Camping Trip: a campy COVID horror movie

Are you ready for a summer horror movie to kick back and watch with your group of friends? Camping Trip is the perfect flick for those who want to add a few blood-splattered laughs to their movie night.

The Canadian horror film Camping Trip takes place in the Summer of 2020, during the peak of COVID. After feeling trapped in lockdown, two couples decide to go camping at a beautiful and secluded lake. Amidst their fun and carefree vacation, they soon discover that they’re not alone. What will they do when they discover a dead body, a ton of money, and are confronted by two sketchy goons?

Shot during the height of the pandemic, the set for Camping Trip was extremely strict regarding health and safety procedures. Due to this, directors Leonardo and Demian Fuica had a lot on their hands while making their first English language feature film.

Far from COVID. Far from safe.

Shot on location in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, Camping Trip has a lot to offer in the realm of gorgeous scenery and immersive drone shots. There is also an interesting level of relatability, especially with how the film addresses the impact of COVID regarding layoffs and economic setbacks.

So here’s the thing about Camping Trip… our main characters don’t feel particularly real, as some of their dialogue is delivered awkwardly (in particular, Hannah Forest Briand plays a French woman, but she has a very difficult time maintaining the accent). That’s not to say these characters aren’t fun to watch! My favorite character was definitely Enzo, played by writer and director Leonardo Fuica. He had a great energy and was really good at being the group comedian. Caitlin Cameron and Alex Gravenstein also make up the main cast, and do a fairly good job at making the situations believable.

The rest of the speaking cast consists of two bad guys and one mysterious man. Their performances were a bit over the top, which made their scenes much more entertaining. Let me also say that the two goons are incredibly cliché – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing! Michael D’Amico and Jonathan Vanderzon deliver characters that we’ve seen many times in crime thrillers, and it is a blast watching them fit perfectly in that archetype.

Story-wise, the film stays very vague when it comes to money. The MacGuffin in Camping Trip is an envelope containing a large amount of money and the antidote to COVID-19. It isn’t said why the money and the antidote was to be given to the goons in the first place, but hey, if you’ve watched this far, you’re along for the ride.

“This COVID-19 s*** is driving us crazy!”

Most notable about Camping Trip is the shockingly fast escalation from tame to absolutely wild. Our two couples start off by having normal vacation time at the lake, before out of no where breaking into an intense orgy. Not only that, but after the main characters take care of the bad guys, they are astonishingly quick to turn on each other in some pretty fast fabricated paranoia. Contrived? Yes. Boring? Definitely not.

This summertime horror feature gives us some fantastic scenes of violence and blood. Axes chopping at flesh and heads being bashed in will make you happy that you picked this for movie night. These fight scenes are really well done, although the slow motion gets to be a tad excessive.

Camping Trip is available on digital download in the USA and Canada via Gravitas Ventures starting August 16, 2022.

In short, Camping Trip is cliché yet completely unexpected. Grab your friends, crack open some beers, and get ready for a wild ride.

What are your thoughts on Camping Trip? Let us know in the comments!