Camp Belvidere: My Half-Assed Review

In my last post I mentioned a movie I'd seen recently called Camp Belvidere, and I threatened to talk about it. So, I'm gonna talk about it. It's a 38-minute short only available for rental via Vimeo. I find that incredibly disappointing because a) the movie's been out since April I think, and b) I could go broke renting it. I liked it that much.

I don't typically go in with high expectations when it comes to shorts. It's a challenging way to make a movie. You have a limited window in which to tell your story, and that often results in movies that are purposefully vague (re: "artsy") to avoid having to adhere to standard storytelling tactics which might not work well; movies with a lot of short scenes and quick camera changes, resulting in a frenetic feeling; or movies that just don't get to tell the whole story and leave the audience feeling disconnected and lost. Camp Belvidere rather masterfully avoids all of those pitfalls and leaves me feeling like I just watched a complete movie. A short one, but complete.

Ahem...there may be spoilers from here on out because I can't censor myself. You've been warned. I'll even make a little jump link for you.