.Happy Summer! Well, not quite but it's June, so close enough. I figured it's finally time for a some camp re-writes. Honestly most I think are fine enough or I can't come up with something big. I had one idea that wasn't as big as my others but I feel was enough. I wanted to pair this with something else but I am going back and forth on it so we'll save it for next time, hopefully still in the summer. We'll see. For now, Fright Camp!
I find parts of this book appealing but it's overall mostly meh. The whole thing with a camp run by a horror director is cool, and Farraday is at least memorable. But it ends up feeling like other camp books. But above all else, the ending is bad. It's all a prank by RB being awful, and even as the kids get back at him, he gets back again and it ends with him saying there's two weeks left still. So we get an especially bad human villain and yet he still wins? Villains winning can be fun but this just felt annoying to me. I also find it doesn't get too scary until later on as the tension ramps better and the set pieces get a bit more interesting, and the two brothers blended together.
While it's not horrible or anything, I do feel it could have been closer to at least a decent fun romp. The easiest fix is removing the last bit as at least it has a happy ending. But I would like to fix some others things, and add just a bit more to the story. A good chunk of the core can stay but we gotta beef up the rest.
To start, let's separate Andrew and Tyler better. Andrew is still a massive RB fan but Tyler isn't. Here's more of the type into school stuff and while he doesn't look too down on Andrew for being into this stuff, he doesn't quite see the appeal as much. Still want them to get along okay despite this. Andrew is not only simply a fan, he feels very inspired by his work. He even makes his own home movies that takes cues from his work while adding his own ideas, we can even a fake out opening where some thing turns out to his one of his home movies. He wants to be a horror movie director like him, although Tyler thinks he need to rethink since this pipe dream could always fail. The key is not make that hurtful, I'm building a theme here.
He's excited upon being able to get into Fright Camp. In this version, it's not all just for fun, it's meant to teach kids film-making skills all that. Andrew thinks he can use to impress Farrady with his movie movies and learn new tricks and all that, Upon arrival, we can keep things mostly the same, but perhaps make some bits more unique or creative. The important thing is that Andrew hears rumors that RB isn't the best guy to work with, but he brushes it off. He's pulled aside by some guy dressed as a ghoul, seemingly part of his crew. The guy does the harbinger antics but is the big one to warn him RB isn't who he seems.
Ignoring him, upon meeting RB, he's the same as in the book, seems okay but gets suspicious as things get scarier and he goes on about wanting fear to feel real. But because of being such a big fan, he tries to make excuses in his head, but eventually starts to agree this is getting bad. The big prank is revealed and ontop of being pissed, Andrew is heart broken. All the rumors were true, he's pretty terrible and goes too far, not caring about the well being of others. The man who inspired him is truly a bad person.
This makes Andrew think that Tyler was right all along, his dreams were silly. He decides to give up on it all. We can have a sweet scene where Tyler attempts to comfort him and have him apologize for saying that, but Andrew isn't having it. That ghoul man from earlier approaches him and says his name is uh...Bob Adams, I guess. He's an actor for some of RB's films and he's had to deal with his crap for ages. He thinks RB deserves a taste of his own medicine. He can help Andrew pull it off. Andrew thinks about it and agrees.
Cue scary stuff you can fill on yourself. It can be like in the book, just with perhaps some ideas we saw in the home movies earlier, it'd be good setup and payoff. Mixed in with tricks that Bob helped with, like making Andrew float at one point. The prank is revealed and they finally got RB, scaring him silly. This happens right as the parents come, having been called. Oh and perhaps the authorities too, so he can he hauled away. Either way, Andrew managed to his his mojo back planning this all out.
He realizes that while it sucks if your heroes turn to be bad, you shouldn't give up on your dreams if they inspired you. Tyler now further sees the value in all this stuff. Everything seems to end happily. But eh, we need a twist so here's one I thought of. They ask Andrew how he did the floating and he says it was Bob. He goes to find him again but he seems to be gone. He asks a crew guy and he's confused. There's no Bob Adams currently working for RB. However, there used to be a stunt man for him back in the day...but he died in an accident due to RB's negligence.
He sees Bob Adams over somewhere, he waves and then fades away. Oh man he was a ghost the whole time say whaaa. The End. As cliche as this kind of twist it, I like it. The dead stunt guy thing is dark but it fits Series 2000. The book almost had a Never Meet Your Heroes theme that wasn't explored and I this fixes that. Sadly we see more often these days that people that are looked up to can be bad so that did inspire this re-write in a way. It's a theme that works for this story, and I managed to give more character to the brothers.
I could have made it all not a prank but I like it mostly not being supernatural. My twist ruins that but eh, I like it too much but you can change it if you want. Either way, this keeps the basic ideas but just adds a bit more to make it feel more complete. So there's that, not much else to say.
Hopefully next time will be the idea I teased next day, if not I just got a few ideas nailed down that I never thought I could do but we'll see how that goes. See ya then.