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joezworld · 3 years

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Sentient vehicle headcanon - The Falklands war

Normally I try to tell these headcanons in a manner similar to Wikipedia - only keeping the relevant details. However, this one is so insane that even in my head, I feel it needs to be told differently.

So, for the purposes of this headcanon, pretend that this is being told to you by your friend, who is desperately trying to appear normal while telling you about a Wikipedia article he just read.

So, this entire story is fucking insane - there’s so much that goes on, lemme just start at the beginning.

So, the UK owns these little islands off the coast of Argentina in the middle of goddamn nowhere. The Argentinians really don’t like this because the islands are much closer to them and they say that they own it - but it’s like that one Eddie Izzard bit - do you have a flag? - And the brits did and the Argentinians didn’t, so everybody said that england had the islands.

Naturally this made Argentina very mad, but they didn’t do anything about it because they had shit goin’ on. Because like, all of South America had really bad shit happening to it between the 30′s and the 90′s - so nothing happened.

Until in the 80′s, when Argentina had a military dictatorship called a Junta - which led through the very nice and normal way of ‘taking anyone they didn’t like and throwing them out of helicopters’ - the government had basically spun up their propaganda mill to the point where they actually believed that they could take the Falklands and the British wouldn’t do anything!

And they did this in 1982, which is like the exact wrong time to piss off the UK, because they used to be the biggest empire the world has ever seen, and then in like the last 20 years they lost India and Pakistan, had to give Canada their constitution back, and they were about to do the same to Australia and New Zealand, and they had basically signed Hong Kong back over to the Chinese.

-And you know *spoiler alert* they didn’t give Hong Kong back, but at the time they thought they were gonna! -

And so this means that the UK is feeling really bad about itself going into this whole thing, and then this punk-ass little country with like two ships in its navy tries to start shit because they think that The Queen won’t do anything.

Except, they aren’t dealing with the Queen, they’re dealing with Margaret Thatcher - who will kill you, your dog, your family, and anybody who ever sold you a cannoli if she thinks it’ll make England strong.

So - even from this point, the Argentinians are gonna die, but what happens next is so out-of-left-field that it’s astounding.

So, let’s roll back the clock a few weeks and The USS Montana is about to get involved.

So, Montana is this pugnacious old man of a heavy cruiser who’s been with the navy since before World War 1. He has this amazing history going through every war the US has been in - and he’s amazing: when they tried to retire him after the first world war, he told them no, and said he’d raise a pirate flag and follow the sixth fleet around if they didn’t let him stay. So they did, and he served in every war and conflict the US was in until the 80′s.

And this is kinda important, because when he was built, it was before the wars - everything was a bit slower, a bit more laid back, and he actually got a lot of family bonding with the other ships in the Navy and in his class, and it meant that he wasn’t like, sad and miserable and scared when the war happened.

Flash forward to 1946, and the US has just built like hundreds of ships to kill the Axis with, and they did it so quickly that most of these guys went from the drydock to the battlefield with no real training or anything - so they were really fucked up when they came back.

So, when Montana sees this, he decides that he’s basically going to be the father figure that everyone didn’t have - and basically makes most of the navy his kids - like straight up his sons and daughters, no questions asked. And he did this for almost every ship the Navy built between 1950 and the 80′s.

Which means that basically the entire US Navy loves him unconditionally.

Like, I can’t stress this enough - he was their dad - he taught Iowa class battleships how to go fishing, he gave the birds and the bees talk to submarines, like, everything he did was for his kids or for his country.

And so, one day in 1982, he gets a call from one of his kids who’s moved down to Argentina - which I need to point out that a lot of US ships went down to South America in the 40s and 50s, but a lot of them did that because they were fucked up from WW2, and most of them didn’t get to know Montana very well - so they weren’t ‘his kids’.

