Here’s yet another Mark Polonia-directed entry in the Camp Blood series. (He was also responsible for Camp Blood: First Slaughter, It Kills: Camp Blood 7, and Ghost of Camp Blood.) This one acts as a sequel to both Part 7 and Ghost of Camp Blood. This is the eleventh movie in the franchise all together, and despite some wonky moments, it’s surprisingly watchable.
Children of Camp Blood is set in the Friday the 13th Part 5 mold of having a mental health clinic popping up on the old grounds of a camp where a bunch of people were killed years earlier. A caring counselor engages with the patients in group therapy to help them get over their shared trauma. Naturally, the killer clown is still on the loose and looking to add them to his body count.
The novelty here is that the patients are all children of the victims of the Camp Blood killer. While it’s not an earth-shattering development by any means, it’s kind of a neat way to connect a few of the dots and help align some of the messy continuity of the series. Sure, Polonia still can’t resist the urge to reuse footage from the previous movies in the form of dreams and flashbacks (and a scene where the killer watches footage on his laptop?!?). However, the flashbacks aren’t as flagrant as some of the other sequels. In fact, this might be the best film in the series. Or at the very least, the most competent one in the bunch.
That said, that doesn’t exactly make Children of Camp Blood “good” or even “fun”. It also doesn’t help that it takes a while before the killer starts doing his thing. Or that most of the kills are just simple decapitations. Still, Polonia keeps things moving along at an agreeable pace, and the set-up is just fresh enough to inject a little life into the long-running series.
No comments:
Post a Comment