lewiskendell I was completely fascinated with LARPers after seeing the excellent Darkon. Once I learned that there was another documentary about the subject, I wasted no time tracking it down and watching it. Unfortunately, Monster Camp is inferior to Darkon in every way. Even hardcore fans of documentaries may choose to skip this one.A documentary is only as good as its subject matter, and Monster Camp simply fails in this regard. I'm not a judgmental person. I liked all the colorful people that Darkon focused on. There lives were interesting for the most part, and I empathized or identified to a degree with all of them. For the most part they were normal people. Monster Camp, on the other hand...I hate to say this, but there was very little to like about the participants of Nero Seattle. They weren't endearing or quirky. Mostly, they were just plain weird. The movie makers made no attempt to portray them as three-dimensional individuals. They all came off as losers or super-geeks who had nothing in their lives except their monthly hobby. And I hate to see people depicted in such a negative way. There's no incentive to get emotionally involved in Monster Camp. Darkon was so well made, that everything that was important to its subjects soon became important to the viewer. All I feel after watching Monster Camp is that most of those people would benefit from focusing more of their attention on the real world.In a nutshell, I recommend Darkon to everyone and Monster Camp to no one.

poe426 MONSTER CAMP is an honest (if totally detached) attempt to document "the mechanics of making magic happen in the real world." We all live in our own little world(s); some are vacuums. As akin to the nerdlies on THE BIG BANG THEORY as the "outdoorsmen" of The Society For Creative Anachronism, the players in MONSTER CAMP have a flair for fantasy (if I'm not mistaken, I saw several volumes by Terry Brooks on one bookshelf, and I'm sure there must've been some Roger Zelazny somewhere on the premises). Nothing wrong with that. For a decade or so, I headed up a writing group that met one night a week at a local bookstore cum coffee shop. One of three "group novels" we tried to write was a fantasy that featured trolls and shapeshifters and druids. Unfortunately, we weren't all on the same page, so to speak, and the book was never finished. But I may one day finish my own version. There's a lot to be said for finding people of a like mind to pal around with. Hereabouts, they're rare to the point of nonexistence. Fortunately for the gamers in MONSTER CAMP, they can network. More power to them.

emmithepaladin First, I was a member of NERO Seattle when this film was shot. While it took quite a while for me to actually see the finished product, I can only say this: I was deeply disappointed. Both in the scope of the film, and the ultimate, overall focus.To me, they focused on the "worst" of us, on those who did not truly reflect the game, its players, or what is most important--there was too much focus on the negative.The gentleman who are featured on the photo--in green lizard-like costumes--no longer even play. In fact, they stopped playing shortly after they wrapped up shooting, and it angers me that they tried to represent those two as the "norm" in terms of those who actually play the game.I'm sorry that I participated. I'm sorry that I was excited when I heard about this project. But most of all, I'm sorry for all of the players and owners who were so grossly misrepresented.

badandyy This movie really didn't accomplish what it could have accomplished. The last five minutes of this movie were brilliant, but the rest was a bit of a let down. If you are going to make a movie like this you had better either 1) make fun of them, 2) have a heck of a story like in king of kong, or 3) dive into the psychology of these people. Clearly the director was going for number three. Except he only scratched the edges, he was afraid to puncture anything and to find any emotional resonance. These people aren't normal. They're weird, they know it, but they have stories to tell. Why are they doing it? How was high school for them? Do they feel happy with life? Does the fantasy world compensate for the areas in their lives that are so sorely lacking? And what of the future? At the end of the movie we're left with few real authentic answers. And the answers that are given, much like the subjects of the film, are too awkward to carry any real weight.If you want to watch a movie about a weird group of people, start with anything Louis Theroux has ever done or watch a few of Errol Morris' films like The Gates of Heaven or Vernon, Florida. Those movies actually look deeper into humanity rather than just saying, "well, it's a bit weird but hey they make friends so it's OK!" Without ever asking the question, "why couldn't they make these friends on the outside"