Happy Campers (2002)

This rather different approach to the "summer camp" movie focuses on the seven counselors and their sex drives. While the stars of the film, Brad Renfro and Dominique Swain are certainly appealing, it is Keram Malicki-Sánchez as Jasper who draws our attention. He's the gay counselor and the focus of a fair amount of attention in the film. When Jasper signals his sexuality it's as a cruise directed towards screen fave Brad Renfro - which he then confirms immediately. During the course of the summer, his sexual desires are given just as much prominence as the other hetero characters. And here's the icing -- he gets laid -- and some of the straight counselors don't. It's great to see a token gay character have a sex life!

The writer of Heathers returns to the subject of teens with his directorial debut. The counselors at Camp Bleeding Dove try to keep all the kids in line while sorting out their own sexual issues. There's the virginal pepsquad member (Swain), being pursued by the brooding bad boy (Renfro). There's the hippie-dippy girl of everyone's dreams (King), the pretty one (Bergl) who's too smart to keep a boyfriend, and the before-mentioned gay teen (Malicki-Sanchez). When the head of the camp goes nuts after lightening strikes him, anarchy rules.

What could have been a boring teen movie about getting laid has been turned real by the quality of the actors. While this writer can't stand Dominique Swain, he was able to overlook her because the other actors stood out.

Scott Cranin