Happy Campers (2001)

Happy Campers
Directed by Daniel Waters
Starring Dominique Swain, Jaime King, Justin Long, Brad Renfro
Rated R 
USA 

“What kind of sick fucky fuck ritual is that?”

I never really understood the teenage camp counselor thing. Why put horny, stoned teenagers in charge of panicky, confused kids? It’s the perfect recipe for childhood trauma. I dunno how anyone survives it. Anyway, that’s the exact premise of Happy Campers: teenage sexcapades and prepubescent bummers. It was written and directed by Daniel Waters, the guy who wrote the classic 80’s teen-angst deathgasm Heathers. Happy Campers is actually the perfect companion piece to that seminal teen flick. It shares the same streak of pitch-black comedy, and is piled just as deep with bizzaro lines, iffy fashion choices,  and a manic ensemble cast of heroic villains and villainous heroes.

Happy Campers follows a group of camp counselors and their pint-sized charges over a six-week stay at Camp Bleeding Dove. Holy fuck, Camp BLEEDING DOVE? That’s a goddamn alarming name.

Anyway, there are many counselors here. So many. There’s Talia (Emily Bergl, the twitchy chick from Carrie II), the snippy, awkward intellectual, here because she’s in love with the camp’s Alpha Male. There’s Adam (Jordan Bridges), the jock asshole. Justin Long is Donald, the nervous geek. Brad Renfro (RIP) is Witchita, the he-dog dude everybody's in love with. Jasper (Keram Malicki-Sanchez) is the cool gay one, Pixel (Jaime King) is the kooky hot one, and Wendy (Dominque Swain, not playing a sourpuss, for once) is the crazed cheerleader. Also on board is Oberon (Peter Stomare), the fascist maniac running the joint who tells campfire stories about sodomizing serial killers to freaked-out 10 year olds. And of course, tons of screamy kids. Good times.

First week: Talia tells Witchita she's in love with him. He tells her to forget it. Pixel teaches the girls how to strip.  Week over.

Week two: Pixel skinny dips.

Wendy wears a bikini. Witchita nails her with a balloon and tries to shove a frog down her pants.  And thusly, our love/lust story begins. Important note: Dominique Swain looks fuckin’ awesome in a bikini.

I mean, seriously awesome.

Also there's a weird fat kid that gets picked on a lot and freaks out if anybody touches him. No word yet on whether he'll go crazy and kill everybody or not.

Wendy and Witchita meet out in the woods to make out. The woods are blue, just like in Heathers!

They almost bone until Oberon shows up. He tries to bust them, but gets electrocuted and is basically a vegetable. Wendy's freaked out by the whole thing and just goes back to being a counselor.

Week 3:  Jasper tries to get something going with Witchita. He's not into it. Everybody wants to bone this guy.

Also, Pixel tries to get something going with Wendy. She's not into it. Not a lot of gay stuff happening at Camp Bleeding Dove.

Wendy's starting to lose her mind, probably from sexual frustration. She gets up in front of the camp during lunch and starts banging on her acoustic guitar like a fuckin’ lunatic. At one point she screams "Isn't fun great?" It's scarier than it sounds.

Then there's a hurricane that almost blows the camp away.  Everybody takes advantage of the break in the action by trying to bone each other, except for Wendy, who gets stung by a bee on purpose to get 'closer' to the campers, and finds out she's seriously allergic to fuckin’ bees and almost dies.

Also, Witchita thinks he might've suddenly found Jesus, because he discovers a childhood photo that they were both in even though they never met. He makes out with her monster face, and then they bone. The end.

Well, it would be, but there's some complications to iron out. First off, it turns out Donald is obsessed with Wendy, and likes to stare at pictures of her while he puts clothes pins on his nipples. Also, Pixel hates Adam the asshole so much she has sex with him while he tortures the fat kid. Also, Oberon escapes to the woods and runs around naked, howling at the moon. I think this is week four, but it's hard to say, since it’s all just a blur of teenage sex at this point.

But then Witchita gets bored with boning Wendy. She has no idea why, so she and Pixel come up with a perfectly teenage plan to figure it out: Pixel is gonna take him out to the woods and offer herself to him. If he takes the bait, he clearly doesn’t care all that much about Wendy. I think that’s the idea? Also, Pixel might just want to bone Witchita. Everybody else does. But anyway, he knows what's up, and after she shows him her boobs, he just saunters off. Then Wendy goes goth and decides to either poison herself or him.

