It is very, very summer in Michigan right now, as it is for much of the country. Weather like this makes me grateful for a safe, cool(ish) home for myself and my family. It also makes me think about the ultimate summer tradition: camping.
I did quite a bit of camping as a kid. In fact, many of our family vacations were camping trips, generally in the northern lower or upper peninsula (Tahquamenon Falls was a particular favorite). Later, as an adolescent, I attended two years of Girl Scout camp and four years of band camp.
All sorts of camping trips are depicted in film, across many genres, though they generally fall into one of two categories: comedy and horror (you’ll find several of each on this list). Whether a family camping trip, scout camp, or a solo hike in the wilderness, there’s a little something for everyone.
Without further ado, here is a sampling of the most iconic camping movies, along with (as usual) a few PBandJulie favorites.
- The Parent Trap (1961 and 1998)
As a Gen-Xer, I’m partial to the 1961 original, with Hayley Mills as twins Sharon and Susan, but the 1998 remake starring Lindsey Lohan is just as delightful. In both versions, my favorite scene is the cabin raid, the culmination of the girls’ rivalry.
FUN FACT: The Parent Trap is based on Das doppelte Lottchen (“The Double Lottie”), a 1949 German children’s book.
- The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors stars comedy icons Dan Aykroyd and John Candy, Bart the Bear (best known for his roles in Legends of the Fall and The Edge), and Annette Bening in her film debut.
FUN FACT: Written by John Hughes, the film’s working title was Big Country, but it was later changed to avoid confusion with another 1988 comedy, Big.
- Meatballs
I will never claim that Meatballs is a good movie, but I adore it anyway. In his first starring role, Bill Murray proved he could carry a movie. Meatballs has many of the typical teenage sex comedy tropes, but with a PG rating, the proceedings are relatively tame. At the movie’s heart is the relationship between Murray’s head counselor Tripper and Chris Makepeace’s Rudy Gerner. Rudy, ignored by his father and bullied by the other kids, bonds with Tripper; they run together and play blackjack for peanuts. It’s downright adorable. Meatballs was absolutely a product of its time (1979) – bell-bottom jeans, gloriously awful disco soundtrack – but it’s worth seeing for the Trip/Rudy storyline.
FUN FACT #1: After primary shooting had wrapped, the filmmakers brought Murray and Makepeace back to flesh out the Trip/Rudy storyline. Among the added scenes were the aforementioned blackjack game and the bus station scene. Apparently, puberty had arrived for Makepeace in the interim, so Murray gave him his first shave.
FUN FACT #2: One of the songs from Meatballs, credited to the North Star Camp Kids Chorus, provides the title of this post.
- Addams Family Values
The rare sequel that surpasses the original, Addams Family Values benefits greatly from the addition of the divine Joan Cusack. Her character, black widow Debbie Jellinsky, has her eye on Uncle Fester’s fortune and wants the children out of the way, so she convinces Morticia and Gomez that Wednesday and Pugsley want to attend summer camp. The head counselors at Camp Chippewa, played by an absurdly chipper Christine Baranski and Peter MacNicol, cast Wednesday as Pocahontas in the Thanksgiving play; it doesn’t end well for them (or the rest of the campers).
- Friday the 13th
The OG summer camp slasher, 1980’s Friday the 13th introduced us to one of the most iconic movie monsters of all time, Pamela Voorhees. That’s right, the infamous, hockey-masked killer Jason (Pamela’s son) doesn’t take up the mantel until 1981’s sequel. Made for a measly $550,000, Friday the 13th – which features Kevin Bacon in one of his earliest roles – made a (ahem) killing at the box office, raking in almost $60 million. And a franchise was born.
- American Pie
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- Moonrise Kingdom
Starring a cast of Wes Anderson favorites, including Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Jason Schwartzman, the gorgeous Moonrise Kingdom is primarily a story of young love. Sam escapes Camp Ivanhoe to be with his beloved Suzy, and as the rest of the cast attempts to locate them, Sam and Suzy set up camp at a tidal inlet they call “Moonrise Kingdom”.
FUN FACT: It took Anderson eight months to find the perfect Sam and Suzy, Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward. Neither had any professional acting experience before making Moonrise Kingdom; both received nominations at the 34th Young Artist Awards for their performances.
- Into the Wild
Based on Jon Krakauer’s stellar non-fiction book of the same name, Into the Wild tells the tragic story of Christopher McCandless (a terrific Emile Hirsch), an over-confident, ill-equipped young man who longed to disappear into the wilderness. Unfortunately, he got his wish. Director Sean Penn exquisitely captures both the beauty of the Alaskan landscape and McCandless’s fatal hubris.
FUN FACT: Jim Gallien, the truck driver who was the last person to see McCandless alive, plays himself in the film.
- Little Darlings
“Don’t let the title fool you” is the perfect tagline for Little Darlings, in which rival campers – spoiled, dreamy Ferris (Tatum O’Neal) and skeptical, street-smart Angel (Kristy McNichol) – vow to lose their virginity before the other. The subject matter is handled with a surprising amount of thoughtfulness by director Ronald F. Maxwell, and the two leads turn in lovely performances. There are so many movies in the “teen boys attempt to lose their virginity” subgenre (Porky’s, Losin’ It, Mischief, and American Pie, just to name a few), so it’s nice to see the other side of the coin.
