Horror and campgrounds go hand in hand, as unofficially set into motion by the Friday The 13th franchise. Camp, which premiered at the 2025 Fantastic Fest Film Festival, is a very different type of summer camp horror, if one can even call it a horror. Completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen, Avalon Fast‘s Camp is a surreal, aching take on melancholy, grief, survivor’s guilt, and the bonds we form to help us get through those things that could either be our salvation or drive us deeper into a hole.
After suffering two tragedies that she feels directly responsible for, Emily (Zola Grimmer) is in a pit of her own despair. Under her father’s suggestion, she becomes a counselor at a camp for troubled youths. There, she finds a sense of community among the women. Still, she can’t fight the overwhelming feeling that there’s something not right afoot. As she dives further into her own despondency, Emily begins to unravel an uneasy truth about her new friends.
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Writer-director-editor Avalon Fast burst onto the scene with their feature debut, Honeycomb. Camp is a confident follow-up, although it is not easy to categorize. The term “horror” feels perhaps too loose for a film like this, despite its unquestionable genre leanings. What remains true throughout is the power of Grimmer’s performance and the conviction of Fast’s script in dealing with her. Emily is not an easy-to-swallow portrait of depression and trauma. That’s because she’s so subdued, in her own world, which can only be glimpsed through her eyes, conveying a sense of suffering.
At times, Camp feels like something of an independent drama rather than a horror film.
The best parts of the film center around Emily’s exploration of the titular camp. Shot in a naturalistic, yet no less eye-catching, manner by cinematographer Eily Sprungman, the woods and the quaint cabins they surround capture a serenity that also allows the voices in Emily’s head to grow louder and louder. There is no shortage of engaging characters at the camp, such as the overenthusiastic, nerdy head counselor, Dan (Austyn Van de Camp), or the group of young women she meets there, including Clara (Alice Wordsworth) and Rosie (Cherry Moore).
At times, Camp feels like something of an independent drama, wherein Avalon Fast acutely captures Emily’s attempt to navigate her raw feelings by throwing herself into parties, trying to take on a mentorship role, and finding community through her newfound friends. The friendship between her and her friends takes on an ambiguous tone, wherein they seem like they could be genuinely helping her make some steps towards making peace with herself, while also leading her back into bad habits. It’s refreshingly honest regarding the nature of some friendships and also emphatically non-judgemental.
There are many quietly powerful moments in Camp, such as Clara telling Emily that a camper’s freakout at her isn’t a sign of her failing. Then again, the film makes several jarring detours into the avant-garde and the surreal, which are quite jarring in nature. The actual “horror” element of the film emerges relatively late in the game and can be challenging to parse, as most of it is conveyed visually. Is this a bad thing? Not particularly, especially when backed by Max Robin‘s moody score, but it is a lot to sit with.
Avalon Fast’s Camp stubbornly shakes off the notion of an easy read.
Camp, in general, is a lot to sit with. Deeply concerned with exploring its central character’s mindset while also flirting with breaks into the surreal, writer-director-editor Avalon Fast’s film stubbornly shakes off the notion of an easy read. Instead, it practically invites the audience to consider what they’re seeing on a more spiritual level than what’s presented at first glance. While I’m not quite sure what entirely I watched yet, I can already feel it taking up space in my brain.
Camp screened as part of the 2025 Fantastic Fest Film Festival. Details on a further release are forthcoming.
