen, Sarah hits on Kim; she’s not supposed to be doing that, and Kim is weirded out. Later, she tells Veronica about it, and they talk about their problems, which escalates into something naughty they aren’t supposed to do in a gay conversion camp. Stu and Gabriel do the same thing in the tool shed.
Jordan, Alexandra, and Toby make plans to steal the bus and leave in the morning.
Stuart finds himself in a trap set by Owen and Zane. Gabriel isn’t gay, he just has sex with guys to trap them, or something. I guess they had to make sure Stu was really gay. So they show him what aversion therapy is all about. OK, maybe this camp isn’t as relaxing as they advertised. They hook him up to a car battery and fry him good in the back room of the shed. They bring him to Molly for treatment after, and she quits on the spot, threatening to turn him into the police in the morning.
Later, Zane and Sarah have sex in their cabin, and the masked slasher kills them both. Gabriel gets caught and ends up in the aversion therapy chair. He gets fried too, but the killer doesn’t stop with a little shock therapy. Kim and Veronica find the bodies, and soon, everyone knows that there’s a killer. Owen warns Molly that it was probably one of the kids, since two counselors are dead.
Cora goes inside for guns, and the killer gets her next. Alexandra takes most of the kids through the woods for help, leaving Kim, Veronica, and Jordan with Molly in the camp.
Jordan goes to the office for guns and finds Cora’s body. The killer pushes Owen down and reveals herself to be… Molly. She was a former camper here; she’s Angie, from way back. Molly was the woman killed in the pre-credit sequence and Angie took her place. Molly/Angie explains how her life went after leaving the camp.
She figures once the story gets out, no one will ever send their kids to a place like this again. Owen knocks Angie down and strangles her until Jordan pulls a gun on him. Owen gives Jordan the “You can’t shoot me,” speech. Jordan… can’t do it. So Angie kills Owen quite violently.
“It gets easier; you’ll see,” she tells Jordan. She wants to move on and clear up another camp. All the camps, working together. The police arrive outside, and Jordan leaves.
The sun comes up, and we see Molly/Angie being loaded into a police car and Stu getting into an ambulance; he’ll be fine. The others all sit and talk about how they’re all fine now, at peace with who they are.
Commentary
Wait, a bunch of kids at summer camp get killed by a maniac in a hockey mask? No one’s ever seen that before. All the campers are types; the jock, the super-effeminate boy, the trans girl, and so forth. It took a very long time for the killer to get to work after the opening scene.
The camp actually seemed really nice in the beginning, but after about an hour, we get to see what’s really going on. I mean, everyone knows these camps are terrible, terrible places, but this camp never really seemed right.
When the movie was over, I was pleased enough. Then, the more I thought about it, the less any of it made sense. Why would they see any need to “entrap” Stu with Gabriel, if he was self-admittedly gay already? Answer: To squeeze in one more sex scene. How many years had Owen been running the place in order for Angie to get as old as Molly and still remember him? What did this camp actually hope to accomplish over the course of only one week? Also, most of the characters didn’t even look remotely under the age of 18, so, other than Alexandra, who gave a reason, why would anyone go there as an adult? I suspect they were all supposed to be teenagers, which makes the two sex scenes a little sketchy.