Monster Camp (2007)

Very well executed

Sadly Over-hyped

Powerful

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

I was completely fascinated with LARPers after seeing the excellent Darkon. Once I learned that there was another documentary about the subject, I wasted no time tracking it down and watching it. Unfortunately, Monster Camp is inferior to Darkon in every way. Even hardcore fans of documentaries may choose to skip this one.A documentary is only as good as its subject matter, and Monster Camp simply fails in this regard. I'm not a judgmental person. I liked all the colorful people that Darkon focused on. There lives were interesting for the most part, and I empathized or identified to a degree with all of them. For the most part they were normal people. Monster Camp, on the other hand...I hate to say this, but there was very little to like about the participants of Nero Seattle. They weren't endearing or quirky. Mostly, they were just plain weird. The movie makers made no attempt to portray them as three-dimensional individuals. They all came off as losers or super-geeks who had nothing in their lives except their monthly hobby. And I hate to see people depicted in such a negative way. There's no incentive to get emotionally involved in Monster Camp. Darkon was so well made, that everything that was important to its subjects soon became important to the viewer. All I feel after watching Monster Camp is that most of those people would benefit from focusing more of their attention on the real world.In a nutshell, I recommend Darkon to everyone and Monster Camp to no one.

MONSTER CAMP is an honest (if totally detached) attempt to document "the mechanics of making magic happen in the real world." We all live in our own little world(s); some are vacuums. As akin to the nerdlies on THE BIG BANG THEORY as the "outdoorsmen" of The Society For Creative Anachronism, the players in MONSTER CAMP have a flair for fantasy (if I'm not mistaken, I saw several volumes by Terry Brooks on one bookshelf, and I'm sure there must've been some Roger Zelazny somewhere on the premises). Nothing wrong with that. For a decade or so, I headed up a writing group that met one night a week at a local bookstore cum coffee shop. One of three "group novels" we tried to write was a fantasy that featured trolls and shapeshifters and druids. Unfortunately, we weren't all on the same page, so to speak, and the book was never finished. But I may one day finish my own version. There's a lot to be said for finding people of a like mind to pal around with. Hereabouts, they're rare to the point of nonexistence. Fortunately for the gamers in MONSTER CAMP, they can network. More power to them.

This movies was truly one of the best. I really liked this documentary. I was so shocked at the fact that NERO was real. If I could rate it I would give it 5 stars, in fact at the film fest. in JAX I gave it a 5 in rating. I go to film school, and I have scene some pretty bad documentary's. Some have made me want to sleep (in fact some have.) Some have made we want to walk out of the theater. But this one was so funny, and some of it was sad. Like seeing these people that they were introducing sit on their computer and talk about their addictions it was emotional. I would love to see other films by this director. He has an amazing talent that will be discovered by more and more people by this film.*Becca

Director Cullen Hoback dives into the world of live-action roleplaying.In Seattle, a group of young men and women gather every year to live out their fantasy-based fantasies. They dress up as warriors and monsters and re-enact battles based on World of Warcraft.The group, known as NERO (New England Roleplaying Organization), follows the rules outlined in their 184-page rulebook. Throwing packets of birdseed (which they use as spells to cast) and hitting one another with padded swords, the players spend 48 consecutive hours as their characters.Hoback's film does a wonderful job of being informative about the NERO culture, while at the same time, telling the stories of quite a large amount of participants.An important note: the film does not make fun of these people. While it might have been easy to make a film at their expense, Hoback does not do this. The themes of this film are companionship, escapism, and most importantly, imagination.Monster Camp is extremely entertaining. If you get a chance to watch it, do yourself the favor and get some friends together one night and check it out.