And she’s not the only one that’s bummed out. It’s the last day of camp and everybody's got the blues. Donald especially, since he bought a dozen boxes of condoms, and never even got to have sex with anybody. So, he makes water balloons with the rubbers and rallies the kids and goes to war against the other counselors.

And then Pixel and Wendy make out a little. And everybody learns an important lesson, even the fat kid. Well, maybe not the fat kid, nobody can help him.

Just kidding, he's ok, too.

It’s kind of a head-scratcher why this movie isn’t more well-known, since it seems ripe for cult-flick status. It’s filled with memorable lines (“Are you mad at me for giving the cabin girls new hairdos or teaching the girls how to activate their clitoris?”), there’s a bunch of winking nods to Heathers, the cast is young and pretty, the tone is gleefully venomous, and it’s aggressively sleazy. It might have just been a case of bad timing. Happy Campers was originally released in January of 2001, not the best month for a summer flick, and a few months later, the world had essentially ended, and nobody was in the mood for a summer romp of any kind. Whatever the reason for its flop status, Happy Campers is well worth a second look. It’s funny, mean, messy, weird, and occasionally embarrassing. Just like real summer camp.

- Ken 

Stacey says:
Man, I hated summer camp! I went to day camp every summer until I was in high school (except one, when went to overnight camp for four miserable weeks). While Happy Campers brought back all my horrid summer camp memories... it was also a lot of fun. They really got this one right!  Rumspringa-Woo!

Malibu Beach (1978)

Malibu Beach (1978)
Directed by Robert J Rosenthel 
Starring Kim Lankford, Susan Player, Steve Oliver
Rated R
USA

"Hey, you got big tits, for a lifeguard!"

Robert J Rosenthel was, briefly, an exploitation mini-mogul. Besides this breezy beach epic, this long-lost drive-in svengali wrote and/or directed  Zapped!, The Pom Pom Girls, The Van and, naturally, Zapped II. For a good few years, he was the go-to guy if you needed a popped bikini top gag. Imagine being that guy? That’s a good angle.
“I need seven half-naked cheerleaders and a case of beer stat!”
“Sure thing. Robert J!”

Who knows why it ended? Did Robert J just get tired of tits? Can you ever get tired of tits? It’s been 44 years, I’m still not tired of tits. And here’s the good news. This movie has a lot of tits. It also has a LOT of 1978.  The waves of late 70’s nostalgia hits hard and fast, right from the beginning.

There’s a bikini top stealing dog, there’s Dina, (Kim Lankford) the lanky, heavy-lidded new lifeguard (in a bikini) , there’s Paul (Michael Luther), a goofy dude with an Elvis visor, there’s weirdly named Glorianna (Tara Stroheimer) a bosomy good-time girl with frizzy hair in a sports car with a "Cure virginity" bumper sticker and a John Scnhneider iron on on the back of her sweatshirt, etc. The pop culture bullshit is pretty overwhelming.

It’s Malibu Beach, it’s the summer of 1978, and the kids are alright.

So anyway, Dugan (Steve Oliver) is the local over-aged musclehead asshole who’s always hitting on the young chicks. But today he finds somebody his own age to bug, Miss Plickett (Flora Plumb),  the stuffy teacher  for most of the kids at the beach. Malibu must be a small town.

For whatever reason, she decides to go for a ride on his motorcycle, and he takes her back to his place. There's photos of body builders and paintings of big eyed puppies on the wall. I think there’s a velvet-rendered jungle scene, too. If his weird garage/apartment wasn’t off-putting enough, he rants to her about some dead goddamn plant.  Then he puts his moves on her. It all feels kinda rapey, even with the schlocky soft rock jam on the soundtrack. She doesn't dig it, and bails. You get the feeling this kinda thing happens to Dugan a lot.

But fuck it, there's a party tonight. Claude (Roger Lawrence Pierce) wears safety goggles while he drives. Quirky motherfucker.

