Monster Camp (2007/Life Size Entertainment DVD/Gaming)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+      Extras: A     Documentary: B+

Unless you're involved in the role-play gaming scene in some fashion, Live-Action Role-Play, or LARPing, is probably a concept you haven't heard much about.  When you LARP, you play a character in some fantastic setting, going on adventures, battling monsters, and interacting with the other players.  It's much like Dungeons & Dragons, except you're not sitting around a table, but instead are playing out your role like an actor on a stage.  In most cases the action occurs in a large, rural area to give participants plenty of space to move around, engage in mock combats using complex rules for arms and magic, and have their adventures.  Like online or tabletop gaming, LARPing makes up a growing part of the gaming subculture.

Cullen Hoback's Monster Camp explores this subset of the gaming culture in exacting detail, allowing the quirky participants to tell their stories both in and out of their fantasy characters.  All of the folks in this documentary participate in the Seattle, Washington chapter of NERO (North America's largest and most successful live-action role-play organization).  Just as with any group of people, NERO Seattle is filled with its share of characters, doers, and dreamers. Mr. Hoback's unobtrusive documentary style allows us to meet them in turn, learning what makes them who they are, and what role they play in the NERO community.  One interesting bit of gaming crossover explored by Hoback is the WOW (World of Warcraft) factor.  For those who don't know, WOW is a powerfully addictive online MMORPG (Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Game).  Many of the NERO participants in Monster Camp also play WOW, including one of the live-action game's key plot writers.  At one point this fellow fails to show up for a key game, and his fellow organizers strongly believe he is home playing WOW.  The online gaming phenomenon has sapped players from other areas of the gaming hobby (tabletop and miniature), and its interesting to see its effects on the live-action sub-genre.

 

Picture and sound on this disc are both adequate, although the pick-ups on some of the LARPers' microphones are poor, resulting in garbled dialog.  This is remedied somewhat by the occasional inclusion of subtitles, but this is not consistent throughout the film.

Two short works from Mr. Hoback appear as extras on this disc.  The first is essentially a shorter version of Monster Camp containing some of the same footage, but also featuring interviews and participants not featured in Monster Camp itself.  A second, shorter feature explores the mindset of two devoted computer gamers who come across a powerful machine sent to them from the future.  Treating it as just another game, the two gamers unleash dire consequences and must wrestle with the outcomes.  The piece has a charming, Twilight Zone quality and shows off Mr. Hoback's ability to tell a compelling story with an economy of characters and resources.

 

Monster Camp provides a revealing, entertaining look into a group of gamers who are extremely passionate about their hobby.  Its clean, unvarnished documentary approach leaves it up to the viewer to decide whether the participants are having good fun or are just wasting their time tilting at windmills, or whether it's a little bit of both.

 

 

-   Scott R. Pyle