[Caesar and Otto's Summer Camp Massacre]
Plot:Caesar, an effete tough guy and his slovenly half brother, Otto, have signed up as summer camp counselors. But when the mysterious Carrie shows up, the other counselors start disappearing one by one.

Cast:Dave Campfield, Paul Chomicki, Felissa Rose, Deron Miller, Brinke Stevens, Joe Estevez, Ken MacFarlane, Scott Aguilar, Avi K. Garg, Trai Byers, Jen Nikolaus, Summer Ferguson, Derek Crabbe, Robin Ritter, Dawn Burdue,

My Thoughts:As advertised.

Review:"Caesar and Otto's Summer Camp Massacre" is an ultra-low-budget slasher comedy which is exactly as advertised. It's not a film which will change the genre, or set it on any new course for greatness. But rather one of those outrageous slasher comedies that's an homage to the silliness, outrageousness, and campiness of the back-in-the-day horror movie. Thus, it's best not to be taken seriously as most other slashers, and should be watched with a vastly open mind. The movie follows Caesar, a flamboyant semi-tough-guy, and his much chubbier, and older-looking brother Otto.

The two live together, and have very contrasting lives. Caesar is the worker of the two, who pays rent for the apartment and takes care of all of the important things. All of this, while trying to balance his dreams of being an actor. For now though, he's simply an aspiring actor, who takes any and every gig he can get (as displayed at the start of the movie during a cheesy commercial), just so he can build a body of work.

Otto, his brother, doesn't do much of anything really except slouch around really, and like most slackers, he's dating a woman (played by Brinke Stevens), who doesn't respect him much, and pretty much just uses him to bail her out of prison, or if she needs a place to stay or crash for a few days. One day, while out, Caesar gets into a confrontation with the mentally-retarded brother of the local police chief. Now, with everyone looking for Caesar so they can arrest him for the alledged..."assault", him and Otto flee town, and eventually end up becoming summer camp counselors.

Soon, as they meet and greet the other counselors, a killer begins to stalk the ground, Brutally murdering the counselors. Can Caesar and Otto stop the killer before they become the next victims? "Caesar and Otto's Summer Camp Massacre" is kind of like an homage to the old "Abbott and Costello" films, only it's a lot gorier than any of those movies. Despite said films pitting Abbott and Costello against such enemies as The Wolfman and Dracula. The film is not really a movie where one should watch with any majorly high standards.

It's a "schlock slasher" so to speak, and is really for the crowd that enjoys silly indie horror features with familiar B-movie names such as Brinke Stevens, Dave Campfield, and Felissa Rose. The movie does have some intelligence and wit though, and Campfield, who plays Caesar, and who also directed the movie, does a good job in his role as opposite Otto. He's a very amusing, and interesting character to observe throughout all the hijinx.

The movies intelligence and wit comes from it's ability to not take itself too seriously, and to poke fun at it's absurdities. For example, the premise has a killer loose on a summer camp grounds. So Felissa Rose cameos in the movie as a mysterious camp counselor who arrived late, but seems to have other motives for being there besides the job at hand. Rose, who starred in "Sleepaway Camp", and "Return To Sleepaway Camp", as the infamous Angela Baker, the slasher with a penchant for disposing of the "bad people", does an excellent job in her role as Carrie, the sometimes suspicious, and sometimes charming, and at other times rough-around-the-edges, camp counselor who may or may not be the killer.

That's pretty much her sole purpose in this movie, to drum up suspicion that she's the killer, because it's a slasher movie set on camp grounds. So of course the girl who played Angela Baker has to be "it"....the killer, right? And of course with all the cliche characters like the dumb blonde, the self-absorbed hottie, the token black guy, the equally token aspiring rock singer, and the creepy camp manager, it's just too much of a perfect set up for Felissa Rose to be the serial murderer!

This is just one of the many ways the film homages other movies, pokes fun at itself, and does the whole tongue-in-cheek/inside joke deal with it's script and story. The kills though are a big dose of typical "Sleepaway Camp"-styled mayhem with the really red blood, and the C-grade overtones as people's heads are lopped off or severed, and it all looks really fake, yet still works because you already know what to expect going into the movie. The ending comes up with a decent enough twist to make you laugh and make the movie worth seeing through to the end. But Rose and Campfield are the stars of this show, and really carry the movie over into being a fun viewing experience.

Positives:Dave Campfield and Felissa Rose gives outstanding performances as Caesar and Carrie. The film pokes fun at itself and doesn't take the material seriously at all. It plays right into it's own hands in a way. It knows exactly what it is, and revels in that notion.

Negatives:I thought the first girl to die in the movie had a pretty stupid death, even by this movies standards.

Overall:Three out of four stars.





( Talk about it in the Forums!)



( Back to the main page)