Dina and her bud Sally (Susan Player) get a flat tire. I know it sounds like I’m just randomly mentioning things that happen in the movie, but that’s the way this one rolls. It’s like the scenes are all marbles and Robert J just drops ‘em on the ground and lets them roll wherever they want. Parenthetically,  Sally has the most amazing bangs I've ever seen. They’re awesome!

The fellas - Paul and certified cocksman Bobby (James Daughton) - help fix the flat, and they all head out for booze and disco dancing. They do the Bump in high waisted pants. But then the fellas strike out. This might bum you or I out, but you and I are not at Malibu Beach in 1978.  The guys plit, head to the liquor store, do some drunk driving in Bobby's pimped-out Jeep, and head out to the beach for a late night booze, frisbee, and weed party. A couple cops show up. The "police" sticker on their car is not convincing. It's peeling right off the fuckin' door.

The old cop goes to the bar and sends the young one, Rodney (Parris Buckner) to bust the kids. But they know him, so they just pass him a joint, and everybody gets mellow.

Dina and Paul end up hanging together on the beach. Paul decides to make his move, and lays his lips on her. She rejects him, and to make matters worse, Dugan shows up and shoves him around.

Luckily Rodney breezes by and tells ‘em to be cool. So they stay cool. Rodney munches on Crackerjacks until the fat cop shows back up and they drive away, drunk and stoned.

With the heat off, the gang goes skinny -dipping. 70's kids were a lot leaner, man.

Then they fuckin’ chug wine to get warm. All in all, it was a sweet night.

Dina gets home. She's got Rolling Stones, Zep, and A Star is Born posters on her wall. She sits there and hugs Bobby's jacket. He let her wear it on the way home. Then she gets in bed with it. Dina, I hope you know that you are like the third chick he's made out with TODAY.

Back at the beach the next day, some snotty punk kid pretends to drown just to fuck with Dina, but then he actually starts to drown. She saves him anyway. Some dude says, "You shoulda let him drown". Harsh. And then Dugan roughs him up. How about you fuck off once in a while, ok Dugan?

I dunno, Dugan and Bobby get into some static, and they decide to drag race. Dugan takes Claude’s wheels and Bobby takes Rodney's police car. Rodney was busy smokin’ weed with busty Margie (Sherry Lee Marks) at the time.

Anyway, they total the fuckin’ cars. Luckily, they're both ok.  "That was the highlight of my life," says Bobby, as he drives always triumphantly in his own jeep, with Rodney's cop car lying in a crumpled heap. Fuck you, Bobby.

Meanwhile Claude hooks up with Gloriana, the Vette chick. Nice score, Claude. By the way, Claude's a rich kid and he's got plenty of cars, so he's not even mad about the drag race.

Night’s still young, so the gang bust into the fairgrounds and go for an illicit bumper car ride before heading to inspiration point for some heavy makin’ out. Good times. I wish my 1978 was like this. My 1978 was mostly sweating on a bench outside of our apartment because we didn’t have air conditioning.

Next day, Paul rats out a couple of gas thieves, and they slit his tires and threaten him with a switchblade. "Very 50's", laughs Sally.  Also, Paul sticks a hose in their rape van and floods it. They'll probably come back and fuckin’ kill him later. I kinda hope they do,  because all the guys in this movie are assholes.

And then, disco party at Claude's! Everybody is having good times. The outfits are diabolical. The dancing is ferocious. The only thing that could fuck up this night is Dugan. So guess who shows up? It's all fist fights and cops from there. Dina's had enough of all this he-man bullshit, and tells them both to buzz off. And that's the night disco died on Malibu Beach.

Later that night, Dina and Bobby make up and make out on the beach. He was swimming in his jean shorts. She was wearing white flares. Who could resist? Anyway, then there's a bunch of love stuff for the next ten fuckin’ minutes. Lame.

Clearly, we've been building up to a climactic face-off between Dugan and Bobby, and boy do we get one. A shark is involved. Well, a wooden plank with shark teeth nailed to it, at least.

So who wins? It's 1978, man. Everybody wins.