But one of them was, and he calls up his dad and says “Hey dad, uhh, my bosses have really started to believe their own BS and they think that they can take on the UK - and I think that I’m gonna die, because I work with these people and we are not gonna be able to win this. Please help me.”

And so Montana tells him to calm down, and he’s gonna get him out of this. And then he goes to his bosses at the navy, says he’s using some leave time to go rescue his kid, and the Navy realizes that they’re never gonna be able to talk him out of this, so they call up the chain to Washington and cut him some orders that say that he’s a ‘neutral observer’ so that nobody shoots at him.

And this seems like its all going to go just fine, except that several ships in the Argentinian Navy were made by the West Germans, and have NO IDEA who this guy is - because even the American ships who aren’t his kids still know him, because how can you not.

And so he makes it almost all the way to Argentina when one of the Argentinian submarines - who was German - sees him, has no idea who he is, doesn’t know about the neutral observer thing because the Argentine Navy is a clusterfuck, and sinks him! And he dies!

And I can- I- This is so bad!

Because now, the US NAVY is involved.

And They. Are. Pissed.

Because Their DAD JUST GOT MURDERED!!!!!!

And the Argentinians have no idea what’s happening - they have no idea that this guy is important or that he even got sunk! Because the submarine just assumed he was English and called in that he’d sunk a British advance party or something, and it takes like a week for the Americans to put two and two together, so for a while, nobody knows what’s happened - it’s like they’ve stepped on a land mine and it hasn’t gone off yet.

But because no one knows the enormity of the shitstorm the Argentinians are gonna be facing yet, the British are still mobilizing - they didn’t do what the Americans did and set up a network of navy and air bases all over the world in case they need to kick someone’s ass in the future - and all the countries around the south Atlantic either hate them, or are former colonies who really hate the English. So they have to schlep everything they need to fight a war alllll the way down from England to Argentina - which is like the furthest distance you can go without running into the British Empire it’s so far why.

And so the Royal Navy has to call in the civilian reserve fleet, which is a bunch of ocean liners and container ships who really would rather be flagged under any other nation right now, but they’re not!, so they have to go basically become war-adjacent for a while - just hanging out in the frigid North Atlantic until the Royal Navy finishes kicking ass and taking names and then they can go home.

Except.

EXCEPT THAT

The Argentine Navy is a bunch of suicidal morons!

Because they saw that the British didn’t have enough logistics vessels and was requisitioning ferry boats and ocean liners and had a brainwave:

¡ Hey ! ¡ If we shoot at these unarmed ferry boats and container ships, not only will the Brits not have any logistical support, but they might get scared and go home!

Which sounds like a good plan, until you realize that the Royal Navy is not pleased that they have to bring civilian ships into battle - like the aircraft carriers and the destroyers see this as ‘a stain on their character’ for having to ‘endanger civilians unduly’ because they’re posh and they’re English but also they’re right - this is not a place for civvies - Exocet missiles are gonna be flying around, it’s not safe.

Also, the Royal Navy had a very dim view of this whole conflict, because they thought it was pointless to sail halfway across the ocean just to fight over a tiny island with 3 people on it - if they wanted to expand the empire just invade Ireland or something.

- Now, that sounds bad, but this was the 80′s - The Troubles were ongoing, and in the Royal Navy at least, they liked the Irish a lot less than the Argentinians! -

Also, Ireland was closer.

But anyways, the RN ships at least had a rather dim view of the whole conflict, right up until the SS Atlantic Conveyor took an Exocet to the fuckin’ face.

And he dies.

And this is almost as bad as sinking Montana, because Atlantic Conveyor had this really unique ability to make friends with anyone, and had spent most of the voyage down basically being the flotilla’s morale officer.

So when he dies, this stops being a token effort to restore British Sovereignty, and starts being The Royal Navy Wants You Dead.

Which, on its own, would have meant that Argentinian Navy would have been wiped from the face of the earth - because the Royal Navy wasn’t leaving until everyone was dead. It didn’t matter if it was a tugboat with a handgun - there would be no more Argentinian Navy when they were done.

