Every so often, your humble author and narrator here at B-Movie Enema looks at the calendar, considers what movies I have to cover, and chooses something to review that is timely.

O-okay… Sure, a movie from 37 years ago is hardly “timely” by the strictest of definitions, but stick with me here for a second. Here, in the northern hemisphere of this insignificant ball of rock in space we call Earth, it’s May 31st and we are on the doorstep of warm weather and long days. Looking at some pickups from last year’s HorrorHound Weekend, I saw a movie that sounds far more familiar than it really is to me – Summer Camp Nightmare.

It’s a movie with a title that, if uttered, you’d think you could immediately respond with, “Of course! That’s a movie I remember being on cable all the time. I’m pretty sure I saw it all the time on the video store shelves. And, yes! It sure does seem like a movie that would have come out in 1987!”

However, there is NOTHING about the description of this movie that rings a bell with me.

We’ll obviously get more into this as this review and breakdown carries on, but the high-level synopsis is that a summer camp that is run by a kindly, but overbearing religious guy, played by Chuck Connors. A group of maladjusted kids overthrow the director, they turn it into almost like a cult and we’ve got ourselves a situation that soon turns much, much worse when murder and rape start getting injected into the camp activities. That might seem like it’s something of a Lord of the Flies type of scenario. If not that, an R-rated version of that Simpsons episode when Bart takes over Kamp Krusty. However, it’s loosely based on a novel written by William Butler in 1961 called The Butterfly Revolution. The reason for that specific title will reveal itself during the course of the movie.

It’s probably safe to say that “The Butterfly Revolution” doesn’t quite have the punch of “Summer Camp Nightmare” when you see the movie on the video store shelves in either the horror or thriller sections.

As I said, this features Chuck Connors as our camp director. We’ve seen him before in Tourist Trap where he played a crazed man who runs a roadside attraction with wax figures, that he also (somehow) controls with his mind. Then, I featured the movie Terror Squad on B-Movie Enema: The Series. Have you watched that show? Season FIVE is underway. If I do say so myself, it’s not too bad. Anyway, in that, he played a police chief in Kokomo, Indiana trying to stop terrorists trying to blow up a nuclear power plant that I guess exists there. (NOTE: It does not. I live about an hour south on US31 from Kokomo. There is no nuclear power plant an hour away from me.)

At this point in his career, Connors is mostly a featured player in independent films for name recognition and is often higher in the cast list, but at the lower end of screen time. Someone at the beginning of her career and someone who is actually rather famous for her voice is also in this movie. That person is Samantha Newark. She’s from London and, at the age of 19, she was cast as Debbie. But I said she’s rather famous. She is, to a certain group of people of a certain age. Newark is best known for her voice work. Most notably, she played Jerrica Benton, a.k.a. Jem, on the original TV series Jem. If you’re of a certain age (read: OLD) like me, then you probably held a certain, secret crush on Jem. After all, back then, I was all about beefcake dudes (a.k.a. He-Man) and giant robots (i.e. Transformers) and badass dinosaurs. I wasn’t supposed to like girls OR their cartoons. I didn’t watch Jem, but I dug the hell out of her style.

So while Connors and Newark are interesting names in the film, there is an even more interesting name associated with the film. Summer Camp Nightmare is co-written by Penelope Spheeris. Many of the films she made in the 80s dealt a lot with Generation X kids who were disaffected, troubled, or bored in the modern times of the Reagan-led American way. Throughout her career, she also did documentaries and concert films for several punk and hard rock groups. This led her to be offered a chance to direct This is Spinal Tap, but declined. Her counter-culture films of the 80s that hit with audiences were 1984’s Suburbia, 1985’s The Boys Next Door, and 1987’s Dudes. Each of those was slightly different in genre but all featured interesting and memorable performances. When the 90s came, Spheeris, interestingly, turned to adaptations of TV shows. She made The Beverly Hillbillies and The Little Rascals. Those films likely were a direct result of the biggest-grossing film of her career – 1992’s Wayne’s World. So, yeah, she co-wrote this film. I’m guessing the kids rising up against a stuffy conservative Christian camp director would kind of fit in with some of her earlier films.

