Gorp (1980) User Reviews

M-5 Tank in GORP

[jimwelty60 · 5/10 · 6 June 2007]

I owned and drove the M-5 Stuart tank in the movie GORP. (actually written in all capitol letters). There were lots of interesting stories I recall from the filming but the one that stands out in my mind was when I drove thru the house. (a prop built for the movie)

We were to receive a radio message as when to stop----but it never came ! I could see nothing out the vision port and finally decided to slap on the brakes and stop. Had I continued one more foot I would have crushed one of the stunt people that was to have jumped out the window but didn't. Amazingly the big concern was that I came within inches of one of the very expensive Panavision cameras. The "Movie people" said they could always get another stunt girl but cameras were expensive.

All in all I was treated great by all the "movie people" and I left with many good stories----several best left untold.

Camp movie CRAP

[icreeem · 4/10 · 22 April 2010]

It's a good thing I was only 16 the summer this came out. Me and my buddies, all of us the same age, got such a kick out of this Animal House ripoff only because we were as horny and mischievous as the characters. It's interesting to see the subsequent accomplishments of some of the stars. I don't think I'd waste much time watching it again, even to reminisce. It is exactly what it was, a teen-target capitalizing on our adolescent urges: plenty of girl-spying and bragging about what you want your buddies to think you've done. I remember being excited that school was letting out soon for the summer, so we were all planning our own GORP adventure, which of course never happened (but told everyone it did). Fun, but absolute crap.

So bad t hat it is almost good.

[jeremy3 · 5/10 · 27 April 2011]

While one could hardly rank this movie as more than a summer fun movie, it does have a certain appeal to it. It is almost Lord Of The Flies meets Rebel Without A Cause meets Meatballs. The movie is so frenetic, representing adolescence unbound. I think that a psychologist might find this interesting. While it appears that raging hormones are really about sex, it is more that the adolescents are challenging adults to show that they are able to be independent.

The adults in the camp are a collection of odd balls, including a guy who sneezes in salads, and a chef who wields a huge cutting knife. The kids are completely haywire. The head of the camp is a hapless, older man, who doesn't know how to establish authority. The kids say "yes, sir", but no one really believes nor respects him. The wealthy adult who takes the teens out drinking is their friend until he reveals that money is the most important thing in the World. Then, no one respects him anymore.

There was a scene where a couple are introduced to a Hispanic kid who is dating their son. The snobbery and ethnocentrism is evident. Yet, with the kids their is an equality. Even Dennis Quaid, who appears to be the clean cut, army kid, really is on par with the nerds of the camp. He and they are pals in a war against authority. They view the war against the adults a bit like a WWII movie.

I think this is an interesting movie just because the energy of the teenage campers is boundless. It is exhausting. This movie releases all their energy, and shows like William Golding's novel what happens when youth runs wild. That, in itself, makes this movie at least a curiosity.

Summer Camp Madness

[gjung01 · 31 July 2002]

"GORP" is what it is. It came out at a time when movies that were capitalizing on the success of "Animal House" came out just like "Halloween" inspired plenty of successors in the slasher genre. The Party Animal, Teenage Sex comedy has another addition with this film that takes place in a Jewish summer camp that includes food fights, pranks played on nemises and the obligatory panty raids.

The film does have a certain atmosphere and the 2 lead protagonists are neither likeable nor interesting. They seem to get angry and shout all the time for no particular reason. It is also not clear if this film is supposed to take place in the '60s or in 1979-1980 when this film came out. Much of the film is carried by the madcap supporting characters including a younger Fran Drescher as a no apologies CIT who likes to chew and spit out men and Dennis Quaid in a rare turn as the gun obsessed "Mad Grossman." I have to say that it was interesting to see Quaid play a weirdo and it would be neat to see him play more roles like this now against his current leading man type.

