Happy Campers (2001) review

Dir. Daniel Waters

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★½

It dawned on me early into watching Happy Campers that there are seldom, quality movies set at summer camps that aren’t horror movies. They’re optimal settings for slashers and thrillers, but it seems more-often-than-not, they’re comedic dead-zones. I was never high on Wet Hot American Summer; Daniel Stern’s work in Bushwhacked only merited a handful of laughs; Nature Calls is a black-mark on Todd Rohal’s directorial career, despite the cast; and Family Camp proved that a Christian lean certainly doesn’t make this genre any more amusing.

Happy Campers isn’t high art, but it also didn’t have a towering bar to clear to best some of the aforementioned schlock. The sleepy, mostly forgotten film from Daniel Waters (Heathers) is a pleasant-enough outing that gives a plethora of mostly supporting/background actors their dues as co-leads in an unassuming, campground comedy that stumbles into sometimes black and dramatic territory.

The setting is Camp Bleeding Dove, and the summer just got even more wild after the strict camp director gets struck by lightning, rendering the counselors in charge of an ostensibly endless swath of prepubescent campers. There’s the brooding yet thoughtful Wichita (Brad Renfro, Bully) and the meek and religious Wendy (Dominique Swain, Lolita), two polar opposites who slowly start to form crushes on one another. Their peers are your usual assortment of eager and horny layabouts, including an outcast Emily Bergl; a goofy, virginal Justin Long; a gay Keram Malicki-Sanchez; and a hippie Jaime King.

Waters appropriately is less concerned with plot developments, instead illustrating the characters, their temperamental interest in each other, opposing backgrounds, and outlooks on life over the course of 90 breezy minutes. The cast is uniformly good, although nobody stands out or actively tries to steal the movie for themselves, a welcomed difference but also one that renders this slightly forgettable from a performance aspect.

Furthermore, Happy Campers is one of those movies where funny things happen in theory. The film devises a handful of set-pieces, and while mostly amusing, the comedy is seldom strong enough to stand on its own. As a character study of multiple individuals, Waters’ film modestly succeeds, but without a chief trait — it lacks the absurd tone of Wet Hot American Summer, for example — it might not be hard to discern why the film hasn’t even received cult status, for which it sometimes grovels.

Starring: Brad Renfro, Dominique Swain, Keram Malicki-Sanchez, Emily Bergl, Jaime King, Justin Long, and Jordan Bridges. Directed by: Daniel Waters.