There is an abundance of witch films releasing this year, from this month’s double bill of gory comedy Forbidden Fruits and indie queer 90s throwback The Serpent’s Skin to the upcoming Irish folk chiller Hokum, the archetype remains an incisive way to explore women’s stories in the horror genre—or simply to serve as a good old-fashioned source of fright. In an often saturated subgenre, it’s to the great credit of writer-director Avalon Fast (who starred as a witch herself in The Serpent’s Skin) that Camp manages to stand out. 

Steeped in a brew of hazy atmosphere, deep melancholy, and gorgeously textured cinematography, Camp is an intoxicating witch film that brims with the unrestrained energy of young indie filmmakers telling raw, personal stories. It follows Emily (Zola Grimmer), a college dropout riddled with guilt after being the root cause of not one but two tragedies. To get her out of the abyss of self-loathing, her father suggests she get a job as a counsellor at a Christian summer camp. Except, the camp, whose owners are nowhere to be seen, isn’t religious at all, notwithstanding the guitar-strumming, Bible-reading Dan (Austyn Van de Kamp), who is a popular crush for his fellow counsellors. The staff instead spends their time smoking, drinking, and partying, and Emily soon falls in with a group of girls (Alice Wordsworth, Cherry Moore, Lea Rose Sebastianis, Ella Reece) with supernatural abilities. But what seems to be an empowering, healing way out of her grief may have a sinister undertone.