The Monster of Camp Sunshine or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nature (1964) User Reviews

Great black and white photography in a movie that is a good little film until the monster shows up

[dbborroughs · 4/10 · 20 January 2008]

This movie is one of those movies that should have been better. The basic plot has two room mates going off to a nudist camp for the weekends. One is a nurse at a research lab where an accident produces a nasty mix of chemicals that turns rats mean. The creator knowing its a bad thing, but through a series of contrivances the stuff ends up in a stream by the camp where it turns the caretaker in to an ax wielding maniac. The film turns surreal as a stock footage army arrives to kill the monster and it ends with everyone getting naked and wandering off to live happily ever after.

The pacing of this film is really slow. Had it not been, and had it not turned stupid once the monster appears this could have been a good nudist thriller. The people are mostly real and the plotting isn't that bad, its just the sort of thing that they tried to... I don't know what and messed it all up.

I do have to say that the photography and in the New York City scenes in particular is glorious black and white. This is a wonderful record of the city circa 1964. There is a sequence involving a photo shoot on a rooftop that is stunning and I'm tempted to print out one of the frames when and if I get a DVD ROM in my computer.

weird experimental sexploitation

[SnoopyStyle · 3/10 · 1 August 2021]

Camp Sunshine is a nudist spot. A group of models are planning to vacation there. Unbeknownst to them, there is a monster lurking there which was created when the groundskeeper drinks water contaminated by a scientist's experiment.

First this is a sexploitation. At the beginning, the movie promises nudity and it delivers. Second, it's bad. The acting is bad. The production is poor. The mishmash of ideas is wrong-headed. Third, it's a monster movie but it's poorly executed. It's almost made as a parody or camp. The monster looks bad. Lastly, it tries to be a comedy. From the silent picture motif to the title to some bizarre scenes, this tries to be funny. Of course, non of it is actually funny but it is easy to make fun of it. Here's the deal. This is a bad movie but it is still interesting at times. There is one nice picturesque scene with the Empire State Building in the background. This is bad but I've seen worst.

In a word...WOW!

[lustron1 · 20 January 2004]

I thought this would be just another nudie-cutie with a lot of stock footage to fill in between the nude scenes...I was wrong. This film, at times, looks as if it were a film directed by Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, Brian DePalma, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Russ Meyer and Guy Maddin. I know this sounds crazy, but just watch it and you'll see what I mean.

Incredibly stupid plot, beautifully done. The black and white cinematography is great considering the total lack of funds to make a "Hollywood" film.

Bad, even by this sub-genre's low standards

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 6 February 2017]

There's nothing wrong, per se, with mixing the nudist film with another genre, for example the horror or science fiction picture. The result can be sometimes endearing - check out the oddity HOUSE ON BARE MOUNTAIN, for example, which was hardly great but surprisingly memorable at times, or the similar NUDE ON THE MOON. Sadly, THE MONSTER OF CAMP SUNSHINE promises plenty but delivers very little thanks to the absolutely pitiful writing and production values.

The film is about a couple of friends who decide to go to a nudist camp for a break, only to discover that a hideous mutant man is terrorising the locals after drinking some toxic substance from the local river. The back story to the dumping of this sludge is quite ridiculous and long-winded to boot; nothing really happens until towards the end of this picture. The monster attacks are limited close-ups of a guy wearing tacky make-up and there's some stock army footage thrown in in a bid to make us think that something's going on.

There's a fair bit of nudity around the middle of the picture including a couple of lengthy, padded moments of women undressing. Otherwise the nude scenes are shot from afar and give the impression that the cameraman was hiding in the bushes and filming away. Needless to say the acting is very bad as are the production values, with the shadow of the cameraman repeatedly interrupting the proceedings. Only bad film connoisseurs will find favour with this one.

Nudists, contaminated rats, stock footage, plus a whole buncha dummies...

