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Just how The World Ends at Camp Z boils down to how to survive the pandemic, and if love can save many a splendored thing. This modestly budgeted Canadian thriller has a few bits to like. For one thing, it stars Age of the Living Dead‘s Anne-Carolyne Binette in the lead role. She plays Vanessa, a lawyer sent to convince the owners of a summer campsite to sell. Julian (Dean Persons) isn’t interested. He’s running his uncle’s operation and is doing a fine job at it until Aaron (Michael Czemerys) arrives and brings his entourage of “investors” along. They’re more like party goers and we get a story that nearly treads on Friday the 13th territory. Thankfully, this work doesn’t copy from any particular camping horror trope.
Instead, we’re dealing with individuals trying to survive from a plague ravaged world. This film serves as a reminder of how lucky we’ve been when dealing with Covid-19; the militant attitude is something we don’t need. What this film shows is how some folks are selfish rather than helping each other out. Osawa Muskwa steals the show as Clay, the local aboriginal help and muscle in this story.
The best segments in The World Ends at Camp Z are in how this outbreak started and why it was let to run its course. Diane Janna wrote a meaningful work if we are supposed to compare that fictional fallout to our situation with the pandemic. People are supposed to support each other if they’re to survive.
Ding Wang‘s sophomore attempt as a director isn’t always made clear. What he delivers is more of an episode from The Walking Dead where Aaron’s gang of revellers get their just desserts. Though the leader has his own agenda of wanting this property, he gets everything that he deserves, and we see how the virus can get anyone when a person lets their guard down!
Just because a good part of the world been vaccinated, it doesn’t mean it’s safe to party. It can still take victims, and for Vanessa, she can’t do it all for herself (which is the plot of this film). Just who we find surviving to help her in a non-spoiler type reveal is chilling enough.
3 Stars out of 5
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