'Camp' Review: Guilt, Grief, and Witchcraft
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- Avalon Fast's "Camp" centers on Emily (Zola Grimmer), a young woman who arrives at a summer camp for troubled children to work as a counselor while carrying guilt over an accidental killing.
- Emily bonds with Rosie (Cherry Moore), Clara (Alice Wordsworth), and Nev (Lea Rose Sebastianis), who embrace witchcraft as "practical magic" to rebuild self-esteem and reframe past trauma.
- Dan (Austyn Van de Kamp), the camp's "God-fearing leader," loses his virginity to Nev — a sacrifice the film frames as fueling the feminine force granting the girls their powers.
- Fast makes "no concessions to male characters" in committing to "supportive girlhood," though Emily's strongest bond remains with her father, whom she calls repeatedly to confide in honestly.
- The review compares the film to "The Craft" and Florence + the Machine's signature aesthetic, and aligns it with Jane Schoenbrun's "Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma" for using horror conventions to examine humanistic concerns.
- Cinematographer Eily Sprungman collaborated on the film's ethereal visual language — "shining stars," "artificial backdrops," "dances under the moonlight," and "fiery rituals" — placing the narrative in a dream-like realm between reality and fantasy.
Why it matters: For viewers seeking horror-adjacent indie cinema centered on female trauma and emotional catharsis rather than gore, Fast's "Camp" offers a distinctive entry — joining Schoenbrun's "Camp Miasma" as part of a gendered supernatural-indie mode that uses witchcraft as a vehicle for rebuilding self rather than spectacle.