[selfdestructo · 2/10 · 5 March 2023]

A "nurse," who dresses up as a nurse, goes to her job at a hospital, and... gives water to lab rats(?), is a nudist, and tries to coax her model roommate (who's a chain smoker, which is real appealing) into the nudist lifestyle. After a bout with bad vibes, a broken mirror, and rats being gently tossed in her direction after they're exposed to some toxic chemical, they both head out to "Camp Sunshine," a nudist retreat.

Oh boy. I did learn one thing from this movie. Nudists are really boring, and when they TALK about the lifestyle, it makes you want to pull your hair out. So, there's plenty of T&A to be found here (along with a bunch of convenient obstructions when it comes to privates), but man oh man, it is done purely in the name of leisure.

Yeah, what is done of the malicious chemical? A really dumb doctor crosses about 8 lanes of NYC traffic, and hurls the jar into the Hudson. Then a really dumb fisherman who fishes for trash, collects it, puts it in a bucket, and teeters it on his open tailgate throughout the countryside. As if that wasn't enough, he goes fishing again, teeters the jar on the edge of a bridge, and, well, you get it. So the owner of Camp Sunshine's really dumb brother (actually, he's "slow") who gardens there, drinks the dirty stream water. And there you have the titular (and nearly harmless, though he carries an axe) "Monster."

The model agrees to "loosen up" and go topless, and once her sleazy cameraman learns she and her roommate are nudists, immediately leeches onto them. Only they drive out to Camp Sunshine to find it deserted, but that doesn't stop anyone from stripping (and breaking out an autoharp). They unknowingly let the gardner loose, and he wanders around, steps in a bear trap.

The owner shows up, explains what happened, and discovers an open door. Do they leave? No, they have a topless birthday party. So the monster grazes one of the girls with his axe, the doctor back home parachutes in with the antidote, an assortment of war movie public domain footage, all filmed at night, appears, and the photographer breaks out a whole arsenal of weapons he had on hand! All the while, the ladies run around aimlessly, topless, urging the cavalry and civil war reenactors to stop shooting! Was this supposed to be a comedy? I have to assume the entire final act was a joke, it is so far OTT. What does everyone do after they discover the hapless monster was blown to bits? I'll let you guess.

I knew I was in trouble during the opening credits, where it's made abundantly clear, no one wants their name associated with this turkey. Even the guy who did titles had a pseudonym!

It's noted at the bottom of this page that the people behind this movie did it as a lark. That would explain the goofiness, but it's no excuse for bad moviemaking.

Titalating naked romp.

[michaelRokeefe · 2/10 · 21 December 2008]

Welcome to Camp Sunshine where the nudist come to play and enjoy what they can get out of the sun. Bouncing boobs and bouncing buns...leap frog ,wrestling and other friendly games that you can play naked. Nubile nudes all shapes and sizes soaking up the sun. An accidental toxic spill infiltrates Camp Sunshine(filmed in New York City)where an intelligence challenged gardener drinks it and becomes a m-m-monster that causes concern for lightly clad , fully nude and clothed a-like. Evocative of mid-sixties American Drive-In Theater exploitation flicks. Showing their wares: Deborah Spray. Sally Parfait, Natalie Drest, Ron Cheney, James Gatsby and Angela Evans.

Insiped and boring

[movieman_kev · 1/10 · 12 March 2005]

A nurse and fashion model, sharing an apartment, rail against lab testing on mice, like the air headed bimbos they are. After the rats attach the nurse, they take a trip to a nudist camp (the women, not the rats), only to be terrorized by a fat retarded janitor. Unlike the better "Best that Killed Women", this one is totally inept and taking forever for ANYthing to happen, a true chore to sit through. One good note neither the Director, nor the cast made ANYthing EVER again. So at least there's some kind of happy ending to be had after all.