If we're going to technical about it, nothing really happens in Malibu Beach, but then again, if you were living it, it’d probably be the most memorable weekend of your life. In fact, I would suggest that if you are a young person, you study this movie and then go try to live your next 48 hours exactly like this. That would be ballsy. If you are not a young person, I would suggest you watch this and then lament the fact that you spent your 1978 on a fucking bench when you could’ve been partying with Sally and her bangs, or whoever your foxy neighborhood equivalent was. In fact, whatever your age or disposition, you should watch Malibu Beach. Why wouldn’t you? It moves along at a fast pace, the acting is solid, the chicks are rad, the boobs are plentiful, and you can tell that everybody involved is having good, hazy times. And isn’t that what life is all about?

- Ken 

PS: Stacey says:

Hot fun in the summer time! Good times and a few hassles... this is one fun flick! Too bad the boys weren't cuter.

Cool or not so cool 70's fashions, a guy wearing goggles 24/7, and someone get those girls some hair conditioner!  Obviously the boys don't care about that... but I suggest a classic 70's Alberto VO5 hot oil treatment (the girls get it, I'm sure.)

 Surely, this was the inspiration for Richard Linklater's tamer Dazed and Confused.  Rumspringa Whoo, for sure!

Bilitis (1977)

Directed by David Hamilton
Starring Patti D’Arbanville, Mona Kristensen, Bernard Gerardeau, Catherine Leprince
Rated R
France

“What on earth’s happening here?” asks a character near the conclusion of Bilitis (1977), the initial foray into filmmaking by the controversial photographer David Hamilton. By then the viewer might be wondering the same thing. Often pretty to look at, Bilitis is mostly surface, with the soft-focus Hamilton employs throughout aptly paralleling a fuzzy story that ultimately struggles to engage.

Born in the U.K. in the 1930s, Hamilton moved to France after WWII where he became well-known for his photos of women in various states of undress, his subjects often young enough to encourage allegations of impropriety.

Bilitis stars Patti D'Arbanville as the pretty but pouty teenaged title character, pulling off the trick despite being in her mid-twenties at the time. This marked D’Arbanville first major role after having appeared in a few Andy Warhol titles in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

The character's strange name alludes to a late 19th-century collection of erotic poetry by Pierre Louÿs which tell the story of a young woman of Ancient Greece. In fact, the poems were presented as though written by the young girl of the title. The name was also employed by the Daughters of Bilitis, an early lesbian civil rights group in the U.S. active in the ‘50s and ‘60s that had folded by time Hamilton's film appeared.

Louÿs’ poetry does get quoted in the film, although on the whole the movie’s thin, unsteady plot is more “inspired by” than an adaptation of the lyrics, borrowing themes of sexual exploration and lesbianism and employing a similarly melancholic vibe.

The film opens on a shot Bilitis sitting on a bed, looking sad. Francis Lai’s maudlin synth-heavy soundtrack accompanies a sequence of shots of various characters involved in the soon-to-be-told story.


We then see Bilitis practicing lines for an upcoming, year-end show at the girl’s school she attends. She’s dressed like some sort of sprite/wood nymph, and when the other girls take off on their bikes for a trip to the lake she hasn’t time to change.


The group reaches the lake, quickly stripping for some nude sunbathing. The adult woman in charge implores them all “to behave like perfect ladies,” although some smooching between a couple indicating her orders aren’t being heeded.

Meanwhile Bilitis keeps her outfit on and continues to act all mopey, her mood dampened by having had an argument with her girlfriend, Helene (Catherine Leprince).

Meanwhile, the others have splashy fun.


Back at school, the class has an end-of-year photo taken, with the photographer, Lucas, being deemed cute by some of the girls. Meanwhile Bilitis and Helene play with their pet turtle, which Bilitis inexplicably lets go free.


Symbolic? Perhaps. The turtle’s slow pace is, anyway.

That afternoon Bilitis and Lucas have a flirty encounter, then later she and Helene talk about the handsome photog. They also discuss how Bilitis will be going to stay with a woman named Melissa Hampton (Mona Kristensen), the daughter of one of her father’s friends, for the first couple of weeks of the summer until her father returns from a business trip.

Later it’s bedtime where Bilitis and Helene discuss Lucas and the relative merits of boys and girls.


The next day Melissa and her husband, Pierre (Gilles Kohler), arrive at the school to pick their young charge, first watching the play for which Bilitis had been practicing. Bilitis screws up her lines, Helene comforts her after, then the couple take Bilitis to their home for dinner.


