As the film opens, something horrible happened to the pretty nurses at a weird hospital....but hold that thought. Fast forward, Kozue (Miyuki Yokoyama) and her sister Akane (Rei Ayana) are driving to a camp site. Tension is thick between them. Akana believes she caught Kozue doing her BF, but Kozue doesn't have the heart to tell her that the BF actually was raping her when Akane saw them together. Crash! Their car now disabled, the sisters find shelter in a supposedly deserted cabin for the night. Deserted? Yeah right! A seeming Prince Charming named Thanatos walks in and offers them food and blankets. Uh-oh! Thanatos' two totally looney pals join them. When Kozue realizes the guys spiked Akane's tea with the intention of raping her, she attempts to escape. The girls are caught, beaten and stripped to their undies by two more loonies. When the girls are brought back to the cabin, now five men drool over them.
The ghoulish quintet humiliate the women. Sensing Kozue's sense of responsibility, they painfully rape Akane in the most awful ways while restraining Kozue. Each fiend takes his turn at Akane with his version of a sick rape game. Akane's fate? You can guess. With Akane gone, Kozue is next, and the mysterious psychos start their games with her. Kozue escapes and meets Misaki (Peach Momiya). Misaki is planning to hunt and kill these monsters, and trains Kozue to help her. The two women then begin the hunt, and you can guess the gory carnage that follows. Exactly who is Misaki? What exactly happened to the nurses at the aforementioned hospital? Who are these five creeps? All those questioned are answered in a vengeance filled blood bath of a film.
The Japanese have taken the "I Spit on Your Grave" concept and ramped it up five levels. The degree of depravity of the five antagonists pales the ones in the American films...if that is possible. Watching what happens to Kozue and Akane will cause some to turn their heads. Not for everyone, and certainly not a film to discuss in polite company, lovers of really dark movies will enjoy "Camp."
Thanatos, in Greek mythology, the personification of death..Sigmund Freud talks about him too, in terms of the Death Drive..the force that compels us to engage in risky, self destructive behaviors. This may, or may not have anything to do with Ainiosuki Shibata's film, but it's worth a mention. Camp, is a slasher film, Straw Dogs comes to mind...gruesome, yes, but in a strange way, cathartic, a peep behind the curtain into a weird world..a "what if" message..you know that you'll never want to go there..but it doesn't hurt to take a sneak a peak..does it?
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