Monster Camp

An interesting look into a misunderstood world.
If you ever feel like you don't belong or are misunderstood watch this film. It takes you to a place where people who just can't fit in with society gather to pretend like they fit in with a society that doesn't exist.

Yea confusing. No matter what you think about these types of people the film makers show an amazing insiders view of this strange and often disdained activity. It was eye opening and hilarious at the same time. If you like documentary on social subsets this is for you.

It's not as hyped, but far superior to Darkon
First a rant on that other LARP Documentary:

I was excited when the buzz about Darkon started. I had played in a LARP one time close to fifteen years ago, and although I was never in a position to ever go back and do it again, I enjoyed my experience so much that I still think fondly of it years later.
Darkon went to film festivals.
Darkon had a neat interactive promotional website.
Darkon was a huge disappointment.

Darkon spent far too much time talking about things that the viewer really doesn't care about, such as the internal politcs of a LARP which even though the players may be enthusiastic about, doesn't translate into somthing interesting for anyone outside of that particular LARP...even to other LARPers. They also spent an extrordinary amount of time outside of the LARP talking about the personal struggles of the players. We get it, they have sucky things going on in their lives...WE ALL DO, YOU AREN'T MAKING A POINT WITH THAT.
So in...

Terrific documentary
This is the best documentary yet made of the Live Action Role-Playing phenomenon. The character portraits captured is very valuable anthropological material for the understanding of sub-cultures. The director successfully emerses the viewer in the world of Live Action Role-Play thoroughly. This point is made clear when the director shoots a short interview of hikers who've stumbled upon the L.A.R.P.ers mid-game. Their questioning of the game seems curiously dim-witted. The director makes the normal people seem like outsiders.

The Special Features on the disc were very good. The deleted scenes were interesting. However, the director's commentary track was not synced properly to the video. This was unfortunate, because it was an excellent commentary with many interesting observations. I would still place this disc on my top 10 list of Greatest Pop-Culture Documentaries.

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