My Grade: F

DVD Extras: On a double-Bill with "The Beast that Killed Women"; 9 Shorts ( Bring 'em back nude, Expose of the Nudist Racket, Nude Ranch, Beauty and the Beast, Back to Nature, Nudist Fashion show, and 3 intermissions) ; Gallery of Exploitation art; Vintage Drive-in intermission; Trailers for "The Beast that Killed Women", "Eves on Skis", "Goldilocks and the Three Bares", "Nudes on Tiger Reef", "Nudist Life", and "Pussycat Paradise"

Easter Egg: Highlight Jesse James Drive-In for a bonus Trailer for "Girls Come Too"

Eye Candy: It's mostly set at a nudist camp..duh, so loads of breasts and buns, only bushes are trees tho

Monster of Camp Sunshine

[Scarecrow-88 · 1/10 · 17 April 2012]

Laborious nutie cutie with false advertising claiming this is a creature feature. Its appearance as a comic satire using Dr. Strangelove as a model fails miserably because talent has to be involved in order to pull it off. Even opening credits similar to Monty Python using clipped items from magazines and newspapers as comic devices do nothing to tickle the funnybone. What you have is a basic 15 minute short padded unmercifully to over 60+ minutes. It looks like the film was shot mostly without sound, dubbed voices added to the characters later. Two New York City women, one a model, the other a nurse, decide to spend a couple weekends at Camp Sunshine, a nudist camp for the uninhibited. A half-wit brother of a friend of the nurse's drinks from a creek carrying chemicals released from a jar tossed in the ocean by a scientist whose experiments on animals turned them into rabid creatures. The half-wit's deranged behavior is responsible for the closure of the camp but the two New York City ladies aren't aware, travel to Camp Sunshine, and face the danger of being axed to death when the wacko breaks free from his chains. The military is called in (footage from a D-Day type war scenario is spliced in poorly for supposed humorous effects), plus one of the male members who joined the nurse and model, in undies, hurls grenades and fires a pistol at the human beast, showing he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Basically, the "Monster at Camp Sunshine" is about the boring lives of two women in the big city and the mundane activities of people at a nudist camp. Skip it if you are against being bored into unconsciousness. Sometimes narrated by the model character of the film, with title cards you would see in a silent film trying to add laughs that never come.

Artistic genius

[enzocons · 7/10 · 9 July 2021]

This qualifies as "so bad, its good". The 1960s doco sound track, the strategically placed items of girl and boy bits ... so seminal, Blake Edwards must have been influenced by it for A Shot in the Dark!

Hilarious... 75 minutes well spent.

Very surprising movie!

[Mario77 · 10/10 · 8 October 2001]

I bought this film as a double feature dvd and thought it would be good for a few laughs. I put it on while friends were over ( thinking we would skip through it) and we were amazed by the clever opening credits that looked kind of like something from Terry Gilliam. The opening scene is quite surreal. It opens in a cool New York apartment shared by 2 60's swingers. One of them a Nurse and the other a fashion model who also serves as our narrator. They are in bunk beds smoking and using the coolest hanging ashtrays you'll ever see. The model tells of the dangerous fates they did not know that were ahead of them and the music in the scene is dark and creepy and amazingly playing on the models record player. The nurse asks the model to change the record, and she puts on some kind of marching music. I cannot give this scene justice, you must see it for yourself. What really surprised us was the ending. The Battle for Camp Sunshine is a true epic on film making.The epic military scenes and touching ending make this a classic horror-nudist-war movie almost anyone could enjoy. The nudity could hardly offend anyone, there is very little of it. The look of the actors and the excellent cinematography make this great viewing if you are in the mood for something like this. And you must be if you are reading this comment. I say go see it!

Judging it for what it is

[Bullitt33 · 6/10 · 12 September 2023]

Vinegar Syndrome had a great overstock sale during the recent Labor Day weekend. If you don't know who they are, definitely check out their website.

This was one of several items I picked up during that sale. Mostly based upon the intriguing bluray slipcase art. (The movie and it's double-feature counterpart on the disk, HONEYMOON OF TERROR, are both available streaming on Tubi at the moment.) The bluray and streaming versions have very good remastered picture quality, all things considered.

There's not too much to the plot here. One blonde female nudist (Sally Parfait) convinces her room mate to give the practice a try and go with her to Camp Sunshine for the weekend. The blonde female's day job is as a tech involved in lab animal testing. She has an accident in the lab and the doctor irresponsibly disposes the waste in a river. Somehow it makes it's way down to the Camp Sunshine simpleton groundskeeper. Antics ensure.