Now.

Meanwhile in America, while the Royal Navy is still steaming down to the Islands, words starts to get around that someone killed Dad.

And this went over exactly as well as you think it would.

The ships of the US Navy reacted calmly and coolly, and didn’t cry or scream or plot revenge.

They totally didn’t.

Except that they totally did, and spent a few days gathering every bullet, shell, round, and torpedo they could find, before leaving with the intent of finding and killing everyone in the Argentinian military.

Now, that might sound like a generalization, but it wasn’t.

There were somewhere around 370 ships in the US Navy at that time, and about 280 of them were capable of reaching Argentina without leaving the US vulnerable to an attack - plus about another 200 or so that had retired from the navy or transferred to other nations but still kept in touch.

So that’s about 500 battleships, destroyers, submarines, amphibious assault ships, support vessels, aircraft carriers, tankers, oilers, troop transports, guided missile cruisers and the Presidential Yacht.

All of them went to Argentina. Every last one of them.

And no-one believed it!

The British thought it was a joke, and the Argentinians thought it was counter-intelligence!

The ENTIRE US NAVY just up and left to kick someone’s ass! That doesn’t happen! That didn’t happen in WW2! This has never happened before or since in US history! Even when the US Navy was a bunch of sailboats in Philadelphia nobody did that!

And So, that’s how it was - the US Navy was steaming down en mass to fuck up the Argentinians, the Royal Navy was hopping mad, and the Argentinians didn’t even know anything was going to happen!

Also, before I forget, also on top of all this - Atlantic Conveyor was friends with a bunch of ocean liners, and because they’re all fucking insane - Normandie spent WW2 fucking up U-Boats in the Caribbean, and the United States sailed into a Cat 5 hurricane, and Olympic is one of the reasons that Singapore got kicked out of Malaysia - so, they all decided that their friend dying was worth fighting for, and they got together and steamed down to the South Atlantic at the same time the Americans were, and set like 9 speed records in the process because of course they did.

So, now that there’s essentially three giant navies coming down to kick their asses, the Argentinians finally begin to clue in on something being wrong - like, there were a couple of Soviet Trawlers that were parked offshore, and they claimed to be fishing but in reality they were spying - and they had these giant radio masts that they’d put up whenever orders came down from Moscow.

And one day, the Argentinians watched from their spy planes as the masts went up slowly, then got taken down very quickly, and then they watched as the two spy trawlers went racing off towards Africa.

And they wondered why they were going towards Africa, because the soviet union is the other way - you need to steam around the edge of South America, until they called down to Ushuaia - in Tierra Del Fuego, and heard that what looked like half the US Navy was coming round the tip of South America.

And it looked like that because it was! Because half of the US Navy had sailed down from the pacific to cut off any way of escape!

It was only now, at this incredibly late time, that the Argentinians realized exactly how Fucked they were.

Now, at this point, a smart man would have given up - but Galtierei was not.

So naturally the Argentinians kept fighting for a whole week before they all just died.

And it wasn’t in normal “get shot with a missile and sink” ways either - like, one of their cruisers fired on a ship, and it turned out to be the USS Missouri, who was right next to the other three Iowa Class battleships, and they all targeted this ship, and made him disappear because that’s what happens when the four biggest battleships on earth shoot at you at once.

Or, the Submarines - the one that sank Montana got chased by 4 Los Angeles class attack subs and ended up getting pushed beneath his crush depth - not hit with a torpedo, PUSHED. The other one, meanwhile, tried to shoot at one of the Ocean Liners, and ended up getting sunk by them! Which is incredible, because Nobody expected that to happen, least of all the Liners, and yet they just totally went in and contributed - which actually means that there’s a third “belligerents” column for the Wikipedia page for this, and it’s just them.

