What's New

A group of teens on a weekend camping trip find that the forest can be a terrifying place when night falls and they are forced to fight for their lives. It was supposed to be a relaxing getaway, but the supernatural terror takes hold when a stranger shows up warning that a murderous ghost stalks the woods at night. Unable to receive a signal on their cell phones and rendered hopelessly stranded after their tires are slashed, the frightened campers are about to find out just how deadly the wilderness can really be. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Four campers venture into the wilderness for a relaxing hike, unaware that a deranged mountain man is slaughtering whoever crosses his path. While they tell ghost stories around the campfire and romp in the rolling streams, a number of unfortunate nature lovers are dispatched by the maniac; an ornithologist, a fisherman, a pair of newlyweds, a photographer and even a handicapped man struggling through the woods in his wheelchair. When the killer finally encounters the quartet of youths, he murders Craig (James P. Hayden), the only one with experience in the outdoors. The rest are forced to scatter, hopelessly lost in the forest. Peter (Nick McClelland) and Ingrid (Mary Gail Artz) manage to make it to the safety of a nearby town, and the authorities form a posse to seek out the mysterious murderer. But Peter is overcome with guilt by leaving Joanie (Angie Brown) behind, and he returns to the deadly forest to rescue her and get revenge for the ordeal they've all suffered through. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide

Directed by one-time child star Fred Savage, Daddy Day Camp, the sequel to Eddie Murphy's Daddy Day Care, stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and Paul Rae as Charlie Hinton and Phil Ryerson, a pair of fathers who attempt to keep their summer camp afloat even though they are under dire economic strain. In order to help improve the financial situation, and to whip together a group of children who have a problem with following orders, Hinton brings in his military trained father (Richard Gant), even though he and his father have been on the outs. Soon the campers, and the fathers, are involved in a series of adventures that will make the camp solvent, and help mend broken relationships. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Set at a low-end summer camp and aimed squarely at a teen audience, Meatballs is a light screwball comedy that turned its low-budget Canadian roots into a very profitable box-office run. The biggest reason for the film's success is Bill Murray who stars as Tripper, the head counselor who runs things at Camp Northstar with the help of his love interest Roxanne (Kate Lynch) and the camp's director Morty (Harvey Atkins), who is affectionately known as Mickey. Camp opens with Tripper and Morty preparing the misfit counselors-in-training -- Spaz, Fink, Crockett, A.L., Candace, Wendy, and Wheels among them -- for the arrival of their hyperactive little charges. After settling in, kids and counselors begin their activities with a soccer game in which depressed 11-year-old Rudy (Chris Makepeace) accidentally loses the game. Cast out by the other children, Rudy runs away only to come across Tripper, who befriends the boy and makes him his running partner. Romance, sexy fun, and comic hijinx -- usually with the heavy-sleeping Morty as their target -- lead up to an annual Olympiad in which Camp Northstar battles the wealthier and athletically superior residents of Camp Mohawk. The challenging events include cup stacking, potato-sack racing, and a nauseating hot dog-eating contest in which the portly Fink devours his way to victory. With the two-day event tied up, it comes down to the cross-country run, in which Tripper enters Rudy. Meatballs was the first major directorial effort by multi-talented filmmaker Ivan Reitman, whose name has since become synonymous with the comedy genre. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide

Old Joy is writer/director Kelly Reichardt's long-awaited follow-up to her revered but underseen 1994 feature debut, River of Grass. (She directed a couple of shorts in the interim, including Ode, a Super-8 film inspired by the song "Ode to Bill.") Daniel London and cult folksinger Will Oldham star in the film as two old friends who go on a camping trip to a hot springs in the Cascade mountain range of Oregon. London's Mark is the responsible one with the modest house, the wife (who resents his gallivanting off), the dog (who comes along), and the baby on the way. He listens to Air America, and makes all the right liberal noises. Oldham's Kurt is the free-spirit type with the untamed facial hair and the junker car that looks more lived-in than vehicular. Kurt suggests the trip, and they take Mark's car. Kurt has the directions to the place, and they get lost ("I think we're somewhere...in the area") and spend the night at a garbage-strewn campsite, where they discuss their lives, and Kurt laments the apparent dissolution of their friendship. In the morning, they have breakfast in a diner, and Mark apologizes to Tanya (Tanya Smith) over the phone, explaining that he'll be home later than expected. In the daylight, they find the hot springs, and spend the afternoon quietly unwinding. Reichardt co-wrote Old Joy with Jonathan Raymond, adapting his short story, which was originally written as a collaboration with photographer Justine Kurland. It was shot (on Super-16) by Peter Sillen and features a soundtrack by Yo La Tengo. The film was selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art for inclusion in the 2006 edition of New Directors/New Films. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

A white-collar workaholic deceptively persuades his family to forgo their much-anticipated Hawaiian vacation for a cross-country road trip in a fully loaded RV, during which they discover the true meaning of family bonding, in Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld's family-friendly road comedy starring Robin Williams, Jeff Daniels, and Cheryl Hines. Bob Munro (Williams) is overworked and overstressed, and though his proposal to hit the road with his wife and two children at first sounds like a heartfelt bid to get better acquainted with his increasingly dysfunctional family, it soon becomes obvious that he had more career-oriented goals in mind when planning the trip. The Munros have always managed to get by in the past, though, and as they slowly become immersed in RV culture with a little help from a full-time troupe of Winnebago warriors, they might just make it to the Rocky Mountains without driving each other totally insane. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

This uproariously bad sci-fi horror oddity plays like a modern version of a cheesy '50s alien invasion flick, only not as clever. The filmmakers deserve some credit for throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the plot (and perhaps even the sink's in there somewhere), which involves the diabolical plans of three silver-suited aliens, played by -- ready for this? -- John Carradine, Julie Newmar (TV's Catwoman), and Tina Louise (Ginger from Gilligan's Island), who hire a couple of drunken wrench jockeys (Neville Brand and Aldo Ray) to help them abduct a bunch of lame-brained teenage campers for use in the production of a youth-restoring serum. This allows for endless riffing on the Friday the 13th scenario, as over-sexed teens are stalked by ski-masked Brand and Ray. B-movie fans should be forewarned that this film's once-in-a-lifetime acting ensemble does virtually nothing to enhance the negligible entertainment value. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Ang Lee's adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's story Brokeback Mountain stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as young cowboys named Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar. Each of them is hired to corral sheep on the title location and they soon bond very closely. Their platonic relationship explodes into a physical one, but eventually the two are separated when their job comes to an end. Although the two follow different life paths -- one becoming a father of two and the other marrying into a successful business -- they have a reunion years later. Each is affected profoundly by the rekindling of their old feelings for each other. Those feelings lead each to consider what continuing their hidden relationship would cost them. The screenplay was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

The "Stiffmeister" legacy lives on in this installment of the wildly popular teen comedy series that finds Steve Stifler's younger brother Matt (Tad Hilgenbrinck) sentenced to a summer at band camp after a wild school prank goes awry. It seems that mischief runs in the family, and when Matt is told that he has to spend the entire summer surrounded by trombones and clarinets, he plans a serious of outrageous pranks in a bid to make the best of his nerdy new surroundings. As the summer and the hormones heat up, Stifler sets up a series of hidden cameras in hopes of catching some revealing images of the nubile "bandies." When Stifler reconnects with his long-lost childhood sweetheart, Elyse (Arielle Kebbel), while serving out his sentence, the blossoming romance between the pair forces the perpetual prankster to consider the prospect of curbing his bad-boy ways. Original American Pie star Eugene Levy returns to offer some helpful advice for the band-camp bound Stifler sibling. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide