Come to Daddy Paranormal Antiquity CAMP COLD BROOK
Starring Chad Michael Murray, Danielle Harris and Courtney Gains Directed by Andy Palmer Written by Alex Carl Shout! Studios
When South Korea’s Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum became a sleeper hit in 2018, it showed that there were still a few frights to be found in the ol’ young-people-explore-a- creepy-locale-for-fame- and-fortune set-up. A Blair Witch Project for the digital age, Gonjiam en- gaged with current trends and embraced new tech- nology to breathe new life into worn-out tropes. In contrast, the Joe Dan- te-produced Camp Cold Brook is all analog: a dead-on-arrival paranor-
mal investigation joint that’s stuck on rewind. Jack Wilson (Chad Michael Murray) finds himself in a jam when his ghost-hunting reality series Haunt Squad is marked for cancellation. In a bid for ratings, he and his production team (played by Danielle Harris, Michael Eric Reid,
Candice De Visser) head to the titular Oklahoma summer camp, where the mysterious drowning deaths of a large number of preteens still haunt the locals. More used to the fabricated reality of television than true-blue paranormal activity, the Haunt Squad tries to keep their wits about them as they want to escape the grounds with enough footage to save their show… and their lives. Alex Carl’s screenplay is a pick ’n’ mix of hoary genre ele- ments, leaving Camp Cold Brook stranded somewhere between camp slasher, found footage, and ghost story. Director Andy Palmer (2015’s The Funhouse Massacre) stages it all with such basement-level enthusiasm that viewers may find their minds wandering to more tantalizing enigmas than those at hand: Why doesn’t Wilson just pack it in and take his show to YouTube? Why
is the script taking pot-shots at reality TV and shaky cam like it’s still 2008? What exactly do the filmmakers have against Dame Helen Mir- ren? All these questions are more compelling than the CCTV terrors that Palmer is shilling well past their sell-by date. Leave Camp Cold Brook to Robert Stack, because this is a mystery better left unsolved.
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R M 36 CINEMACABRE Gall in the Family COME TO DADDY
Starring Elijah Wood, Stephen McHattie and Martin Donovan Directed by Ant Timpson Written by Toby Harvard Saban Films
Come to Daddy is the directo- rial debut of New Zealand-based genre producer Ant Timpson, reuniting with his The Greasy Strangler co-scripter Toby Har- vard. The Timpson production it most strongly recalls, however, is Gerard Johnstone’s still severely underappreciated Housebound, in the way it weds whiplash surprises to a core of humanity that keeps you engaged with its people even as they’re visiting serious physical
harm on each other.
For the first act, the abuse is all emotional as Norval Greenwood (Elijah Wood with a truly weird haircut) journeys to the remote lakeside house of his father Gordon (Stephen McHattie), who abandoned him and his mother when Norval was five years old. Although he has grown up a child of privilege in Beverly Hills, Norval clearly has issues: he’s still living at home with his mom
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