Happy Campers

Plot synopsis:
When the rule-enforcing camp director at Camp Bleeding Dove gets struck by lightning, the counselors find themselves in sole charge of their campers, and themselves. Among them are the brooding and intellectual Wichita; Wendy, who is guileless and unabashedly religious; Talia, an outcast and former college friend of Wichita's; Pixel, a waifish hippie who bathes in the camp lake; Jasper, an openly gay man; the brutish Adam; and Donald, a nerdy and unconfident virgin.
Wichita, who initially finds himself repulsed by Wendy who is his polar opposite, begins to find himself attracted to her, and the two begin to court one another while the rest of the campers and counselors look on. An atheist, Wichita begins to question his belief in God after he finds a photo of himself as a child in the background of one of Wendy's family photos at Mount Rushmore; however, he does not tell her about it. The two eventually admit their feelings for one another, and Wendy loses her virginity to Wichita after having an allergic reaction to a bee sting.
Meanwhile, Talia, who has feelings for Wichita, becomes disillusioned after he admits he simply wants to be friends; she later finds he and Wendy have become physically involved. Donald, urged by the rest of the counselors, attempts to court Talia, but she is resistant. Wendy, in order to test the legitimacy of Wichita's feelings for her, has Pixel attempt to seduce him in the woods. Wichita, who overheard their plan, kisses Pixel in front of her, and Wendy leaves in tears, believing he failed the test.
On the penultimate day of camp, Wichita confesses to Wendy that he had purposely failed she and Pixels' test; the same day in the woods, Adam confronts Pixel over their sexual relationship, and she rejects him, saying that their relationship was just a fling for her. At the camp mess hall, Donald and Talia incite a riot with the campers, and they all run into the woods in body paint and attack Adam, Pixel, Wichita, and Wendy with condoms fashioned into water balloons.
The next day, as Wendy and Pixel prepare to leave, Wendy notices that half of her family photo from Mount Rushmore has been torn off, which Wichita had taken and eaten to dispose of. As the campers and counselors prepare to leave, the children confess how much they meant to them. On the bus ride back, Wendy is forced to sit next to Wichita. Donald takes a photo of them with a camper in-between, asking them to smile for the photo, which appears on the cover of the following year's camp staff manual.

Tags: romantic, comedy, prank

Review:
This movie "sucks"...in a good way, according to Brad Renfro.
The film starts off seemingly as just another teen movie where stereotypes and cliches abound.
Some of the quotes from this movie are the most touching and profound lines I've heard from a film since "The Breakfast Club" (still, my all-time FAVORITE movie), such as "When it comes to the ritual of growing up, sometimes you smile because you're happy.
But hey, a smile is a smile."  Those lines show that this movie goes deeper than just another teen flick and in the end, you have a feel-good feeling that stays with you for a while.
Profound meditation on the loss of sexual innocence disguised as a summer camp movie...got that?.
Daniel Waters guaranteed himself a place in cinema history with his debut screenplay "Heathers", one of the sharpest, blackest and downright original films of the second half of the eighties.
Thus the phrase "Daniel Waters' directorial debut" immediately raises expectations, will it be a twisted and perverted return to his "Heathers" world view?
The answer is yes.The premise is as warped as one would expect - a black, and I mean black, satire on the banal summer camp genre, using it as a metaphor for the point in our lives when, as teenagers, our childhood innocence gives way to the disappointments and tribulation of adulthood.
The film's primary saving grace, besides a typically biting screenplay from Waters, is his outstanding casting, notably Stormare, Swain, Renfro and, particularly, the underused Bergl, all of whom deliver fine performances but struggle with the main flaw in Waters' script, none of the characters are very likable.
Daniel Waters, the writer of Heathers, takes a turn in writing and directing his latest feature: Happy Campers.
Some parallels can be made between this film and Heathers, showing that Waters knew which elements worked: both have an overweight child who is picked on, then is later highly respected; both have a song/jingle that is overplayed, which drive a main character crazy; and both try to invent new words and catch phrases.
Someone says, "...doth protest too much," straight out of Hamlet; The term "fairies" is thrown around and the head counselor's name is Oberon, who was king of the fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream; and they toy with the idea of death by poisoning, which is a common end to many Shakespearean tragedies.