The film doesn't have a real plot and is merely a bunch of unconnected scenes stuck together. "Animal House" had a coherent plot with developed characters that added a lot to the film. "Meatballs" also seemed to be more effective having a madcap counselor played by Bill Murray who also was likeable despite his delinquency. GORP meanders and even some of the pranks seem unjustified and mean spirited. I found myself wondering where the film was and where it was going and then it just eventually ended.

This is a rare film that seems to have disappeared from video distribution and has not seen a DVD release at this date. It's nothing special but it is a good example of the type of films that came out in the late '70s and early '80s in this genre and if nothing else interesting to see the earlier work of Dennis Quaid, Fran Drescher and Roseanna Arquette.

I got Gorped

[anakrid · 1/10 · 6 April 2021]

Picked this up on DVD after seeing an interesting trailer for it on a compilation. I wanted to like this. I really did. It seems like the writers had a lot of ideas and tried to throw them all into the mix. This means that no time is spent with any of the characters really. None of the characters are really likeable or relatable, save for maybe Fran Drescher's character -- but maybe that's just because I LIKE Fran Drescher. But there are all these minor side characters that we'll get a scene or two with and they are gags that ALL fall flat. I'm sure the makers of GORP thought they were loading the movie to the brim with hilarious set-pieces and gags, but none of them really work and the whole thing is an incoherent mess. I don't know if they were just trying to out-ANIMAL HOUSE ANIMAL HOUSE or what, but the writing wasn't strong enough to touch that one. And as others have pointed out, this movie is pretty rapey -- which is kind of in line with 80s teen sex comedies, but this one feels extra gross. And I'm no prude when it comes to this sort of material when taken in context... but some of the content here was stomach-turning and played for laughs that never connected. This gets an extra half star for Fran Drescher.

Terrible Meatballs ripoff...one of the worst movies I've ever suffered through

[imdbigdaddy · 1/10 · 11 September 2009]

If Meatballs had been written by a coked-up, mentally-challenged Jew, it might resemble something like GORP. What GORP stands for, I have no idea. Greatly Odiferous Retarded Premise? It might've been mentioned in the movie, but I was so annoyed by the lack of good comedy writing, the bad Vinnie Babarino accents and the absence of anything remotely resembling a plot that I might've missed it.

I thought at the least I might get to see some Fran Drescher nipps or a young Patricia Arquette burn up the screen. Wrong wrong wrong. The scenes of Fran "doing it" with camp counselers fully clothed resembled two people having a simultaneous seizer on the ground. I couldn't even tell which characters were even camp counselers, there were no scenes of them doing ANYTHING remotely camp related. You just want to punch every character in this movie in the face, hard. There are no peaks or valleys, no character development at all, it's just non-stop cracked out stupidity from the very start, and not even funny stupidity at that. I have to wonder how the writer of this movie even got his foot in the door, and I'd be surprised if he ever worked again.

Even treating it like an X-rated movie and fast-forwarding to the few scenes with Fran and the one or two scenes with Arquette didn't make it any more bearable. 40 minutes of my life I'll never get back. Comcast On-Demand freebies have really hit rock bottom. I'm canceling my cable.

I can't say what's worse...the fact that this movie was made, or the fact that so many reviewers here actually think it was good.

Terrible

[zetes · 3/10 · 21 August 2011]

'80s camp comedy in the vein of Meatballs. I haven't seen Meatballs since I was a kid, but I have to imagine it's quite a bit better than this dud. There are a handful of young actors who would go on to be pretty big (notably Dennis Quaid, Fran Drescher and Rosanna Arquette), but that's about the only reason to watch. It's comprised of a bunch of semi-related sketches. There are several lazy plot lines, only like one of which gets resolved by the end. The main characters, played by Michael Lambeck and Philip Casnoff, are awful, loudmouth, Italian stereotypes, and you just want to smack them in the face in every scene. Really, all the males in the movie are pigs and borderline rapists. There are some very pretty girls in the film (yes, even Fran Drescher was quite hot when she was in her early 20s), but they hardly figure in it. It's all about the boys acting obnoxiously. Of the future stars, Dennis Quaid has the biggest role as a guy obsessed with guns, explosives and fireworks. He's damn annoying, too, although at least he has a bit of charisma, unlike Lambeck and Casnoff.

