Camp is titled that because that’s where it largely takes place, and not — repeat: not — because it bears the qualities of camp. Oh, if only! You’ll wish for some levity, as the Japanese film is as much fun as having the campfire singe your wiener — the edible kind or the sexual tool. Take your pick, but one guess as to which route this flick trafficks.
Sisters Kozue and Akane — respectively, the smart, pretty one and the one who’s not so much — go camping, which is a little strange since the last time they did, Kozue was raped by Akane’s boyfriend. That night is nothing compared to this return trip, when the girls are accosted in the lodge by a party of five hardly reformed sex maniacs, each of whom is code-named for his particular fetish; Copro treats urine like vintage wine, while Pilo, who likes to burn things, fellates a fireplace lighter. A round or few of brandy-laced tea later, they pit the siblings against one another in a game neither will win. You’ll never be able to look at a vacuum hose the same way. The guys are not sick, though; they prefer the term “more affectionate.” In other words, just a typical Tuesday night at the Fiji house, brah!
Call it what you will, but I call Camp utterly misogynist trash. While director Ainosuke Shibata (whose 2013 debut, Hitch-Hike, double-features with Camp on the Troma label’s From Asia with Lust: Volume 1 DVD release) allows for female revenge, those relatively few moments of comeuppance seem like an afterthought, following an agonizing hour of general torture, poop-chute molestation and other acts of extreme deviance. These are depicted fairly graphically and one would assume they are simulated — then again, one of the siblings is played by adult film star Miyuki Yokoyama, so who knows — but they are bothersome nonetheless. That they are portrayed in a manner to titillate is exponentially most distressing.
It’s no I Spit on Your Grave, that’s for sure, and that’s really saying something. So is this: At least Camp mercifully runs fewer than 90 minutes. —Ed Donovan