Movie Review: Camp Blood: First Slaughter (2014, MVD Visual)

...in our childhood, we all had hamsters, at one time or another, right?? Cute little buggers, weren't they?? Running around their little cage, grabbing a glug of water over here...occasionally stopping nervously, to see who's looking...snagging a little morsel of food over there...again, stopping and looking around...maybe even, just to show off, grabbing more morsels of food, and stuffing it in their cheeks, until they look like furry little roadsters (...always good for a little chuckle). And then, they scurry over, climb up on the wheel, and away they go, go, go. And after the novelty wears off, one cannot help but watch that cute little rodent, working that wheel with great vigor, and wonder...does it know that it's putting out all that effort, and not really going any place?? And we watch...and watch...and watch...possibly even fantasizing that the little bugger, all too well knowing that it has our full attention, will suddenly dismount the wheel, quickly don a top hat & cane, and break into an impromptu well-choreographed and animated Busby Berkley number, a la Michigan J. Frog. But then, reality hits, and we come to realize that, yes...that spry little hamster is just gonna continue going round, and round, and round...and getting nowhere. Alas, that is the relevation which most will resign themselves to, after engaging the ho-hum, beat-by-beat, by-the-numbers slasher-film throwback, "Camp Blood: First Slaughter"...a lackluster follow-up to a rather surprisingly successful and prolific micro-budgeted, direct-to-video horror film franchise...

The Endangered Art of Makeup FX

EDMONTON — Perusing through her Facebook photo albums you will find a sequence of images of Charlen Middendorf slowly transforming into an animated skeleton. In the first photo she appears as herself with a cap over her head that gives her the appearance of having gone completely bald. The next shot shows Middendorf smiling a vivacious smile as a white base-coat and black shading around the eyes are added. The skeleton design comes full circle in the next few shots as cheek and jaw shading are added, and finally a gaunt mouth of teeth is painted on over her real lips. Voila! A living, breathing, bright blue-eyed skeleton stares back from the mirror as Middendorf congratulates her classmate on her work.
Middendorf’s portfolio features photos of herself, friends and former classmates made over as grotesque ghouls, macabre monsters and trauma victims with facial wounds so realistic that you would think they were severely assaulted.

Rest assured, these outlandish beings are make-believe; they are the products of several tedious hours of makeup, prosthetics and faux flesh application, just as Middendorf was while sitting in as the guinea pig for her fellow classmate’s skeleton face design. These are the creations of a skilled makeup effects artist — a profession that is slowly becoming endangered in the realm of motion picture arts.