Right out of the gate, we meet one of our central figures in the movie, geeky Donald. Donald is one of the middle school kids going to Camp North Pines for the summer. He’s part of a mixed group that includes both middle school-aged kids (ages 11-14) and high school kids (ages 14-18). He opens up a case he brought with him to reveal multiple pieces of geeky, techy things. He pulls out a tape recorder to record a diary entry. He talks about how exciting everything is and how kids have been singing songs on the bus ever since they took off for Camp North Pines. An older, high school boy sits next to him and laments the eight-hour school bus ride.

God that sounds like hell, doesn’t it? A busload of kids singing non-stop, eight hours on a school bus, one kid pisses himself… This would be a fucking nightmare. School buses are janky and jostle everyone all over the place. But I do like how this is all set up. It’s obvious that Donald’s case full of radios and tape recorders and other electronic doo-dads are going to play into something… I hope. But it’s wild to remember a time in which the kid with all the cool tech stuff was the massive nerd.

While other kids are playing football in the wide-open field at the camp, Donald continues recording his thoughts. He does say that he’s at camp but he didn’t really want to go there for the summer. As he records this entry, one of the older kids, Stanley Runk, aka Runk the Punk, approaches him for cabin clean-up duty. Noticing that Donald has his case full of tech, we learn that it’s a “computer” that “tests people’s personalities” and the punk wants to get his personality tested. In truth, Donald lied to Runk and used it to make fun of the counselor-in-training. He’s about to get his ass handed to him, but another high school kid, and another counselor-in-training, Chris bails Donald out.

Later, the kids go to the mess hall for their first meal at the camp. As they file in, we meet that stick-in-the-mud camp director, Mr. Warren. He’s admiring some butterflies he’s got on display in front of the mess hall. Another nogoodnik asks Runk who the guy with the stick in his ass is. We get the impression that Warren is something of a nature freak. What’s more, he’s also a Jesus freak as he leads the entire assembly in prayer before food. When the kids excitedly get to talking and eating after the prayer, he comments on how rowdy the kids seem to be.

Warren is new to the camp. He used to be a principal and is known to be a real hard ass. He doesn’t like kids misbehaving. He doesn’t want kids smoking or drinking or cussing. He says there is a “meditation center” where people can go to contemplate things or pray, but it’s also the detention center where he will send kids who violate any of the rules. He also says that the rope bridge is off-limits as that leads to the girls’ camp and he claims the bridge is too dangerous to cross due to its condition. Lastly, there are serious budgetary cutbacks this year so there are a bunch of CITs around who are acting as counselors for little to no pay.

The CITs immediately go to the rope bridge to go check out the skirts. The rickety bride is in pieces but one of them uses the ropes to crawl around on the bridge. One of the actual counselors scolds the kid, Franklin, for risking his life. Already, you can see how the counselors aren’t so sure about Warren’s techniques, the CITs aren’t sure about Warren’s religiosity, and they aren’t so sure about the counselors telling them what to do.

Every day, Warren wants to go on butterfly hunts. He also says all the kids should go swimming every day for exercise or what have you. Donald states this makes him feel funny because he never learned how to swim. Donald very nearly drowns when he can’t keep himself afloat and Franklin, acting when the sports director and the activities director are both distracted (the former by booze and the latter by the pretty camp nurse), saves him. Donald pointed out earlier that Franklin was the only other person not swimming because he was more interested in his book he was reading about Civil Disobedience.

