CAMP COLD BROOK (2018)

Studio:      Shout Studios
Director:    Andy Palmer
Writer:      Alex Carl
Producer:  Warner Davis, Mark Alan
Stars:     Chad Michael Murray, Danielle Harris, Mikey Reid, Candice De Visser, Courtney Gains

Review Score:

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Summary:

Desperate to save his failing TV show, a paranormal investigator takes on a haunting case with shocking ties to his team.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Paranormal investigator Jack Wilson learns from network executive Jack Brierwitz that his failing reality TV show ‘Haunt Squad’ isn’t being renewed for a fourth season. Jack still manages to bargain for a 90-minute special he guarantees will deliver actual proof of life after death.

Jack brainstorms ideas with his partner Angie, technician Kevin, and new assistant Emma. Emma suggests investigating Camp Cold Brook in Oklahoma, where a witch named Anise Bernadeau poisoned and drowned numerous children before immolating herself in 1990.

On their drive into Cold Brook, the team briefly sees a ghostly girl dart in front of Jack’s van. Local sheriff Gorton advises against exploring the abandoned camp, but Jack bribes Gorton with cash to give them access to the site. A diner waitress recounts how Anise Bernadeau blamed the church that operated the camp for her daughter getting killed by a truck, which is why she turned the church’s children murderous with poison and drove them to suicidal drowning.

Day 1 – After being dropped off by Sheriff Gorton, Jack and his team set up equipment for their location scout. During the night, Jack investigates strange noises around the camp and discovers an occult symbol on a cabin wall.

Day 2 – A paranormal presence shakes Kevin off a suspension bridge into the water below. Angie sees brief flickers of ghost children on the video monitors before becoming terrified by a supernatural shape.

Day 3 – Jack finds another occult symbol inside a shed. Various ghostly encounters individually spook Emma, Kevin, and Angie.

Jack and Emma find a book detailing an occult ceremony that indicates Anise Bernadeau was attempting to resurrect her dead daughter by sacrificing 30 children under the age of 10. However, only 28 kids died at the camp while two were never found, leaving the ritual incomplete. Further recognizing that occult symbol locations form a circle around the camp, Jack theorizes they can diminish the witch’s power and possibly break the spell trapping the spirits there by covering the symbols.

Day 4 – Deeply disturbed by her experience the previous night, Angie insists on leaving. Jack helps Angie hike through the forest, but they end up going in circles for hours before returning to camp.

Jack’s mother Esther learns from Jack’s wife Connie that Jack went to Camp Cold Brook. Immediately unsettled, Esther rushes to Cold Brook. Esther angrily confronts Sheriff Gorton for opening the camp to Jack, who doesn’t remember being one of the two children who escaped in 1990.

Emma and Kevin search the camp for symbols to cover up. Ghosts rise out of the water and grab Kevin.

When they see Kevin drowning on the video monitors, Jack, Angie, and Emma rush to the water. Jack unsuccessfully attempts to rescue Kevin. The experience jolts Jack’s memory. Jack suddenly recalls hiding from Anise Bernadeau while his fellow campers were killed in 1990.

Anise’s ghost appears and begins stalking toward Jack, Angie, and Emma. Emma snatches a protective rosary away from Angie. Anise supernaturally snaps Angie’s neck.

Emma reveals she was the other child who escaped the 1990 tragedy. She was Jack’s girlfriend and he left her alone, but she still escaped. However, Anise continued haunting Emma into adulthood. Envious that Jack was able to forget, Emma devised a plan to finally be rid of her nightmares. Emma tackles Jack into the water just as Esther Wilson and Sheriff Gorton arrive.

Jack recovers in a hospital. Emma briefly visits to say she believes they are finally free. Jack’s wife Connie says she left their two daughters with a babysitter. When they Facetime with the children, Jack sees that the babysitter is Anise.

