Body Count

AKA Camping del Terrore

Director: Ruggero Deodato

Director Ruggero Deodato is synonymous with Italian horror cinema, most notably for his controversial 1980 film: “Cannibal Holocaust”. Ruggero is by no means a one hit wonder though, having also helmed a whole range of fantastic movies, including one of my personal favourites: “The House On The Edge Of The Park”. As with many Italian directors, Ruggero never shackled himself to one genre though, having also covered crime thrillers, fantasy and action films to name a few.

This week’s movie sees Ruggero Deodato tackle an 80s staple, the slasher film, and on paper “Body Count” sounds like it has real potential. Firstly, let’s look at the cast: “The Black Cat” and “Four Flies On Grey Velvet” actress Mimsy Farmer (who has a pleasingly silly name) stars alongside the always threatening David Hess from “The House On The Edge Of The Park” (sporting “Bride Of Frankenstein” style grey streaks in his hair) and Charles Napier from “Rambo: First Blood Part II” – with a cast like that you can count me in! Secondly, Deodato is a director whose previous films have never shied away from the challenging and subversive, so surely this take on the well worn slasher formula will breathe new life into the already tired sub genre? Sadly it doesn’t.

The plot revolves around a group of teens making their way to a shutdown camp to spend their spring break only to be picked off one by one. Sound familiar? There is a sub plot which involves a love triangle between Mimsy Farmer, David Hess and Charles Napier but this tale of feuding middle-aged lovers feels out of place amongst the generic scenes of teenagers buggering about and then dying.

A lot of the success of these slasher films hinge on how interesting the killer is. Here we are led to believe the killer is the ghost of an Indian shaman, as the camp site was built on an old burial ground. The initial glimpses of the evil being are quite creepy but as the film progresses we see more of it, and it becomes all too clear that on closer inspection it looks like something from “Bo’ Selecta!”.

The cast of teens are largely forgettable, with the boys falling into the usual stereotypes of: “The Jock”, “The Geek”, “The Chubby Funny One”, and the girls are more than happy to get naked at the drop of a hat to tease and seduce when required. Having said that, the nudity is not limited to the female cast, as one of the male characters, “The Chubby Funny One” to be precise, is tricked into stripping naked and running into a building where he thinks an orgy awaits him, only to find David Hess having his dinner… that’s one brave boy.

Some of the editing feels a bit off at times, most notably a scene when one of the teens has just had his hands slashed quite severely by the killer but when he exclaims to his friend in agony “look at my hands!”, the blood that had covered his hands previously has disappeared. There is also a scene which feels like it has been cut rather than edited badly but I find it hard believe there would have been a need to trim any violence or nudity out when compared to what has been left in the film.

Another thing that feels slightly odd is the time of year the film is meant to be set versus the time of year it was filmed. The posters tag line mentions spring break and yet you can often see steam coming from the actors mouths and, apart from when they are stripping off, they seem to be wrapped up in a few layers of clothes.

The acting for the majority of the “teens” is nothing more than adequate, but Farmer, Hess and Napier give it their all. The tension between the characters played by Hess and Napier is certainly well handled and the love triangle between the three more “mature” actors is the most interesting part of the film by quite a margin. I would have been quite happy to watch a film solely about David Hess planting hunting traps in the hope of catching the Indian shaman whilst his creeping paranoia about his wife’s potential affair with the local sheriff continues to grow.

There are a couple of supporting characters, played by Ivan Rassimov and John Steiner, which don’t really have much to do, which is a shame as they are both good actors but I can’t even really remember how they served the plot as they were so underused.

The soundtrack by Goblin’s Claudio Simonetti is largely forgettable but serviceable. In fact one piece of music sounds very similar to the music used in the mock slasher film featured at the start of Brian De Palma’s criminally underrated “Blow Out”. The thing is, “Blow Out” was released five years before “Body Count” and De Palma was highlighting the cliches associated with the sub genre so it’s a shame that Simonetti hasn’t tried to break the mould by composing something that sounds radically different to the cliche. There is a selection of pop songs included in the film as well, which are as stereotypically 80s as you would expect and helps to give us a very funny dancing scene, made even more funny by the fact the previous scene was so utterly serious in tone.

The ending of the film has a twist, which required me to then look up a character’s name, only for there to be another twist which I still can’t get my head around. Safe to say if they were trying to leave it open for a sequel, it was a fruitless exercise.

“Body Count” is a confused film which unfortunately plays by the rules too closely to be overly exciting. The powerhouse trio of Farmer, Hess and Napier stopped me from getting bored but I was hoping for a far more edgy Italian take on the slasher tropes which unfortunately this isn’t. There’s still fun to be had though, and enough unintentionally funny moments to make it worthy of sharing with friends and a few drinks.