Camp Pleasant Lake opens with this alarming onscreen observation: “They say you cross paths with at least 20 killers in your lifetime and don’t even know it...” OK, “they” say a lot of preposterous things but the U.S. is Serial Killer Central — more than 3,600 identified since 1900.
The script by writer-director Thomas Walton seems to be predicated on the notion that just as stalk-and-slash classics Halloween (1978; directed and co-written by John Carpenter) and Friday the 13th (1980; written by Victor Miller and directed by Sean S. Cunningham) helped revitalize the market for contemporary horror, it’s up to younger filmmakers to revitalize the slasher movie. While the likes of Halloween’s Michael Myers, A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Kreuger and Scream’s Ghostface are still theatrical-release-worthy monsters, lesser slashers are largely relegated to cable and direct-to-video/streaming — where, at least, the lesser stakes can allow for interesting experimentation.
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