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Review:

Had it been produced at least ten years earlier, “Camp Cold Brook” probably would have been “found footage.” It still has the setup of a typical “haunted location investigation” that makes up 95% of films formatted in first-person though.

But prime time for reality-based frights has passed. Ghost hunter Jack Wilson learns this hard truth firsthand when a scotch-pouring network suit delivers the bad news that Jack’s show ‘Haunt Squad’ isn’t getting picked up for a fourth season. Viewers just aren’t tuning in for redundant supernatural shenanigans anymore, a bit of inadvertent meta-commentary that speaks to “Camp Cold Brook’s” similar problem of attracting interested eyes.

Jack bargains to go out with a big boo. He and his producing partner Angie, video technician Kevin, and new P.A. Emma, you know, the usual people in these positions, have an idea to explore a site no other crew has been to before: Camp Cold Brook.

What’s Camp Cold Brook’s backstory? Common urban legend rules apply. In 1990, an accused witch blamed an Oklahoman church congregation for her daughter’s tragic death. That witch took revenge by combining poison with occult magic to turn the church’s children into crazed killers. The kids later drowned in the camp’s lake, the witch set herself on fire, and concerned locals zippered their lips with warnings to never speak of the horrible mass murders again.

Putting a few Ben Franklins in his palm convinces the sheriff to look the other way this one time. Jack’s quartet then journeys to the remote forest campsite for a music-set montage of setting up cameras, cables, and other equipment. Now they’re ready to dig into predictable paranormal activity as their experience escalates from squinting at strange video flickers to flinching at stranger sights in the night.

I can’t even calculate the countless hours I’ve spent in cursed fictional places with various paranormal investigators during my time as a genre film critic. That’s why I applaud “Camp Cold Brook” for making another round of déjà vu more bearable by putting together a ghost hunting team that’s refreshingly pleasant to be around.

Ably aided by the acting of familiar faces Chad Michael Murray and Danielle Harris, Jack and his team aren’t showboating charlatans colored by obnoxious Hollywood phoniness. They’re genuine skeptics who don’t artificially “enhance” their show, which ironically explains why no one watches it. There isn’t enough material to elevate their personalities above perfunctory. But I appreciate that they’re personable people exhibiting caring camaraderie with one another.

“Camp Cold Brook” also avoids stuffing the team in quicksand of behind-the-scenes romantic relationship complications, professional animosity, etc. The group does start going for each other’s throats midway into the movie, although those confrontations are motivated by specific circumstances, not because anyone is an outright a-hole.

I’ll give “Camp Cold Brook” this much too: it looks like a basic made-for-cable movie, albeit one that’s competently produced. By-the-numbers though it may be in most regards, “Camp Cold Brook” comes neatly packaged with clean cinematography, crisp editing, and all other accoutrements of a project created by professionals committed to their crafts.

The “unfortunately” you probably sense coming has to do with an excessively slow setup and regular recycling of standard spooks that are too pedestrian to actually be spooky. “Camp Cold Brook” bloats itself with numerous scenes that amount to nothing more than creeping through cobwebs. Picturing what the script must have looked like, all I can see is page after page of declarative sentences describing dusty cabins accompanying instructive actions about looking distressed while waving flashlights around.

The way the plot curiously stretches out doesn’t make sense for the story either. Jack’s crew spends four days on what we’re told is a location scout. Each day progresses from morning to night in just a few movie minutes, making it confusingly unclear what four separate people are actually doing during their 96 hours at this camp. Questions like these could be easily erased with a simple script edit compressing the timeline to two days. It wouldn’t feel like the ghostly “gotchas!” are spaced so far apart either.

All things considered, we’re looking at a pretty plain paranormal thriller that’s unremarkably “okay.” Its forgettable familiarity means I wouldn’t recommend it. But I also wouldn’t shoo anyone away from the film if someone insists on checking it out. You’d just better be in the mood for a mediocre horror movie with low stakes and an even lower return on your time and money investment.

Review Score: 45

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