When home video camcorders became affordable enough in the eighties that the average Joe was able to go out and pick one up without having to put a second mortgage on the home, all of a sudden anyone could make a movie. Sure, it might not be a good movie and truth be told, it doesn’t always have to be, but all of a sudden people were able to pick up a camera and record audio and video with one handy machine on a tape. No need for the hassle of going to get film developed, you simply had to plop in a tape and you could record two hours of footage for a couple of dollars. 

Because of this newfound accessibility, for better or worse a sort of horror movie underground was born wherein literally hundreds if not thousands of shot-on-video cheapies were being churned out by anyone with a couple of bucks, a group of friends and a bucket of red paint. One of the more successful of these films was Cannibal Campout, a cheap, derivative movie with bucket loads of cheap gore and really bad acting. Proving that everything old is indeed new again, it should shock no one to find that Cannibal Campout has made the transition to DVD, and we can all rest easier now because of it. 

Inspired by ‘teens in the woods’ movies like Friday The 13^th with survivalist horror elements borrowed from movies like Deliverance by way of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, our story follows a group of teens/young adults, lead by Jon (played by director Jon McBride), who head out to the forest for a weekend of, as you could probably guess, camping. Unfortunately for Jon and his pals, the Redstone area where they’re going to set up camp has recently been the scene of some horrible crimes wherein random people have been eaten by a tribe of cannibals that live in and around the area. This doesn’t stop them, however and soon a family of flesh eating lunatics are chasing them around the woods trying to make a meal out of them. 

Dumb and completely predictable, Cannibal Campout is full of clichés and is about as suspenseful as taking a dump but, just like taking a good dump, it’s somehow rather satisfying even if it is a little messy. First and foremost, what this movie has working in its favor are two key ingredients that a lot of indy cheapies somehow miss out on – genuine enthusiasm and completely wanton gore. These two factors make for good bedfellows and they completely carry the movie (which is important because the acting sure can’t do that). As far as the pacing goes, things are pretty decent here in that the movie doesn’t take long to get going nor does it overstay its welcome. Stuff happens and it happens quickly, which is probably a good thing as it doesn’t give us too much time to concentrate on just how poorly done much of the movie really is.

The audio is on par with the video, in terms of quality, in that it’s far from perfect but it’s acceptable enough when you take into account the low budget nature of the production. Dialogue is always clear and the score and effects don’t sound half bad. Don’t expect any alternate language dubs, subtitles or surround mixes here, all we get is the plain vanilla mono track, but it does the trick even if it’s rather unremarkable.

There are really two main extra features on this release, the first of which is a commentary track with co-director Jon McBride. Though the film was made awhile ago, McBride's memories of the movie are pretty sharp even if he tends to meander a bit with his talk and lapse into moments of silence. He talks about the locations where the movie was made, and he covers some of the gore effects used in the picture as well as going into a fair bit of detail about how the cast was assembled - it's a good, generalized talk about how the picture came together.

The second substantial extra feature is a lengthy thirty-three and a half minute making of documentary that features interviews with pretty much all the people who were involved in making this fine film including McBride, Gene Robbins, Amy Chludzinski, Richard Marcus, Christopher Granger, and others. They cover the casting, how the movie was made over a few months on the weekends with a camcorder and how the project came together. It's a reasonably interesting look at how this low budget movie was made with some nifty behind the scenes pictures and some good stories about the music, the performances and who did what on the picture.

Rounding out the extras on the disc are a trailer for the feature, trailers for a few other Camp Motion Pictures titles, three and a half minutes of uninteresting deleted footage that feels pretty much like padding, a still gallery, and an exceptionally hokey music video. Inside the keepcase are some liner notes from Jon McBride who explains that this remains the film he’s best known for, even if he’s not all that sure why that is the case.

Want more info? Hit up the Camp Motion Pictures website here!