So the war actually ended on kind of an anti-climax, because after the US just steamrolled the Argentinians, there wasn’t anything left to do. The Brits landed more troops at Port Stanley, and then they just sort of went home.

Most of the Americans did too, but they also went and installed a new government in Argentina!

Which, as the rumor goes, the Navy did that without asking anyone, and BOY O BOY was the State Department Upset - I think a lot of people got fired or demoted for that.

But it did turn out well in the end, because unlike every other time the US tried to install a leader, it actually went rather well, and the guy they put in charge left when he lost his re-election, and now Argentina is a democratic ally and a partner in Peace!

Who still claim that they own the Falklands

#long #really long #very long #extremely specific headcanon #falklands war #headcanon #boat headcanon #war headcanon #I wrote this one for me #and nobody else #US Navy #argentina #Royal Navy #having sentient boats messes with so many historical events #sentient vehicle headcanon

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aion-rsa · 6 years

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Venom: Who is Carnage?

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OK, Venom fans, break out your Green Jelly tapes, because it's time to learn all about Carnage, Spider-Man's evil double's evil double.

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Feature

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Gavin Jasper

Marvel

Oct 16, 2018

venom

Spider-Man

Carnage

All right, so, a few months ago, when Deadpool 2 came out, we did an article called Deadpool 2: Who is Juggernaut? People were pretty annoyed because Juggernaut’s role in that movie as a major antagonist wasn’t advertised and they cried spoiler. And that’s a fair call. Apologies.

That said, if you think it’s a spoiler that Carnage is in any way alluded to in Venom, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s Carnage. Of COURSE he’s going to be at least referenced in a Venom movie. The movie just used Carlton Drake and Riot. Venom doesn’t exactly have a Batman-level rogues gallery to play with and only one of his bad guys is important enough to get a red SNES cartridge.

So yeah, Carnage. He’s teased at the end of Venom. Read more on that in this look at the Venom post-credit sequences.

The only real surprise is that it’s taken this long for Carnage to be in a movie. With so many comic book movies out there, we’re running out of iconic villains who haven’t been featured. We’re down to Darkseid, Kang, and...I don’t know, Arcade?

Much like in the movies, Carnage’s first appearance in the comics was a quick teaser. While Spider-Man was busy dealing with Cardiac in Amazing Spider-Man #360 (by Davie Michelinie and Chris Marrinan), we got to see a one-page scene of a man named Gunny Stein returning home, only to be smothered by an attacker who admitted to killing him merely because he was looking through the phone book and found a suitably stupid name.

While he would appear in full in the following issue (Mark Bagley on art), the wheels towards Carnage’s creation came far earlier. When trying to kill Spider-Man, Venom ran afoul of Styx and Stone, a villain duo only really remembered for this very story. Styx, who has a death touch, touched the Venom symbiote and seemingly killed it. Eddie Brock was thrown in a regular prison and I would make a Bronson joke if I had actually gotten around to seeing that movie.

Venom returned to mess with Spider-Man again, only this time on an abandoned island. Spider-Man pretended to die in an explosion and Venom was all, “Sweet! Our to-do list is done! Let’s just squat on this island, where there are no TVs or newspapers to let us know that Spider-Man’s alive!”

That worked out great for everyone, but then the Carnage storyline kicked in and after a single fight against the new villain, Spider-Man decided that he needed Venom to fight with him. I enjoy a good hero/villain vs. bigger villain story as much as the next guy, but the intent to make it a Venom team-up was laughably blatant. How blatant?

Knowing that Venom was going to go into a violent frenzy, Spider-Man confronted him with Human Torch as backup. After all, fire is one of Venom’s weaknesses. Makes sense. Only, like, WHY DO YOU NOT JUST CUT OUT THE MIDDLE MAN AND JUST BRING HUMAN TORCH WITH YOU TO FIGHT CARNAGE? Hell, the dude has three friends who would be extremely helpful in catching the loud and obnoxious serial killer. He can’t be THAT hard to find.

further reading: Venom Comics Reading Order

There’s a quick line in the end about how bringing them in would make things more dangerous, but I have trouble accepting that truth when their replacement is an irrational mass murderer who will kill Spider-Man the first chance he gets.

