Film Fests
Brooklyn Horror Film Fest 2025: ‘CAMP’ Review
Dabbling with witchcraft is a time-honored tradition for troubled teen girls, especially in horror movies. Writer-director Avalon Fast adds their own dreamy spin on the subgenre with her sophomore feature, CAMP, an achingly melancholy coming-of-age film that will strike a nerve for anyone who was once a girl lost in the dense and tangled forest of adolescence.
CAMP Avoids Vilifying Its Teen Witches at Every Turn
CAMP stars newcomer Zola Grimmer as Emily, a young woman struggling to process the joint tragedies of a fatal traffic accident and the overdose death of a friend. Depressed and alone, she follows her father’s suggestion and takes a job as a counsellor at a summer camp deep in the woods. It turns out to be a Christian camp, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the counselors, who love nothing more than drinking, smoking, and partying all night. Embraced by the other girls (Alice Wordsworth, Cherry Moore, Lea Rose Sebastianis, and Sophie Bawks-Smith), Emily finds herself drawn into a world of feminine power and magic—but soon discovers that, like all things in life, it comes at a cost.
In previous incarnations of teen witch horror, it was generally accepted that the ringleader would crash and burn in the climax while her disciples returned to the humbling confines of a normal life. Think Nancy Downs strapped, screaming, to a bed in a hospital ward, her powers bound, reduced to a harmless madwoman. CAMP firmly rejects this framing. Emily is never afraid of her fellow misfits, entering into the world of witchcraft with open eyes and a wounded yet curious heart. “Fall from grace,” one of the girls whispers. “Into what?” Emily asks. “All of this,” comes the response, reopening a door to a world of friendship that Emily had previously considered shut.
The Characters in CAMP Inhabit a Hazy, Liminal Space, Ripe With Magic and Beauty
The world that Fast conjures around these girls unfurls like a dream, impossibly lovely and faintly unreal. CAMP feels like a hazy summer night that never ends, a memory slightly blurred by sweet wine, one where the finer details are lost to time but the sight of the fog on the lake, the light filtering through the trees, the shooting stars pouring from the heavens sticks with you forever.
It’s a space where trauma can be shared, processed, and released into the forgiving wind, and where lifelong friendships can be forged—or, just as easily, the kind of friendships that burn bright and fierce for a summer, then drift naturally apart, but still shape you. The relationships between the counselors feel real and lived in, rich with laughter, yet brimming with the complex, writhing anxieties of girlhood. These girls can be dangerous, perhaps even cruel, but Fast allows us to observe their rituals without passing judgment. This is all part of the process of growing up, as painfully necessary as a bone healing after a bad break.
Let CAMP’s Slow Burn Seduce You, and Succumb
CAMP’s unhurried pacing won’t appeal to all viewers, but if you allow yourself to sink into its witchy waters, it will welcome you into its warm embrace. Fast has created the rare teen witch film that focuses on grief as much as it does empowerment, creating space for her characters to pour out their pain and inviting the viewer to ache with them. It’s heartfelt, honest, and at times devastatingly beautiful—a film that’s sure to find the right audience with time, and a sign of great things to come from its director.
I’ve said time and time again that horror comedies/dark comedies aren’t my forte. Filmmakers often don’t find the right balance between horror and comedy, usually resulting in a mishmash blend that feels unfocused and lacking. Moreover, I love ambitious films; horror comedies don’t often lend themselves to ambition. (That’s not a diss by any means.) Films like Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, The Draft!, and Chainsaws Were Singing are just a few that really broke the mold for me. Thanks to the lovely programmers at Chattanooga Film Festival, I can now add Frankie, Maniac Woman to the list of exceptional horror comedies.
Frankie, Maniac Woman Delivers a Bloody Twist on Horror Comedy
Frankie Ramirez (Dina Silva) is trying to break into the industry one way or another. Little did she know that her fame would come at a bloody price. Denial after denial, being told she’s not skinny or pretty enough, when enough was enough…Frankie takes her revenge. Can Frankie slash her way to the top of the charts? Or will her path of violence become too much for her to handle?
Co-written by Dina Silva and Pierre Tsigaridis and directed by Pierre Tsigaridis, Frankie, Maniac Woman is truly a sight to behold. Pierre Tsigaridis’ third feature film takes us to a deeper level than we’ve seen before (though that might not be fair to say, as I’ve only seen his first film, Two Witches). But much of the joy from this film comes from Silva’s co-writing and performance. Oh yeah, and the gloriously violent nature of it all.
Dina Silva Creates One of Modern Slasher Horror’s Best Villains
Dina Silva’s occasionally masked portrayal of Frankie brings us one of horror’s greatest villains of all time. Rarely do we see women in horror take the main stage as such a violent force of nature. And what we also see is a devilishly smart script. Silva and Pierre Tsigaridis’ creation of Frankie brings us both a protagonist and an antagonist. Frankie wants this life where she can live as the performer she is meant to be (because Silva’s voice is gorgeous). On the other hand, Frankie’s direct actions will make sure she never has a career, you know, with the slayings and all.