The part of the title "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nature" refers to a bit involving some paramilitary responders who are more akin to Classic Doctor Who's Unit. While this is supposed to allude to Kubrick's 'Dr. Strangelove', it's more similar to Kubrick's first experimental film 'Fear and Desire'. When they incorporated stock WW2 soldier footage, LOL. The movie tends to linger and dodder a bit with wistfully edited long takes, especially during Camp Sunshine frolicking nude scenes. Reminds me ab it of 'The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film', an early Oscar nominated short film by 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Superman II' director Richard Lester. Funny enough RJ&SSF was co-directed by Peter Sellers for another Strangelove connection.

If you can handle a basic 60s Sexploitation film, you can handle this. Otherwise steer clear.

Sidenote: The brunette room mate who played a model in the movie (Deborah Spray) was 60s girl-next-door hot.

Exciting Filum!

[selyf · 10/10 · 26 August 2001]

Camp Sunshine shirley was the place to be back in 1964....until the monster arrives, that is. I thought the director captured the difficulty in killing some monsters quite accurately. Well worth the climactic ending.

In turns, unbearably dull and surprisingly hilarious

[Mr. Pulse · 14 October 2002]

I'm a big fan of naked women, but even I don't need this much

nudity. THE MONSTER OF CAMP SUNSHINE takes place in a

nudist camp and, almost exclusively, involves nudists (who we are

informed in a pre-credits card, are not monsters) who are

terrorized by a dopey guy who has drank some nasty lake water

and turned into a threatening dopey guy.

Most of MONSTER is very dull, directed without any sense of

pacing or style. Obviously, people at a drive-in in 1964 didn't care

about that, they were excited to see the nudists. They certainly get

what they paid for, with lots and lots of women disrobing and

strolling around the idyllic Camp Sunshine. This was probably a

gas at some point, but now it's very tame, and eventually one gets

tired of it. Too much of a good thing takes all the fun out of it.

There are some highlights for bad movie fans. A unknowing

nurse is pushed out of an office window...by some crazed killer

mice. They even go so far to have guys throwing mice at the poor

woman from off camera. Then, after the monstrous Hugo has

fallen under the spell of that contaminated water (it also got to

those mice), MONSTER looses all semblance of reality and

becomes a bizarre montage of naked bodies, and stock footage of

various armies and military explosions. There's so much of it, you

might think that the editor accidentally forgot what movie he was

cutting. Then, when the craziness dies down (and there certainly

is a lot of it), the nudists get back to doing what they do best. This

includes the one of them who just lost a brother, and another who

is a doctor (He takes off his white jacket to reveal nothing

underneath).

MONSTER OF CAMP SUNSHINE is a very bad movie, but it rarely

offers the sort of z-grade thrills you'd hope to see in something of

this caliber. If you fast forward a whole lot, you might be able to

enjoy it.

Amiably goofy nudie cutie romp

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 15 August 2014]

Obese gardener Hugo (tubby Harrison Pebbles, who looks like an unhinged Moe Howard) drinks from a stream that's been contaminated with a mysterious chemical which makes him go dangerously wacko. The axe-wielding Hugo proceeds to terrorize a nudist camp in upstate New Yrok. Yep, that's basically it for the slight'n'silly plot, but what this sublimely ridiculous affair lacks in substance it more than compensates for in sheer inanity and absurdity. For starters, writer/director Ferenc Leroget pokes merry fun at silent movies of yore complete with title cards and jaunty music which keeps things bubbling along. Moreover, the dialogue was obviously dubbed in post-production; this only heightens the overall surreal vibe given off by this picture. Lastly, the hysterical climax with the police and the army attacking Hugo makes generous use of blatant World War II D-Day stock footage. The sharp black and white cinematography rates as another plus. Of course, we also get a bevy of nice-looking ladies parading about in their birthday suits: Fetching slim brunette Deborah Spray and slender blonde fox Sally Parfait in particular are most delectable sights to behold wearing nothing but their smiles. Good dippy fun.