I greatly enjoyed this film - It took chances, and fought to stay out of the "cleaned-up summer camping movie" category.
Here it is ladies and gents, a heartfelt homage to something (seemingly) impossible to pay tribute to - late seventies/early eighties teen flicks (camp or slasher factor put aside).Lacking a strong narrative, "Happy Campers" seems to be drifting along without a  clear flow, but the way the movie changes gears from obvious dumb-founded Teen-Comedy to a rather insightful character study is just amazing.
To direct something bad is easy, to direct something good is hard, but to take something that was once bad and elevate it to a meaningful and even touching movie about adolescence is next to impossible.
Sure the odd bits and pieces sometimes don't fit together, but anything this loosely structured is bound to have a few things falling by the way side.Nevertheless, I think only a handful of people could have been able to get away with a movie of this sort.
Daniel Waters brings us another underrated teen comedy that is destined to find a following just like his now cult classic writing debut "Heathers".
I picked up this movie solely because Dominique Swain is in it.
I didn't laugh a single time throughout the entire movie.And you would think that with Dominique Swain, Justin Long and Peter Stomare that you would be in for at least a somewhat enjoyable movie.
But alas, no, "Happy Campers" didn't deliver where it counted.The story is about a summer camp where the camp director is injured in a lightning accident, and it is up to the college student camp counselors to step up and run the camp in the directors absence.For a comedy "Happy Campers" was disturbingly devoid of laughs and funny situations.
And it was as if director Daniel Waters just wanted to focus on the sexual situations that he may or may not have experienced in camp himself.
As such, the movie sank from mediocrity right into downright ludicrous stupidity.This movie isn't worth the time or effort, and there are far better movies available in this late teen/early adult comedy genre..
There was nothing really that complex about Brad Renfro's character or Dominique Swain's character or James King's character.
Brad Renfro just didn't carry off the "hot stud camp counselor" and Swain never gave me any indication that she had any depth.
As a camp counselor and former camper myself, I've gotta say this is probably my favorite movie.
For those of you out there that enjoy dark indie comedies with hot college co-eds, this is a great film.
Wichita & Wendy: their flourishing romance, Pixel's floopiness and hot fashion, all the counsellors and their completely opposite personalities and backgrounds...and of course all the happy campers.
At least in the preview screening last year, this film looked like another piece of teen trash thrown upon the heap..
Here, he is cast in a summer camp movie that refuses to show off his, or any of the other actors, talents.
i love the bitter un-Hollywood ending...life sucks and this movie tells it like it is....but secretly i weep b/c i myself am a hopeless romantic *sniffle, sniffle* sigh this movie really touches on that great feeling you have as a child...and the torturous existence of growing up.
I haven't seen heathers as of now...but this movie makes me want to see it.
I was expecting an American-Pie-esquire teen sex romp, but what I got what a hysterically funny mature comedy with extremely colorful characters.
They set out to diversify the camp, and change things up, and along the way they discover themselves.The dialogue is just great, and it truly captures teen spirit and the way that teenagers talk.
The counselors struggle with both relationships, finding themselves, and caring for the campers, a responsibility that some of them are unable to handle.All of the great aspects of this movie come together so perfectly.
The well-written script is brought to life by a lot of the most underrated actors of all time, which in turn are directed by a sensational director who gives the movie a great look and feel.
Brad Renfro plays Wichita, the brooding camp counselor that everyone idolizes and looks up to.
Dominique Swain, the side character in most movies like Alpha Dog and Face/Off, takes center stage as one of the main characters, Wendy.
Keram Malicki-Sanchez, who has a history of small stand-out roles in Johnn Q, Cherry Falls, and the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, plays Jasper, the homosexual camp counselor that all the girls at camp are completely goo-goo over.
Justin Long, yet another underrated actor from films like Dodgeball, Jeepers Creepers, and Accepted, plays the nerdy Donald with such sincerity.
As much as this movie sounds like it's filled with stereotypes, the actors and the scripts break away from them completely, and most often do the opposite of what you would normally be expecting.
The only person in the cast that I absolutely hated (and will most likely always hate) was Peter Stormare, who plays Oberon.
Something about his voice just grates on my nerves and I don't feel that he has any real acting talent to speak of.Another thing I liked about the movie was the narrating by all of the characters.
For a second you think it's going to be a Justin Long comedy film, but then each of the actors take turns narrating, and in the end almost everyone had the same amount of screen time.
The movie also had a great deal of heart, and it has a very subtle message, not the in-your-face crappy Hollywood movie messages.The cast is so perfect and the script is so good that Happy Campers easily emerges as one of my favorite films of all time.
When 'Chief Oberon' (Peter Stormare), the camp's only responsible adult, is hit by lightning, it's a hormonal free-for-all as the counselors 'Wichita' (Brad Renfro) and 'Wendy' (Dominique Swain) score with each other while trying to control the underage masses.
Debuting director Daniel Waters' teen sex comedy is alternately appealing, embarrassing, teasing, and stupid.
Unfortunately, emphasis is firmly on the latter.** Happy Campers (1/21/01) Daniel Waters ~ Brad Renfro, Dominique Swain, Jaime King, Justin Long.
The Movie was funny in parts, but I think I was expecting more from Daniel Waters, I mean the cat gave us Heathers, Ford Fairlane, and Demolition Man. Not to say this is a bad movie in the least, just that it's sadly mediocre in every way.My Grade: C+ Eye Candy: Jamie King goes topless.
"Happy Campers" is a useful movie only because it prompts basic questions about its writer/director Daniel Waters and his breakout film "Heathers" (which he wrote but did not direct).
Did he use up all his good stuff writing the Heathers screenplay and have nothing left for "Happy Campers?
Did he lose most of his active brain cells shortly after making Heathers (an event that would account for both the 'Hudson Hawk"and the "Happy Campers" screenplays)?
Or is Heathers so open-ended that critics and viewers attributed significance to a very ordinary movie.
All these explanations are possible either jointly or collectively.For "Happy Campers" Waters tries to weave "Breakfast Club" themes into a "Meatballs" story.
All seven of the main characters get some voice-over time, a device that is very confusing and pretty much destroys any possibility of the movie having any unified theme.Dominique Swain has the biggest part as Wendy, the terminally peppy cheerleader type (appropriately pictured in a cheerleader outfit on the DVD).
Swain is the only good thing about the movie, it is an over-the-top caricature that plays to her acting strengths.
The other four counselors have a fair about of screen time and some lame misadventures but nothing particularly memorable.Some effort is made to introduce the actual summer campers to the story but none of it even remotely works.
Although Swain might have been able to carry the whole thing like Murray the script does not allow this and things never really get going in "Happy Campers".Waters apparently believed that audiences would react positively to a movie where 90% of the comedy involved sexual references that most preteens would consider moronic.
"Happy Campers" is by far the best teen movie i have ever seen!
It's nothing like the typical, American Pie, it has it's own genre of great camp movies!
Sex is all they can think about, and the movie ends up with everyone getting laid!
I tried to think back to my 12 year self and I think she would have liked Happy Campers.
A good teen movie is frivilous and meaningful and this was both..
If you're interested in seeing a summer camp movie, check out Wet Hot American Summer..
Well, here we have a wonderful film for morons...entertaining only as much as seeing James King topless, and watching Lotila star Dominique Swain act cute.
Worth a rental, no more..waste of two hours, instead rent something like...american pie if you are looking for trite teen sex play..
This movie sucks like a Hoover.
"Happy Campers" is not just another summer camp flick which is about sex and s'mores and sex and food fights and sex and water sports and sex and counselor pranks and sex and Kumbaya, etc.
"Happy Campers" is a flick only a sexually preoccupied juvenile could love.
It may be another "Teen" Movie, but appeals to both teens and those who left their teenage years a decade ago.The filming style is very independent and very beautiful, If you watch it just for a plot, sure it is quite similar to the usual "Teen Dramas", If you look a bit deeper, and take something from this title, well you will be a Happy Campers addict like me.It contains the basic of love found, friends made, and the interactions of various persons from various backgrounds.
Happy Campers is a great movie about a handful of counselors taking over camp for the director who umm, is electrified.