The beautiful nature of Frankie’s character is the moments of realization that she has warped the trajectory of her future with each subsequent kill. She could stop, sure, but what if killing is what she was meant to do all along? Frankie does have an amazing voice, but Frankie is a fantastic serial killer. If only there were a world where she could do both.
Frankie, Maniac Woman Proves Great Slashers Need Great Stories
Now I’m unable to access the screener again, and the IMDb credits do not show the name, so I can’t fully praise the people in charge of Frankie, Maniac Woman’s SFX. A film like Frankie, Maniac Woman shows me just how wrong modern slashers are. Take Terrifier, for example. Terrifier’s story is bland, uninspired, recycled, and lazy. It’s nothing but filler around a series of fine kills. Frankie, Maniac Woman uses its kills to emphasize its incredibly well-written story. A fine film has a story that’s enough to pass the time; a great slasher has a story that uses kills as exclamation marks.
Frankie, Maniac Woman’s kills are punctuation marks that are a level above exclamation marks. Whatever that may be. Frankie is an unstoppable killing machine, until she can be stopped. She’s not this infallible entity who can take six bullets to the torso and keep lumbering on…she’s just a person. A person with feelings, stamina, and brilliant comedic timing. She’s someone you could easily see yourself being friends with (as long as you didn’t know about the killings (hell, maybe even if you knew about the killings if that’s your thing)).
Frankie, Maniac Woman Is One of the Best Festival Horror Films of the Year
Frankie, Maniac Woman is a devilishly stylized slasher that exudes camp and craft. When was the last time a film made you cry from laughter and sadness? When was the last time you watched a film so viciously riotous that you hoped things would just…work out in the end? On top of being funny, brutal, and bloody as hell, Frankie, Maniac Woman is a genuinely ‘G’reat film. It’s one of the few festival films I’ve seen that’s unquestionably Criterion-worthy.
There is a part of me that doesn’t like doing capsule reviews, but sometimes expanding on your thoughts feels like nothing but filler. And attempting to review something that is half filler doesn’t sit right with me. Dead Media and La cosa en la niebla are two films that I really wanted to talk about, but didn’t feel that overelaborating and underperforming would be helpful.
La cosa en la niebla
Ismael (Martín Garabal) is an experienced pilot who prepares for another normal flight alongside his new co-pilot Danicka (Elena de Lara). Things go normally for the crew until they’re midway through their flight. An oncoming “cargo plane” forces them to divert from their flight path, leading to a flight no one will soon forget. When their plane is overtaken by something nefarious, the crew must do everything they can to survive the flight…before it is their last.
From writer Juan José Ramírez Mascaró and director Chedey Reyes comes La cosa en la niebla, a wacky, funny, and weirdly unique chamber piece that thrills as much as it kills. Even with jokes and bits that may have been lost in translation, La cosa en la niebla (The Thing in the Fog) was a delight from start to finish. There are a handful of filmmakers who can handle a Leslie Nielsen-like character, but Reyes clearly can.
Ismael and Danicka are perfect foils for each other, even before the ball eventually drops. Juan José Ramírez Mascaró’s script is tight, succinct, and surprisingly funny (given I’m not a fan of horror comedy). Ismael’s character is this perfect, deadpan entity whose seriousness inevitably dips into hilarity. What’s most enjoyable is how the comedy comes effortlessly and naturally.
La cosa en la niebla enters the pantheon of greatest alien films of the 2020s, joining the likes of The Antares Paradox and UFO Sweden (not the shitty AI dub). If you want a fun, low-stakes, alien invasion chamber piece, The Thing in the Fog will get the job done and leave no crumbs.
Dead Media
Maggie Sloke (Sammi-Jack Martincak) and her friends Brenda (Jessica Fenton) and Dan (Antonio Teodoro) settle in front of the TV for a night of relaxation and movie watching. When Maggie’s uncle, Uncle Heppy (Sam Landman), arrives, the night quickly goes south. Rather than watching Night of the Lurchers on streaming, Uncle Heppy insists on watching it on the DVD he purchased. With edibles and drinks in hand, the four sit down to watch a movie that may soon turn out to be a bit more than just a movie.
From writer/director Joseph Scrimshaw, Dead Media takes the cursed VHS tape trope and flips it on its head. But it’s the overall product that left me wanting more. Aesthetically, Dead Media hits all the right notes; it’s nostalgic in a way that feels comforting rather than overbearing. Scrimshaw excels at making a film that I want to watch. Unfortunately, it’s the content of the film that left me droopy-eyed and tired.
Dead Media’s biggest problem is its pacing. This hour-and-a-half-long film that could have easily been 70 or 75 minutes, and no one would have batted an eye. Scrimshaw struggles to find any cohesion in his editing, which makes the film begin to feel as if it is nothing more than slightly related scenes placed one in front of another. I can forgive unintentionally (or intentionally) campy performances, but many of the performances in Dead Media fall completely flat. Uncle Heppy feels like he is nothing more than a generic brand Cecil Kaufman (Richard Riehle) from Chillerama, and not in a way that feels like an homage.
I can feel Joseph Scrimshaw’s love of horror in Dead Media, which does speak volumes. It’s just that Dead Media takes too many risks, and I don’t feel like they paid off.