Generally speaking, Franklin is well-liked by the younger kids. He tells them scary stories. He knows how to speak to them. He also is rather brave. He was the one who was climbing around the rope bridge and tells one of the counselors that it was a test of valor. Later, he finds one of the kids who went on the butterfly hunt with Mr. Warren in the cabin. The kid, Peter, is upset. He tells Franklin that Mr. Warren kept lifting him up too high to look at butterflies. It caused him to have an accident and pee his pants.

Now here’s where things get kind of interesting. Runk comes into the cabin and Franklin pulls him over to the side and tells him that it’s possible Warren did something inappropriate with Peter. Runk gets upset but Franklin tells him to keep it quiet and let him take care of everything.

If this is the catalyst to the entire takeover and the rest of the movie, that could be really interesting. First, Peter most definitely did not say that he was touched inappropriately by Mr. Warren. Franklin, though seemingly well-spoken in general, really good with the kids, and easily the most intelligent and brave of the teenagers, has been kind of looking for a way to thumb his nose at Warren’s rules and what have you. He immediately wanted to cross the rope bridge even though it looked pretty much useless and super dangerous. In doing so, he tells the other CITs that fear is the most commonly used weapon to keep people in line. He read a book about civil disobedience and almost looked calculating in saving Donald from drowning. After the scene with Peter, he convinces Chris and Donald to help jury rig the TV so they can get other stations besides the religious one on the TV in the rec room.

For the most part, Franklin seems to be nice and easy to talk to and kind of likes everyone who he considers to be in his social level (CITs, teens, campers all basically on the same level under “the man” who is Warren and the other actual employees of the camp). Yet, he is also very manipulative. He uses the story that Peter tells him to tell Runk that Warren seems to be pretty fruity and messing around with the kids. That’s not at all what happened. He knows how to speak to each and every different person at the camp and reads them so well that he can quickly manipulate them to get what he wants them to do. That’s something I didn’t quite expect from this movie. In a way, Franklin is building a cult.

When Donald and Chris go onto the roof of the recreation hall to fiddle with the TV to get the rest of the stations, Mr. Warren discovers what they did and sentences them to the meditation room for the entirety of the following day. They were only let out in time for the talent show which includes the girls from Camp South Pines. Now… let me just say this. This entire scene is fucking magical. The girls (of which we now meet Debbie played by Samantha Newark) sing this amazing song called “Down South” and that is followed up by Franklin and Runk singing “Beef Balogne” which, from what I can see online, has become infamous. Goddamn… This is one of those scenes that I would have replayed a billion times over as a kid if I had seen this movie back then.

So, yeah, Chris has his eyes on the leader of the trio of girls who sang that bitchin’ “Down South” song, Heather (played by soap actress Melissa Brennan). She also quite likes Chris for being the stone cold hunk that he is. Alas, the talent show comes to a screeching halt when Mr. Warren doesn’t like “Beef Balogne” and sends the girls back to the camp. He even cancels the weekend’s dance. Franklin looks on pleased at how much people are starting to hate Mr. Warren and his rules.

Moreover, when the girls’ camp director catches Chris and Heather making out with each other, Warren locks Chris up in the meditation center and he’s going to send the kid home on the next bus that comes their way. This is the last straw for most of the guys at Camp North Pines. Franklin calls a meeting and says he’s decided to take over the camp. The older kids immediately sign up for the revolution. Franklin uses his sway over the campers to convince them to join his revolution. He also recruits Donald to join him too.

There is a day at the camp in which the roles reverse and the campers become the counselors and directors and the counselors and directors become campers and have to follow the rules of the kids. Franklin uses this to begin a chant to free Chris from his punishment of being locked away in the meditation center. Franklin and Runk lead a group to go and free Chris and when Mr. Warren tries to stop them, Franklin brings up the butterfly hunt which comes off as Warren being a pervert even though Warren doesn’t even understand what they think he’s insinuating. Having gotten a gun from a desk in one of the offices, Franklin uses it to force the counselors into the meditation center where they are locked away.

