When Emily (Zora Grimmer) is asked to confess her biggest regret during a youth game of Truth or Dare at a party, she can’t help but get aggressive. She initially chooses a harmless exposure, but when investigated, she admits that she accidentally took a person’s life. The night ends with another unexpected death under her watch. Such is the tragic setting of Avalon Fast’s Camp, a riveting and mischievous tale of sisterhood forged out of trauma, grief, and magic. But before the apparently otherworldly world takes over, a depressed Emily arrives at a summer camp for troubled children, where she ends up working as one of the counselors. It’s ironic that she ends up providing support to young children in her own state. There is hope that by being among friends in the darkness, we may be able to see the light.
The girls Emily meets at the camp have all been there for years, but the feisty Rosie (Cherry Moore) and the group’s charming de facto leader, Clara (Alice Wordsworth), take her in right away. From there, “Camp” evokes “The Craft” with a touch of the esoteric, woodland fairy aesthetic that musical acts Florence and the Machine have long acquired as their hallmark, but in an indie film context that allows for exciting, formal originality. The high speeds foster an eeriness, but also a strange, albeit admittedly subtle, but welcome sense of mystery. Shining stars and fantastically artificial backgrounds that occasionally take over the frame place the story in an interstitial space between reality and an intoxicating dreamlike realm.
Grimmer’s deftly tuned portrayal of Emily is a character who longs for connection and is initially comfortable enough to surrender to drunken nights and camaraderie without needing to reveal her secrets. Her unraveling feels earned as her emotional pendulum swings back and forth again and again until she reaches catharsis, from sadness to despair to acceptance and, ultimately, empowerment.
The children at the camp are little more than afterthoughts, with the exception of one Eden (Isa Jarvis). Eden’s instability causes Emily. Otherwise, it is convincing that girls are indifferent about their priorities. They are here, as they later discover, to improve themselves through the magic of self-determination, but also to indulge in the carelessness of youth.
Fast makes no concessions to its male characters and is committed to valuing cooperative girlhood at the expense of the other gender. Emily questions such disrespect for men, but ultimately accepts it as part of a pact to prioritize herself and her newfound sorority. This is a fitting trade that furthers the playful malice of their practices. Still, Emily’s strongest bond is with her father, whom she calls many times and speaks honestly about her struggles, even if he can’t fully understand her pain.
Dan (Austin Van de Kamp), the god-fearing leader of the operation, loses his virginity to another girl, Nev (Leah Rose Sebastianis), during a drunken night. His melon serves as a sacrifice of female power that empowers these young women. Later, another nerdy boy falls prey to their antics, but there’s no gruesome violence, only a melancholy, fantastical exorcism of the demons plaguing Emily’s mind. Little is revealed about what the other girls have been through. The longer I spend at camp, the more the sadness seems to recede.
Indeed, you could call what Emily and her friends do “practical magic.” Because their dabbling in the occult results in a reshaping of their self-esteem and how they understand the experiences that have shaped them. But, thankfully, Fast doesn’t arrive at this in a simple, traditional way. Instead, the prolific and up-and-coming filmmaker luxuriates in moonlit dances, fiery rituals, and glimpses of memory, creating an almost divine atmosphere in collaboration with cinematographer Irie Sprungman.
“Camp” exists in a similar space as Jane Schoenbrunn’s “Teen Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” albeit in far more subtle territory. Not just because of its common setting, but also because it deftly appropriates the styles and tropes of horror and the paranormal to dissect humanist concerns rather than simply exploiting them for gory diversions. And they do so with a gendered consciousness that is essential to making a thematically focused impact.
“Camp” clearly conveys the emotion, if not the mechanics, behind the magic. What’s important is the atmosphere. The atmosphere is full of unpredictability and anticipation, but not necessarily danger. Like listening to slightly frightening stories by a campfire while looking up at the sky with people you’re sure care about you. When Emily decides to break away from the bonds of her past, new freedoms and perhaps new fears emerge. She is no longer consumed by tragedy. The power of new love supports her.