- Heavyweights
The beloved owners of Camp Hope, a boys’ weight loss camp, have filed for bankruptcy and sold the camp to tyrannical fitness entrepreneur Tony Perkis Jr. (Ben Stiller). Perkis, who plans to turn the camp’s weight loss program into an infomercial, confiscates the boys’ secret stash of junk food and forces them to endure punishing workouts. Since this is a Disney movie, the boys get their revenge and – with the help of their beloved counselor, Pat – have the summer of their lives.
- The River Wild
Gail Hartman (Meryl Streep) and her family are rafting Idaho’s Salmon River when they unwittingly become involved with a gang of bank robbers led by a psychopath named Wade (Kevin Bacon, in a rare villain role). The plot sometimes strains credulity, but director Curtis Hanson keeps the pacing tight and the tension high. The film’s greatest strength, though, lies in its cast; Streep and Bacon, both nominated at the 52nd Golden Globe Awards for their performances, are joined by greats like David Straitharn and John C. Reilly.
- Troop Beverly Hills
Phyllis Nefler (Shelley Long) becomes a Wilderness Girl troop leader to spend more time with her daughter (Jenny Lewis, in her film debut). Phyllis, who has her hands full from the start, finds her troop’s status in danger when she butts heads with a rival leader. To prove their worth, Troop Beverly Hills must succeed at the annual Jamboree.
FUN FACT: Jenny Lewis references her previous life as a child actor in her 2015 single “She’s Not Me”. In one segment, she and her co-stars in the video – Zosia Mamet, Vanessa Bayer, and Leo Fitzpatrick – wear the Troop Beverly Hills uniform.
- Wet Hot American Summer
The brainchild of the folks who brought you The State, Wet Hot American Summer is a spoof of – and homage to – some of the other films on this list, including Meatballs and Little Darlings. With a sprawling ensemble that evokes movies like Dazed and Confused and Nashville, WHAS was a commercial and critical failure upon its release but found a cult audience on home video and launched a franchise.
FUN FACT: The pop music soundtrack for WHAS includes ’70s and 80’s classics like Jefferson Starship’s “Jane”, Foreigner’s “Juke Box Hero”, Loverboy’s “Turn Me Loose”, and KISS’s “Beth”. The score was co-written by Theodore Shapiro, whose filmography includes Tropic Thunder, Jennifer’s Body, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and Craig Wedren. Interestingly, Shapiro would later compose the music for the pilot of Showtime’s Yellowjackets, with Wedren and Anna Waronker writing for the remainder of the series – including the absolute banger of a theme song, “No Return”.
- The Burning
A sort of mash-up of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street (which wouldn’t come out for three more years), The Burning follows the teen camp slasher playbook to a T. The film, the first feature produced by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, was heavily edited to achieve its R rating; the original cut was restored in all its gory glory in a 2007 DVD release.
FUN FACT: Jason Alexander (above right), Holly Hunter, Fisher Stevens (above left), and Brian Backer all made their film debut in The Burning. Backer, best known as Fast Times at Ridgemont High‘s Mark Ratner, also won a Tony Award in 1981, for Woody Allen’s semi-autobiographical The Floating Light Bulb.
- Indian Summer
A group of thirty-somethings return to the summer camp of their youth for one final hurrah with the camp’s director Lou Handler, affectionately known as “Unca Lou” and played by the fabulous Alan Arkin. Each is wrestling with a particular, stereotypical demon: a recent widow, a recovering alcoholic, a single woman hung up on “the one that got away”, and a married couple who’ve lost their spark, to name a few. But the talented cast, which includes Diane Lane, Bill Paxton, Elizabeth Perkins, and Kevin Pollak, keeps the proceedings grounded. Filmmaker Sam Raimi, childhood friend of Indian Summer‘s writer-director Mike Binder, provides comic relief as the hilariously incompetent camp caretaker, Stick Coder.
FUN FACT: Camp Tamakwa is a real camp in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park, which Binder attended for ten years as a child. Indian Summer was filmed on the grounds of the camp.
- Deliverance
Four friends – played by Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox – decide to canoe a river in the remote Georgian wilderness. When the pals run afoul of some questionable locals – and get separated from each other to boot – bad things happen. Deliverance was a hit, earning $46 million on a $2 million budget, and received three nominations at the 45th Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for John Boorman.
FUN FACT #1: The studio requested that Boorman film two versions of the rape scene, one for theatrical release and one for television viewings. Boorman defied them by filming it once and changing the dialogue to suit both needs. There are several versions of how the unscripted “Squeal like a pig!” came to be, but it became the film’s most enduring quote.
FUN FACT #2: “Dueling Banjos”, written in 1954 by bluegrass legend Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith, became a #2 hit in the US and Canada after its use in Deliverance.
- Stand By Me
A perfect little gem of a film based on Stephen King’s semi-autobiographical novella The Body, Stand By Me is also one of King’s favorite adaptations of his own work. Director Rob Reiner once recalled King excusing himself for about fifteen minutes after the film’s premiere in order to compose himself. With perhaps the greatest young cast ever assembled for a film, Stand By Me captures all the nostalgia and heartbreak of growing up. Come awards season, Stand By Me was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director at the 44th Golden Globes but the Academy only gave it a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay. More importantly, the film has captured the hearts of generations of moviegoers.
The following clips contain NSFW language.
Peanut Butter and Julie 