Donald is a little surprised by the turn the day took and Chris is very much uncertain of Franklin’s plan. Franklin starts running the camp like a military by assigning roles and ranks to members of the revolution. Chris wants to call the police to deal with Mr. Warren. Franklin says they will call the police tomorrow. Today is for fun.

They also decide to “liberate” the girls’ camp by “arresting” the Camp South Pines adults and locking them away too.

The boys from North Pines flood into South Pines and Franklin appoints Debbie and another girl, Trixie, as officers of the South Pines camp. He says the annual dance will happen that night. However, Chris and Heather get really weirded out by Franklin asking everyone from both camps to join him in a proclamation that they will remain loyal to the Revolution Party. Everyone joins in on swearing themselves to the party while Chris and Heather look on kind of concerned.

As the dance gets a little out of control and the kids get drunk on booze and power, they decide to bring Mr. Warren in to humiliate him with the debauchery on display. Chris puts a stop to this and Franklin tells Runk to take Warren back to the pen while he has a little talk with Chris. Out in the woods, Mr. Warren tries to get away from Runk, but when Runk catches up to him, he stabs Warren with a knife right in the gut, killing the camp director.

Runk, upset and not sure what to do, goes to Franklin to tell him what happened. Franklin, surprisingly cool under the pressure of now realizing a killing has taken place, tells Runk to get rid of the body. He says they will just spin a story that they transferred Warren to the girls’ camp. The next morning, Franklin says the revolution continues. He promotes Donald to two new positions as Minister of Propaganda and gives him a spot on the Supreme Revolutionary Committee. He also announces that Chris and Heather are to be shunned for trying to betray the revolution.

Donald meets Laurie, a girl who wants to teach him how to dance. It’s fairly obvious that his position within the revolution has afforded Donald opportunities that allow him to be more social. It’s uncertain, though, if Laurie is interested in Donald for his personality and who he is or if it’s because of that status in Franklin’s revolution. They feed some of the animals in a pen and take a liking to a specific piglet. However, Runk has captured the pig and plans to roast it alive over a bonfire which grosses Donald out. He walks away from that and meets back up with Laurie who says they should just go for a walk instead of hanging out at the party that is getting a little out of control. So, maybe she does like Donald for who he is.

As Donald and Laurie walk out into the woods near the caves, they first smell something gross and then hear Debbie screaming as she is about to be raped by Runk’s friend, John. They get there a little too late, as he’s already finished with Debbie. John’s arrested and Franklin puts him on trial. Also, by the way, the gross scent Donald and Laurie smelled in the woods near the caves was Warren’s body. They were near one of the caves where Runk stashed his body.

Franklin asks Debbie what she wants John’s sentence to be for raping her. She plainly states she wants him dead. He decides to sentence John to Trial By Ordeal. Basically, he’s gotta crawl across the rickety rope bridge. If he survives, he’s free to go. If he doesn’t make it, well, that’s his punishment for raping Debbie. When he appears to be doing the rope bridge thing just fine, Debbie and a few other girls begin chucking rocks at him, but he does not fall.

John taunts Debbie, but the girls grab John, pick him up, and carry him off. Donald later says it’s now been days since John’s been seen. The camp is in shambles and as days pass, the campers are starting to act more and more weird. He says that, basically, all they want to do is exactly what Franklin tells them to do. Donald realizes it’s all falling apart. He decides to go looking for Chris and Heather. When he walks out into the woods searching for him, he finds John’s body hanging by a rope from a tree. The girls took out their own justice for what he did to Debbie.

Donald rigs up a way to try to call for help. He’s captured by one of Franklin’s officers. Chris comes into the camp to see what’s going on and that’s when Donald says he found John’s body. Franklin locks Donald up and Chris comes to free him. He also says that he had a conversation with Peter about that day on the butterfly hunt. He clears the air that he was never molested. Donald realizes that everything was made up by Franklin to justify his revolution.