This movie has no idea what it's doing

[jakerchief · 2/10 · 15 July 2021]

This is one of those movies that just strings a bunch of random scenes together in hopes they have something to mash together and fart out at the box office. It was on par with You Can't Do That On Television but without the jokes. I highly doubt there was much of a script and more of a notebook with some general ideas.

Avoid this movie unless you want to see some young famous actors in their worst movie ever.

Unsung Hero of Comedy

[joeynlaw · 10/10 · 4 March 2005]

Although this movie never hit it big, it is nevertheless one of the best all-time comedies. When I think back to watching this movie as a kid, I still crack-up thinking back to Whino-Willy sneezing into the salad bowl as he mixes its contents with his disgusting feet, the dropping of a bottle of speed into the pot of pudding on visiting day, a young Dennis Quaid's character throwing his knife, and the preacher's rants. This is one movie that still makes me laugh when I think back to the zillion times I watched it as a kid. This movie likewise casts future stars at the infancy of their careers, including Fran Drescher, Dennis Quaid and Roseanne Arquette. If you like comedies from the 1980's, you'll love "Gorp."

Gorp - One of my favs when I am in the mood for silliness

[Rennaman · 7/10 · 29 December 2005]

Gorp is one of those movies that is just plain silly fun. It also offers viewers the chance to enjoy some of the now established talent in their younger years. Fran Dresher, Rosanna Arquette, and several others are seen in their sophomore years.

The interplay of the waiters vs. the establishment, with the wild kitchen crew adding spice to the concoction engages the viewer and provides release from reality.

Yes, it suffers from numerous technical gliches, but as a second feature to an evening of dinner and a movie (say, beginning with Meatballs and following with Gorp) you won't go wrong.

I say view it a couple of times and look for the many little things that make it fun. Remember, not everything has to have redeeming social value. If you want depth, go screen Citizen Kane.

Where's "Jason" when you need him?

[lazarillo · 26 August 2009]

I never went to camp as a kid, but I still have an affection for a lot of these "summer camp movies" of the late 70's/early 80's. This one, however, is pretty worthless. It's not funny like "Meatballs". It's not politically incorrect like "Little Darlings". It's not nudity and sex-saturated like "Summer Camp" and "The First Turn-On". And unlike "Friday the 13th", "The Burning", and "Sleepaway Camp", it doesn't even have Jason or somebody like that around to kill off these unfunny and irritating characters and put them out of my misery. The only innovative aspect to it is that it's supposedly set at a Jewish summer camp (even though half the cast is obviously not Jewish).

The director Joseph Ruben generally had an impressive exploitation career aside from this, directing everything from "The Pom-Pom Girls" to "The Stepfather", and he later found some mainstream success in the 1990's. This is probably his worst movie though (OK, "Sleeping with the Enemy" might have been worse, but THAT had Julia Roberts in it). As for the cast, this does include early career missteps by such notables by Dennis Quaid, Roseanne Arquette, and Fran Drescher (although the latter's entire career was pretty much a misstep). Quaid, like all the male characters here, is flat-out annoying as a military-obsessed weirdo. Roseanne Arquette is very cute and adorable in her first role, but she has virtually screen time. Drescher meanwhile, while she has never been unattractive and is not nearly as annoying here as she would become some years later, plays the camp nympho who "does" everybody (including a rabbi!) without actually ever taking off her clothes. I would have vastly preferred this role had gone to some anonymous bimbo who was willing to disrobe. And speaking of bimbos, Debi frickin' Richter is also in the cast. She was "Miss California 1975" and had one of the best bodies around back then (see her in the movie "Hot Moves"), but you get to see exactly none of it here.

I almost never COMPLETELY pan movies because I almost never watch movies in the first place if I have any inkling that they're going to COMPLETELY suck. I was fooled by this one though. Don't make the same mistake. See any of the movies I mentioned above (well, except maybe "Sleeping with the Enemy") instead.