They have an awkward meal in which Pierre weirdly criticizes Bilitis -- she should like horses, she needs to gain weight, etc. -- thus establishing Pierre’s jerkdom. Bilitis then retires for the night, but first takes a walk outside where she spies on Melissa undressing for bed.

Bilitis imitates what she sees and disrobes herself...


...but the scene is interrupted when Pierre returns to force Melissa into some unwanted lovemaking.

A naked Bilitis then climbs a tree while we hear her in a voice-over relating her thoughts: "I felt the beautiful tree vibrate with the wind's passage and so I tightened my legs around it and pressed my open mouth against the long downy neck of the branch.”

Sounds kind of wacky, but it’s one of the Louÿs poems, “The Tree,” here being acted out.

The next morning Pierre leaves for the day, meaning Melissa and Bilitis are free to go to the beach. Looks kind of a like a perfume ad.


The scene inches along, and at times seems as though Melissa is trying to seduce Bilitis. However, before anything happens we’re back at the house for dinner, with Pierre again being critical of Bilitis as he refers to her being “the awkward age.”

“A lovely age,” corrects Melissa.


Bilitis later overhears another unpleasant-sounding late night encounter between Pierre and Melissa, then spends the next day frustrating Lucas in another hazy beach sequence.

It sorts seems like Melissa is trying to mentor Bilitis as she’s being courted by Lucas. But soon Pierre takes off for a three-day trip to Monte Carlo (he’s an equestrian, going to a show), Melissa gives Bilitis a bicycle, and when Bilitis kisses Melissa madly in thanks there’s a hint the two might find some way of occupying themselves when Pierre is away.


More soft-focus cavorting between Lucas and Bilitis follows, with Lucas wanting to do more than kiss but Bilitis continuing to resist.

Bilitis then runs into Pierre leaving for his trip with another woman, and jerky Pierre brazenly flaunts her in front of Bilitis before they part.

Back to the battle with Lucas, who is now literally looking for a roll in the hay with Bilitis.


When Bilitis resists again, Lucas argues in favor of sex, saying it is natural, then threatening if she won’t give in the boy "goes out with other girls."

That’s all Bilitis needs to hear -- she doesn’t want Lucas or any man, all of whom seem equally odious. She runs home to Melissa, tells her “I hate men,” and soon comforting turns to hugging and kissing and a few minutes of somnambulant lovemaking.


No doubt intended as the erotic centerpiece of the film, the scene is ultimately as mild and precious as Lai’s soundtrack, in this case featuring wordless female vocals over uninspired synth backing. (Incidentally, Lai’s soundtrack to Emmanuelle 2 is comparatively much more absorbing -- as is that film.)

From there we move into the final third of the film, during which comes more love poetry from Bilitis/Louÿs ("her love is a torture to me"), a pronouncement by Melissa that their lovemaking was a one-time thing, then a plot by Bilitis to find a better man for Melissa than Pierre.

Things climax -- in the not-very-climactic way of all climaxes in this film -- with a dinner party featuring champagne, light sax-riddled disco music and dancing, and barely comprehensible exchanges between the film’s principals, including a new existentialist-type dude named Nikias.

None of it makes much sense. As a guest at the party says, "Melissa's adorable. The champagne's excellent... but what are we doing here?"


The only real suspense comes from the sense that the story is being told in such a sloppy way. With no trust regarding the film maker having a clear idea about what he's doing or being all that mindful of having an audience, it feels like just about anything could happen. Not that we care too much one way or the other what does.

Ultimately Bilitis feels like more like a sequence of pretty pictures than a movie, albeit with an especially attractive cast and several thoughtfully-framed shots.


In fact, Hamilton did publish a picture book compiling photos from the filming, which is probably the form where all of this works better, anyway. Later on Hamilton would give up on dialogue altogether with 1983’s Un été à Saint-Tropez, opting instead just to shoot pretty girls having pillow fights, going for picnics, and so on.

Perhaps worth a look for those curious to see a lot of D’Arbanville or fans of off-the-beaten-path seventies softcore, on the excitement meter Bilitis ultimately rates somewhere between leafing through a fashion magazine and a museum visit.

- Triple S