But anyway, Spider-Man and Venom teamed up against Carnage a few times, got beat up despite the odds, then beat him by exploiting his sonics weakness. Then Spider-Man and Venom went back to fighting. A solid enough story, but not really all that memorable.

No, Carnage’s more memorable story would come a year later with Maximum Carnage. Actually, even that story wasn't all that memorable. I read it several times and I can barely give you the gist of what happened. Just that Carnage got himself his own personal Harley Quinn in Shriek, then created a short-lived supervillain team alongside Doppelganger, Demogoblin, and Carrion. Spider-Man and Venom teamed up again, only this time with a bunch of Marvel randos on their side like Morbius, Iron Fist, and Night Watch.

Stuff happened, Captain America being there was treated like a huge deal, and...man, whatever. All I know is that there was a seriously sweet panel where Venom was tearing off Carnage’s eyes.

The real reason anyone remembered the storyline was because of LJN’s video game Maximum Carnage for SNES and Genesis. Considered “good for an LJN game,” it allowed you to play as Spider-Man or Venom as you beat up extremely 90s street thugs and Carnage’s crew over and over again. Even being the final boss, you end up fighting Carnage a handful of times throughout.

further reading: Complete Guide to Marvel Easter Eggs in the Venom Movie

The game had a red cartridge and featured a soundtrack by Green Jelly (including their song “Carnage Rules”), so it had that going for it.

There was a sequel (technically a prequel) called Separation Anxiety, which was based on Venom: Lethal Protector. Since the arc didn’t have any major end boss threats, they just threw in Carnage as the final challenge because what the hell. They had the assets. Even the ending was just a picture of Carnage with zero epilogue. Again, Carnage had absolutely nothing to do with the story.

And so, Carnage continued to make comic appearances throughout the 90s. Inspired by the Maximum Carnage game, there was a silly Venom comic called Carnage Unleashed where Venom and Carnage fought inside the internet and it was somehow broadcast on the big screen in Times Square. Planet of the Symbiotes had Carnage become a giant after devouring and absorbing an untold amount of invading symbiotes. There was even a Spider-Man/Batman crossover where Carnage teamed up with Joker and then got punked out and made fun of for being a one-dimensional Joker knockoff.

Oh, and Batman beat him down with just his fists.

Speaking of DC crossovers, when they did the Amalgam Comics gimmick, Carnage was merged with Bizarro to become Bizarnage. The albino symbiote wanted to kill and replace Spider-Boy. Hey, at least he got representation. Nobody merged with Venom during that entire event.

further reading: The 15 Craziest Venom Moments in Marvel History

Carnage even got a couple animated appearances during this time. He showed up on Spider-Man: The Animated Series as a henchman of Dormammu where he wasn’t allowed to do anything remotely serial killer-y. He was fine, all things considered, but then things got real stupid once the show spun off into Spider-Man Unlimited.

Instead of that, I’ll talk about his appearance in the Spider-Man video game for the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Dreamcast. In the plot, Carnage and Doctor Octopus teamed up in hopes of taking over the world with a symbiote army. This led to the pants-shittingly terrifying final level where Spider-Man is chased out of a huge tower by Monster Ock – the Carnage symbiote on Ock’s body. He wasn’t really even a boss because even if you were wearing the Captain Universe costume that made you invincible, you couldn’t damage Monster Ock and if he caught up to you, you’d instantly die. You just had to swing away until you were saved by a cutscene.

further reading: The Many Characters Who Wore the Venom Symbiote

The 90s ended and so began the era of being embarrassed by things that happened in the 90s. While we did get a Venom vs. Carnage miniseries that mainly acted as a launch pad for the Carnage symbiote’s spawn Toxin (it didn’t take), Carnage was soon taken off the board. In the pages of New Avengers, Brian Michael Bendis had the Sentry show off how OP he was by grabbing Carnage, slamming him through several prison ceilings, flying him into space, and tearing him in half.

