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Ah camp.

When I was a kid we were kind of poor so I never went to camp. But I remember that one summer - I think I was 9 - and I was kind of bummed because a lot of my friend were going to overnight camp for a week or two. My step-father was like, “Don’t you know what happens out in the woods?”

Then he showed me some (edited for TV) slasher movies like Friday the 13th and I was all set. Camp is for slaughter!

I worked at a summer camp for 3 summers and the first 2 were so much fun the 3rd was not due to a change in camp director. I think every summer camp has some sort of horror story. Ours was that the rope course was haunted by a kid that accidently hung himself down there. The story went that if you looked down while going across the rope bridge he would grab your leg an pull you down to the bottom of the Brook. Which was only about 1 foot deep. Good times.

My parents are born-again Christians so I only ever went to church camp. Ghost stories were forbidden there. Although one year the counselors did stage a wicked reenactment of the Angel of Death killing the first born sons of Egypt. I am not joking. It scared the shit out of us.

Thanks for the Scream And Scream Again poster, and that is indeed the film I was referring to. Though, the box I remember was colored like this:
http://blog.wfmu.org/photos/uncategorized/scream_and_scream_again.jpg

Still pretty hardcore for a film from 1970.

Though, I think part of my fear was all the talk of acid rain in the mid-80s making me think that I was just a raincloud away from being a grinning skeleton.

Tangentially related - I read this disturbing article in the New York Times and thought this reality must put a damper on camp slasher movies. Or you create a new slasher - a la Friday the 13th part one - parents gone bonkers!

alyssa - 26 July 2008 09:23 AM

Tangentially related - I read this disturbing article in the New York Times and thought this reality must put a damper on camp slasher movies. Or you create a new slasher - a la Friday the 13th part one - parents gone bonkers!

Bill, could the cover with the hanging doll actually be
the Deep Red poster?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Deepredfilmposter.jpg

alyssa - 26 July 2008 09:23 AM

Tangentially related - I read this disturbing article in the New York Times and thought this reality must put a damper on camp slasher movies. Or you create a new slasher - a la Friday the 13th part one - parents gone bonkers!

uh, isn’t the point of you guys having these camps so that the kids do something fun amongst themselves away from the parents, and the parents get a summer break away from the kids or get to choose when they have leave?

I continue to struggle with the American way…

Nowtas - 29 July 2008 01:34 PM

alyssa - 26 July 2008 09:23 AM

Tangentially related - I read this disturbing article in the New York Times and thought this reality must put a damper on camp slasher movies. Or you create a new slasher - a la Friday the 13th part one - parents gone bonkers!

uh, isn’t the point of you guys having these camps so that the kids do something fun amongst themselves away from the parents, and the parents get a summer break away from the kids or get to choose when they have leave?

I continue to struggle with the American way…

When I worked at camp there was a lot of parents that pretty much just dropped the kids and took off to do whatever. A lot of these people just didnt want to deal with the kids all summer so they put em in camp and then went shopping.

Bill By Force - 31 July 2008 06:32 AM

When I worked at camp there was a lot of parents that pretty much just dropped the kids and took off to do whatever. A lot of these people just didnt want to deal with the kids all summer so they put em in camp and then went shopping.

And everyone learnt valuable life lessons - or bought shoes.

I went to summer camp when I was a kid…but I got sent home for being too gangsta!

I never went to camp.  This is so sad.  No wonder I love camp slashers.