On today’s episode of the podcast, Summer Camp Nightmare. Don’t be fooled, folks. This is not a stalk-and-slash 80s horror.
In fact, it’s got smarts. There’s a wack of political/historical context, and it punches above its weight for what you’d expect from a small, largely overlooked film.
A bunch of counsellors in training (CITs) and the usual cadre of summer camp wimps, jocks, misfits and troublemakers, attend a summer camp. And after some time, the kids take umbrage with their overlords and turn the tables on ’em.
And bonus. Chuck Connors! The western star, and also the lead in Tourist Trap, plays the disciplinarian summer camp head.
Two very different movies on the podcast this week. The first, is a low budget British horror called The Barge People. It’s about, of all things, creatures that lurk about near canals and torment canal boaters. Hey, there’s something for everyone in horror, apparently.
Two couples get together for a weekend getaway…floating down canals in the English countryside in what’s known as a narrow boat. Apparently, 8500 or so people in the UK have registered these vessels as permanent homes. Weird.
Anyway, things begin to go a bit awry, as this is, after all, a horror movie. A series of murders takes place nearby and adjacent to the canals the couples are travelling on. And they eventually encounter….well, look at this poster!
Daughters of Darkness, by contrast, is a brooding, slow burn, vampire flick that’s set in Belgium. It’s very um…deliberately paced, but also visually very appealing.
Stefan Chilton, raised in the US, is the scion of an upper crust aristocratic British family.
He is traveling with his newly-wed wife, Valerie, through Europe and by all accounts is having a great old time.
The couple check into a grand hotel on the Belgian seaside, intending to catch the cross-channel ferry to England, where Stefan’s mother lives. As it’s off-season, the hotel is empty. At nightfall, however, a mysterious Hungarian countess, Elizabeth Bathory, arrives, driven by her “secretary,” Ilona.
We have covered regional horrors here, Offerings, Unhinged, The Legend of Boggy Creek, etc. And now, Hayride, lensed in Alabama on a shoestring budget.
This one featured an escaped lunatic on the loose, unsuspecting townies, and of course, a hayride. This is a Halloween-set flick, spirited, amateurish, somewhat fun…