Body Count

A surreal outing in the Colorado mountains, not to mention horrific and… insightful

A group of youths in Colorado take a camping trip at a defunct camp, but the owners allow them to stay since they’re friends of their son, who’s just returning from the Marines. Unfortunately, there are legends of an old American Indian Shaman, who has a penchant for cursing people. David Hess plays the curmudgeonly owner of the camp while Charles Napier is on hand as the Sheriff.

"Body Count" (1986) is an Italian slasher in the tradition of the Friday the 13th flicks & their knockoffs that were popular at the time. Its original title is “Camping del Terrore,” which translates as “Camp of Terror” or “Terror Camp.” I wouldn’t exactly call this a rip-off since the story is totally different, not to mention Mario Bava's "A Bay of Blood" (1971) inspired the Friday the 13th flicks in the first place, at least the party-minded youths visiting the desolate former-resort.

What’s interesting is that this is an Italian’s INTERPRETATION OF youths taking a camping trip in Colorado since it was shot entirely in Italy with a mostly Italian cast & crew. I’m speaking as someone who has camped out in Colorado many times, including staying in a cabin. As such, the characters social interactions and the general happenings come across more surreal than real. Take, for example, the accent of the Southern girl: Sure, it sounds Southern, but it’s also noticeably off.

So, you have to get used to the weird tone and the typical bad editing that Italian filmmakers were known for. It didn’t help that the production was plagued by problems, including bad weather during the 4-week shoot in the mountains, not to mention two additional writers had to be enlisted to work out the kinks in Alessandro Capone’s original screenplay.

If you can embrace it, however, the movie delivers the goods as a unique slasher with a story that is anything but one-dimensional and offers insights on human nature. For instance, evil isn’t limited to the proverbial boogeyman, which is often merely a scapegoat, it could just as well originate in everyday fathers, mothers or children.

The voluptuous Nancy Brilli stands out on the female front as Tracy (the one in red leotards). Most of the other women are interesting one way or another.

The film runs about 1 hour, 30 minutes (or several minutes shorter, in my case), and was shot at Campo Imperatore, L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy, which is a 95-minute drive east of Rome in the central Apennine Mountains.

GRADE: B