It’s a trio of indie horror flicks, and each one had at least a little something to keep me entertained, but there was definitely a winner for me.
MY FIRST YEAR OFF CAMPUS (2024)
The IMDb description of this is way off. It sounds like two girls move into an apartment and discover their landlord is obsessed with Hitchcock. Instead, this turns into It Follows combined with a psycho senior citizens flick.
There are definitely some nods to 80s aesthetics in the beginning of the film as we meet the girls and the young male landlord. We learn people died in the house they’re renting, we learn he’s gay. He even mentions that he’s a different kind of gay than Norman Bates was, because he has a healthy relationship with his mother, so this one earns a spot on the does the gay guy die? page.
Then we meet the crazy elderly parents. They seem to be supernatural. No matter where the two main girls go, the parents find them. The parents keep abducting them, they keep escaping, and the parents keep recapturing them. The parents are definitely creepy, but the repetitive structure chips away at the effectiveness of their presence.
The family is involved in the black arts, but the son begins to show resistance to hurting anyone else. It’s all mysterious and weird with some fun, spooky atmosphere, but there’s never any sense of urgency in the events taking place, so it loses steam after a while. However, there is some satanic ritual action in the last few minutes, and the results promise something that could have been at the forefront of the frights if it had taken place earlier in the film.
BEWARE THE CHILDREN (2018)
This is probably too low budget for most viewers, with a weak script, and it doesn’t exactly feature professional actors, but I have to admit there are some deliciously mean-spirited killer kid moments, and the plot idea is pretty unique.
However, there’s a lot of noise around the main storyline, and there are really no clearly defined characters to latch onto to carry us through the film, so it can become a little confusing. Generally, young, troubled kids suffering from nightmares or sleep paralysis end up in group therapy at an institute where something nefarious is going on.
Eventually, the kids disappear, their parents panic, people begin dying, and police investigate. Like I said, it’s all really messy, and the finale is disappointingly anticlimactic, but when the kids begin murdering adults they are convinced are monsters, the death scenes add a nice touch of low budget gore. Plus, the reason the kids begin killing is clever. With a bigger budget and a better script, this little film could have brought something special to the killer kid subgenre.
Note that there are some conservative-leaning elements to the film (a military family, talk of God over evil as the answer to everything) that might jump out at left-leaning viewers—not to mention the filmmakers chose to have a Black kid in a hoodie as the one who wields a gun as his choice of weapon (palm, meet forehead), but the main message has to do with revenge for bullying, particularly of a kid with a disability, so the movie does seem to mean well…
CAMP TERROR (2024)
Camp Terror is a sleekly produced indie slasher with one major flaw—it runs 110 minutes long. Argh! It’s a basic slasher setup, so it simply did not need so much padding. I assure you, if you overlook the slow start, you will be well-rewarded in the second half.
It opens strong with chasing and killing, complete with practical effects gore and an awesome deformed killer that’s a blend of Jason Voorhees and Victor Crowley. If there’s one minor flaw to the film, it’s the excessive, booming stinger sounds used to up the jump factor.
The intro credits feature a piece of pop rock circa 2003 direct-to-DVD horror movie soundtrack, so I felt all giddy with nostalgia.
Next, we meet our main characters. There is a group of friends (they’re a little bit too old to call “kids” this time). Theres a redneck creeper at a convenience store who warns them away from the camp they’re heading to. There’s a female sheriff. Brinke Stevens is the shunned local whose brother was a bullied boy that went on a killing spree years before, and everyone believes she is keeping him hidden away somewhere.
The plot may not be original, but it’s the kind of paint-by-numbers slasher that does what it needs to do, but not until 49 minutes in, when the first kill happens. Wouldn’t you know the victim is the Black guy of the group?
The death scenes are hardcore, the lighting is horror perfection, and the final act focusing on the final girl’s chase and battle with the killer totally rocks. We even get a hokey, old school final frame, plus a post-credits tag that is a must-see for both its cameo and its nod to a summer camp slasher classic.
