Camp Death III in 2D! (Movie Review)

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

PLOT: A young man's plan to re-open the "Camp Death" massacre site as a nature retreat for the mentally ill turns out to be a very bad idea when campers and counselors start getting knocked off one-by-one.

REVIEW: Director Matt Frame's horror-comedy CAMP DEATH III IN 2D! caught my attention with the claim that it was a parody of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III (in 3D!). That's my favorite installment in my favorite horror franchise, so I was totally on board to see a comedic twist on its scenarios… As it turns out, the title is really the closest Frame's film gets to being a parody of that specific FRIDAY THE 13TH movie, but scenes from early F13s do get the spoof treatment throughout. 

This movie may not live up to the promise of being a parody of the third FRIDAY THE 13TH, but it certainly does live up to the tagline "This movie is stupid" and the description that it "will be the stupidest movie you'll see all year". It employs a brand of over-the-top, manic, ridiculous humor that I'm generally not a fan of, but I can see viewers enjoying it if you happen to watch it with a group of friends who enjoy scatalogical humor and mind-altering substances.

If you take the history of Jason Voorhees and add in some fudge and a puppet you have the set-up for CAMP DEATH's slasher Johann Van Damme, whose stalking grounds is a camp called Camp Crystal Meph – an example of the kind of absurd humor that can be found in this film. When young Todd Boogjumper decides to re-open the camp as "a nature based rehab center for the criminally insane and institutionally unbalanced", Johann returns to hack his way through this new batch of potential victims. Since most of them have some sort of mental and/or physical disability, those issues are played up for laughs, which some viewers are sure to find offensive. 

The jokes in this are aiming as low as possible. More than enough of them emerge from the toilet; by the time a character ends up with a plunger stuck to their face and a turd in their mouth, it's no suprise at all.

CAMP DEATH III IN 2D! comes in at just under 80 minutes in length, but it moves along at such a quick pace, the story jumping around in an effort to throw out a non-stop barrage of jokes, that I found it to be exhausting to sit through. There is a lot going on in this movie, as you would expect from something that has almost 70 cast members and 18 people credited for the story. Plus the screenplay credit for Frame. Not content with just being a funny take on a stalk and slash scenario, the film also tosses in baffling asides like a musical sequence, maniacal squirrels that are reminiscent of the gopher in CADDYSHACK, and a speeder bike chase lifted straight out of RETURN OF THE JEDI. This thing is all over the place, a prime of example of something having "too many cooks".

This was not my type of movie, despite it being a parody of movies that I love. I was tired of it long before it was over. There were some things I appreciated about it, though. I liked some characters and performances – like Darren Andrichuk's foul-mouthed Uncle Mel, whose catchphrase is "F*ck your world!", and Katherine Alpen as a camper named Verta. 

I was also impressed by what Frame was able to accomplish on a low budget (apparently around $35,000 CAD). The movie looks great and contains CGI effects you normally wouldn't expect to see in a project like this. The fact that Frame was even able to make something that's so scattered is quite an achievement. 

CAMP DEATH III IN 2D! is available for viewing on Amazon Prime and Vimeo on Demand.