Franklin sentences Donald to cross the rope bridge. Runk cuts part of the bridge which causes Donald to hang precariously on a rope. When Chris returns to stop Franklin, the people within the camp who want to overthrow Franklin begin to start fighting Franklin’s loyalists. Chris saves Donald as the police arrive. Runk and Franklin are arrested. The police listen to Donald’s tapes to get the statement of what happened at the camp. The cops let Chris and Donald go and they get on the bus with Heather and Laurie and they drive off.

And…

Summer Camp Nightmare is kind of a weird movie. There’s a quality to it that feels like an afterschool special. There’s another element that feels like it really wanted to be more R-rated but never got over the hump of being a little sleazier. It’s sleazy for sure. Well, at least in the way that the older kids were massive horn dogs and there was rape in it and what have you. However, it hardly features foul language and has no nudity, so it doesn’t really use its R rating all that well. So that does kind of take a lot of bite out of the movie. I’m wondering if they wanted to put this on, say, Lifetime or something as an afternoon movie, would it require any changes to the content? I don’t think so. At least not much.

There isn’t a whole lot in this to really find all that interesting. It certainly doesn’t really warrant a watch from start to finish. It’s more interesting to talk about Franklin the ideologue than it is to actually watch Franklin as the ideologue. In fact, he stops being interesting the moment he establishes control over both camps. He becomes a background character when he should be the lead in this movie. Chris is the hero but he’s not particularly interesting. More on Chris here in just a moment. The girls are almost kind of thrown in to have someone showing concern over Chris and Donald (and to have that rape scene I guess). There is the scene at the party in which the character Trixie is dancing sexy against Chuck Connors to humiliate him, so I guess if the movie had to “get sexy” then there’s the entire reason why the girls were added into the plot.

The movie really misses the opportunity to really tell a disturbing story from the point of view of Franklin. We get hints and clues that he’s more interesting by way of what he reads and how he handles the information he gathers by just being present and listening to what’s going on around him. He’s influential and manipulative, but we never really get chills about how he can use that to his advantage. He’s just a little too thin when we should be sticking with him as things get darker and worse for everyone around the camp. That would be a hell of a way to earn that R rating by having Franklin go full Travis Bickle on people.

Hell, you could still have Donald basically narrating what happened, but he should be more swept up by Franklin than he really is in this movie. If he’s narrating, he should either never become aware that things have fallen off the rails or have something happen that he is not involved with that makes him question what Franklin is actually doing. It’s a little bit of a cop-out to say, “People around here are just partying too much and that’s proof enough for me to think they are in a cult and being controlled by Franklin.” He should be seeing more than just some burnt-out people milling about because they stay up too late and party all night to come to the conclusion that things aren’t as good as he thought it was under Franklin’s rule.

Anyway… the movie has pieces to make it something more than what it is. It just doesn’t ever put it all together. I like the talent show. I like the earlier characterization of Franklin. That’s about it. It never goes far enough to cash in on the premise.

One thing I feel needs to be addressed is that Chris is played by Harold Pruett. Pruett appeared in only a handful of films, but he had a fairly extensive TV career. Sadly, he didn’t live very long. He died young in 2002 at the age of 32 from an accidental drug overdose. His mother helped set up a fund for drug abuse victims to get help. I wanted to make sure I included that because I was surprised to see that any of the kids in this movie would no longer be living under 40 years later.

Well, camp needs to get closed up for this week’s B-Movie Enema. Join me tomorrow as Nurse Disembaudee goes to the beach in a new episode of B-Movie Enema: The Series! We’ll be watching 1982’s The Beach Girls so you definitely don’t want to miss that. Next Friday, be sure to get your butts back over here for a new review article. For that review, we take a ride through the weird twists and turns in American Rickshaw. Be sure to check the links to the right to find where you can follow B-Movie Enema on social media and where you can see episodes of B-Movie Enema: The Series!