Here’s a twist and a twist and a twist … that’s what in store for genre fans on July 9 as director L. Van Dyke Siboutszen’s 2022 Screamfest LA terror flick, Deer Camp ’86, makes the transition from its May 31, 2024 limited theatrical run to the DVD and Blu-ray marketplace courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment.
For the record, the ARR is 39 days and the box office take from the film’s very limited run stands at $58,449.
Filmed in and around the Grand Rapids, Michigan area, this indie horror entry is both traditional — victim pool, haunted house thriller and maniacal killer — and offbeat; different.
First the traditional “horror” elements, we have a victim pool featuring six Detroit buddies who think it’s a wonderful idea to go deer hunting one weekend in the remote woods.
It’s the start of deer season and the year is 1986. Drinking beer, pissing in the woods, shooting guns and maybe bagging a buck is the plan.
Included in the victim pool are: Wes (Noah LaLonde — as Cole in the My Life with the Walter Boys Netflix series), Egbert “EP” (David Lautman — The Sunday Night Slaughter, Consumption, As Real as You Make It), Simon (Arthur Cartwright — Do You Believe?, God Bless the Broken Road) and Buck (Jay J. Bidwell).
Then there’s the remote cabin in the woods (haunted house, abandoned building, insane asylum … they are all interchangeable). And finally, a crazed killer that picks off the various members of the “victim pool” in gruesome ways.
As for the offbeat, the “boys” decide to stop of at Murphy’s, a local watering hole, where Wes flirts with the “Native American” bartender, Star (Tina Manera — She’s Just Making It Up, The Secret Children), and the Detroit contingent gets into a scuffle with the locals.
And then comes the first twist. Star is murdered in the alley behind the bar.
Without giving too much away — certainly not the other twists — we learn, via the local law official, Sheriff Paulson (played by Paul Wilson — The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Big Stone Gap), that there have been a series of unsolved “Native American” women murders in the area over the years, which is always followed by groups of hunters being slaughtered … which Sheriff Paulson chalks up to marauding bear attacks (sure).
So who lives (no final girl here)? Who dies? Who did it? To find out all the answers be sure to check either the DVD or Blu-ray editions of Deer Camp ’86 from Mill Creek Entertainment on July 9.