Makes me miss the '80s

[shadley · 10/10 · 24 May 2000]

Oh, to go back when movies like this were put out on a regular basis... As a big fan of early '80s comedies, this one ranks among my all-time favorites. Horny summer camp employees, trying to score with the female counselors, while competing with other staff in "the great war", and at the same time trying to stay out of trouble with the boss... What more do you need in a movie? Something to make you think??? Forget it!!! This one's all about fun & cheap laughs (my favorite kind).

Glop!

[Wizard-8 · 8 November 2009]

Imagine someone right next to you jumping up and down while screaming non-stop into your ear, with plenty of vulgar words peppered in his speech, and you will have an idea of what it's like to watch GORP. You might think that with all that energy put forward there would at least be a few laughs, but think again - there's not one laugh here! There isn't even a jovial spirit on display, just a feeling of mean-spiritedness and even pure rage. Not only that, its sense of "humor" is downright offensive at times. The only bit of interest it offers is a display of yet-to-be-famous talent. (P.S. - For some reason, my original post of these comments was taken down since someone thought it was "abuse". It's not abuse - I'm simply telling it like it is.)

Sophomoric, crude, and funny as hell! B+

[HossM · 8/10 · 22 May 1999]

Story about boys in a Jewish summer camp trying to get laid. Saw this film in the eighties on HBO and laughed my ass off!

Total waste of celluloid

[ZR RIFLE · 28 March 2016]

I remember seeing this when it first came out in 1980 when I was around 16. It was torture sitting through the whole movie (even as a teen), and couldn't believe how bad this was and why a studio would waste so much time and money into total garbage as this. The only memories I have of the film are a young Dennis Quaid dressed as a GI driving some tank, exploding poop, and 1st grade humor from beginning to end (a precursor of today's comedy, perhaps?). Just saw it's available on DVD and blu-ray(!) on Amazon. Hard to believe they'd put this on disc when there are so many other films much more worthy. But again, much of today's comedy is pretty much on this level, so I can understand. $$ for the studio.

Greatest comedy you never saw :)

[jedivideomike · 9/10 · 24 January 2020]

Best Summer camp movie ever- Meatballs blows, Gorp Rules! FREEDOM- HIJINKS! Prepare to laugh till it hurts! An amazing cast, it is exactly whats its meant to be- hilariously offensive! Just like South Park does, i recommend anyone who is a weenie avoid this, but if you love to laugh, Roku it! This movie is rated "O" for ONLY for cool people!

Mildly Amusing Ripoff

[mike3316 · 21 June 2012]

Saw this movies years ago. It is a mildly amusing rip-off of Meatballs or an Animal House Goes to Jewish Summercamp. The story revolves around the camp waiters (who seem to outnumber the campers) and their conflicts with camp management, campers, and each other. It a typical formulaic summer camp hi-jinx flick but fails to deliver more often than not. There's no plot to speak of, just loosely connected scenes of manic shenanigans. For example - two female counselors try to win a bet by seducing the camp Rabbi while two of the male counselors try to sedate and rape the fat nurse (although the matter is never characterized in such severe terminology). Overall it is a bad movie with passing mildly amusing moments.

BTW ... bcadle1 - how could the chicks in the park during filming be looking for Matt Damon when he: 1) was only 10 yrs old in 1980 and 2) wouldn't be in his first movie for another eight years? Just curious.

Filming at Alexander Stephens State Park

[bcadle1 · 4 July 2009]

I was camping with my parents at Alexander Stephens State Park in Crawfordville, GA while GORP was being filmed within the state park. I was about 17 years old at the time. The film crew was way back in the woods far away from anything and we tried to go down a dirt road to watch the filming, but we were stopped by security and had to turn back. I remember some local teen girls asking me in their Southern accents if I was in the movie. I had to disappoint them and told them the truth, I was just there camping with my parents. They said they were looking for Matt Damon! Other movies such as "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Summer of My German Soldier" were also filmed in Crawfordville. I have never seen the movie GORP.