Staff Picks: Summer Camp

Films that are really gonna miss this place.

Feature Presentation’s Staff Picks is not a best-of list. How do you even craft a list of the best of something as subjective as film? This is a list designed to highlight films (and occasionally television shows or other mediums of entertainment) of a certain theme or topic. It’s a watchlist, they are suggestions. Movies on this list will very in quality, length, genre, and home video or streaming availability.

This list’s theme: Summer Camp

Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977)

The Peanuts gang, including Snoopy and Woodstock, have gone off to summer camp. After a few days of the usual summer-camp activities, they all take part in a rafting race. Battling treacherous rapids, wild animals and bullies from a rival tent, the teams make their way downriver to the finish line.

Patrick: So many of us grew up with the Peanuts holiday specials: It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown were the big ones in my household and many others. But what about the B-sides? There have been over 50 Peanuts specials, movies, and series and we only talk about the same five over and over again.

Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown is a theatrical film and while it may not be the best Peanuts tale (and if you're used to the voices in the early specials, the gang might just sound a little off), it's still nice to spend some time with these kiddos without watching the same ones over and over again - although I will continue to watch the same ones over and over again. We need more summertime Peanuts!

Little Darlings (1980)

Two 15-year-old girls from different sides of the tracks compete to see who will be first to lose their virginity while at camp.

Patrick: Cinématographe, a new sub-label from Vinegar Syndrome that started earlier this year, has been doing some great and underappreciated work. I've already shouted out their release of Red Rock West, and I've also checked out Goin' South and Touch from the video store. Little Darlings was their first release and represents the movies they find appealing. It's quite a subversive film. On paper, it's a sex comedy about two girls racing to lose their virginity. But the movie itself is sweet, mature, and authentically awkward. Tatum O'Neal and Kristy McNichol give performances that are way more heartfelt than horny and it's got early performances from Matt Dillon and Cynthia Nixon. The Cinématographe 4K looks and sounds great and is filled with plenty of extras.

Theater Camp (2023)

After the indomitable and beloved founder of a scrappy theater camp in upstate New York falls into a coma, the eccentric staff must band together with her clueless “crypto-bro” son to keep the thespian paradise afloat.

Taylor: To quote my own Letterboxd review, “My theater camp was just four years of college at a school that didn’t require auditions to get into the program.” This movie is undoubtedly even stronger with true theater kids (I didn’t do theater until college so I missed out on some of those formative, cringey memories), but is still absolutely hysterical with my minimal life experience. Ben Platt shines (something I didn’t think I’d ever say) because he’s just playing him — an insufferable nerd with a great voice!

Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

The setting is Camp Firewood, the year 1981. It’s the last day before everyone goes back to the real world, but there’s still a summer’s worth of unfinished business to resolve. At the center of the action is camp director Beth, who struggles to keep order while she falls in love with the local astrophysics professor. He is busy trying to save the camp from a deadly piece of NASA’s Skylab which is hurtling toward earth. All that, plus: a dangerous waterfall rescue, love triangles, misfits, cool kids, and talking vegetable cans. The questions will all be resolved, of course, at the big talent show at the end of the day.

Taylor: I saw this for the first time last summer and little did I know it would instantly become my favorite comedy of all time. If you were raised on the Amy Pohler era of SNL and therefore had your humor shaped by that troupe, then you will absolutely love this movie. Clever, witty, chock full of one-liners that make you spit out your drink, and the performances from now-serious actors that make you wonder why those people don’t make comedies anymore - it’s just phenomenal in every way to me. I can see how this would be a “if you get it, you get it - if you don’t, you don’t” kind of movie, but it’s worth seeing regardless. 

Friday the 13th Part II (1981)

Five years after the horrible bloodbath at Camp Crystal Lake, it seems Jason Voorhees and his demented mother are in the past. Paul opens up a new camp close to the infamous site, ignoring warnings to stay away, and a sexually-charged group of counselors follow – including child psychologist major Ginny. But Jason has been hiding out all this time, and now he’s ready for revenge.

Patrick: Aside from a quick prologue connecting it to the first film, Friday the 13th Part II feels more like any other generic summertime slasher all these years later. Sure, Jason is the killer for the first time in the series, but he's got an axe instead of a machete and a sack over his head instead of the iconic hockey mask. Those things would come in the next installment, so this in-betweener feels more like the other movies this series inspired than it feels like a Jason story. The camp counselors do plenty of generic camp counselor slasher victim stuff, like telling ghost stories around the fire, going skinny dipping, and having plenty of pre-marital sex.

Camp Lazlo (2005-2008)

Camp Kidney isn't quite sure what to do with its newest Bean Scouts. Lazlo's a free-spirited monkey and his Jelly Cabin bunkmates Clam the albino rhino and Raj the elephant are always up to something much to the disappointment of Scoutmaster Lumpus. (IMDB)

Patrick: Series creator Joe Murray gave '90s Kids his most famous show, Rocko's Modern Life, and he gave Y2Kidz his most underrated, Camp Lazlo, which is very much a spiritual successor in terms of tone and humor. The problem is, Camp Lazlo gets absolutely zero love from my fellow Y2Kidz and I can't really figure out why. The only reason I can come up with is that it isn't currently available on a streaming service like Max or Netflix (right now, it can be found on Crunchyroll and Boomerang.) If folks had the chance to revisit it, they would see that it's a love letter to silliness, all about the joys of childhood mischievousness and the pains of having to be around adults all the time. Plus, I just love cartoon monkeys.

---

Credit: Each plot synopsis comes from Letterboxd via TMDb.