If you want to get back to your teenage years without the raucous comedy of American Pie, see Happy Campers (which is a comedy, just not raucous).
Dominique Swain is in this movie.
Another movie with dominique swain that just made me love her and her movies more.
I think that some people can miss the point when watching this movie.
i gotta say i love this movie, and im normally a battle royale/audition kinda guy.
Given the long and storied history of camp movies, who would have thought that this one would be anything more than a teen sex-comedy romp?
Happy Campers uses the camp setting and its inevitable sex as the staging ground for its characters to regress into a primal state of sexual savagery.
I was mildly looking forward to seeing this movie because i think Brad Renfro is great,but i was sadly disapointed with it.
Although the movie was in a way a bit different from what I had imagined.
This is a movie about young teens and sex.
I liked the movie, but I will watch anything with Dominique in it.
...........There is another hot girl in this movie that feels up Dominique and they kiss, that is cool too.
Happy Campers was a great and new movie for the new generation.
They really told it like it is at a boy and girls camp with no adults.
I really liked the end when Jasper (the gay guy) told a young boy "Rick" that he should wait till he was 18 till he followed through with his feelings of being gay.
That right there was a great touch to the end of the movie.
All in all the movie was great but only to be viewed by 13 and up I think..
Although I must admit, Happy Campers is not exactly an Oscar-winning title, nor is it as a movie.
Where Lolita was ornate and timelessly beautiful, Happy Campers takes over where that movie left off.
This movie is cutting edge and is propelling teenage sexual independence into the 21st century.Happy Campers is quite frenetic, but at the same time, takes a no-prisoners attitude.
I was expecting a dumb summer camp movie.
But I was shocked to find one hell of a movie......Brad Renfro was great.........Its shows what a good actress Dominique Swain is.....I wish there was a summer camp like that when I was that age....
Happy Campers was a good movie!
but I loved the movie!
Spoilers herein.Films have the same mystery as love: you find the best experiences in the most unlikely places.This movie gives the impression of a Bull Murray stupidity: teenagers and sex along the lines of `Breakfast Club.' Its underscored by using C and D list actors.
Daniel Waters writes films that seem to saturate their home genre, yet transcend them in ways more subtle than parody or the faddish irony.
His notion of child-sex is purified, innocent.Now look what we have here: a film about sex at a preteen camp, starring the same girl who recently played Lolita (Dolores), with a single obsessed adult, and lots of exploration of an abstract sort of sex.Very risky approach; very few will get it.
I'd have to watch it again to do so.More interestingly, I think it is the first time that I saw a 12 year old gay character in an American movie?
Not Rashomon by a long shot of course, but still, it's way better than genre flics like 'She's all that' and '10 things I hate about you.'Actually, there's no comparison, the only thing they have in common with _Happy Campers_ is that the character are young teens.
Ultimately, this is about loss and coming of age, and the fact that some of us do have a great time at camp.
I even remember the gay counselor, which brings me to my only qualm about the movie: Who cast the cook???There is no way that a handsome 20-something gay guy who has the nerve to make a bet with the hottest guy in camp in order to go down on him would have gone for a "romantic picnic" with that cook just because he's the only other gay guy there.
I haven't seen such a sloppy, random, uneven, incoherent, pointless and down-right sad movie than the inaccurately titled Happy Campers in a long time.
Barely did I laugh in this "comedy," barely could I root for a single lost soul, barely did this rise above the solid one star (out of five) it deserves – and that's due to the actors playing counselors at least attempted to make something of the horrid direction they were given by Waters.And how the mighty had fallen; Waters wrote Heathers, probably his only great movie.
Heathers, which would have a hard time being released as is today – with all the school shootings, killings since – was at least original, fun, dark and a very well made movie.
Happy Campers is an all over the place mesh of random scenes and tiny skits/bad ideas just horribly spliced together.It's hard to write a synopsis due to the wandering of the script, but I'll try: punk counselors of all stereotypes await for the kids to arrive for a very long summer camp in the opening, while making fun of the manual – ding, ding plot point!
Even when the single adult is taken out of the picture for a really dumb accident, he had just about equal control as when he wasn't comatoast.There is zero point to this movie, unless you like the late Renfro – which I do and that's why I watched it.