Mac Gargan Venom was a thing around that time anyway, so we already had a 100% evil symbiote guy creeping around.

After 5-6 years, Carnage finally came back in a miniseries simply called Carnage by Zeb Wells and Clayton Crane. It was originally going to be called Astonishing Spider-Man and Iron Man, but marketing realized that putting Carnage front and center would probably sell better. It revealed that Carnage survived the Sentry’s stunt and Cletus was kept alive by a corrupt prosthetics developer who gave him metal legs in exchange for using his symbiote to enhance his prosthetics technology.

It all went horribly wrong and created another Carnage offspring in Scorn. She also did not take.

There was a sequel called Carnage USA by the same creative team and I absolutely recommend it. Seemingly building up to some symbiote-related event comic that never came to be (Rick Remender’s Venom was also guilty of this), the comic had to do with Carnage expanding to the point that he was able to take over an entire town in Colorado, along with Captain America, Wolverine, Thing, and Hawkeye.

further reading: Venom Deleted Scenes Revealed

This led to a lot of cool shit, including a Venom gorilla being chased by a Carnage-controlled stampede of escaped zoo animals, Venom’s Life Foundation children being used as military weapons, and a legless fight between Flash Thompson and Cletus Kasady. Oh, and the hilarious revelation that Hawkeye fucking HATES Ben Grimm and thinks all of his shtick is old and tired.

Starting with the ho-hum yet cleverly named Minimum Carnage, Carnage started showing up in more stories with different creative teams forgetting that he was supposed to be missing his bottom half. He ended up in a really fun miniseries called Deadpool vs. Carnage where Deadpool was able to defeat Carnage in a way Spider-Man and Venom could not by shattering his confidence and breaking his spirit.

This led to Carnage’s extremely fun turn in Axis, otherwise known as that event Marvel did where the good guys became bad guys and vice versa. Through magic mixed with psychic suggestion, Carnage was briefly driven to become a hero, but he didn’t exactly have a full grasp on what that meant. Him trying to punch a woman in the face just hard enough to knock her out but not crack her head, followed by boasting about a job well done was entertaining as hell.

further reading: The 20 Year Quest to Make a Venom Movie

Carnage then had a short-lived ongoing written by Gerry Conway with a story about a cult worshipping Carnage because he’d unleash some kind of Lovecraftian god or whatnot. All the while, a task force was put together to stop him. This was partially an exercise in removing the Toxin and Scorn symbiotes while setting up Eddie Brock’s return to being Venom.

Over the years, the Carnage symbiote has possessed many hosts other than Cletus. There was Ben Reilly, Silver Surfer, an alternate universe Spider-Man, the Wizard, and so on. Its most high-profile instance was Norman Osborn, making him the final end boss of Dan Slott’s very lengthy run on Amazing Spider-Man. As the Red Goblin, Osborn was powerful enough that Spider-Man reluctantly took up Eddie Brock’s offer to borrow the Venom symbiote.

As for Cletus, he’s back floating in space in pieces thanks to the events of Venomized. Long story.

Even though Carnage only made a quick film appearance just recently, he’s reached one height that not even the likes of Thanos have ever hit: Carnage was on Broadway. Back in 2011, the butt of jokes everywhere was Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, known for its immense budget, laundry list of performer injuries, and iffy take on the source material. So iffy that there are two versions of the show that existed. There’s Julie Taymor’s fever dream original and the more coherent second attempt.

further reading: Venom Director Wanted to Honor the Comics

I was lucky enough to see the former in all of its ridiculous glory.

Carnage appeared as a member of the Green Goblin’s Sinister Six alongside Kraven the Hunter, the Lizard, Electro, Swarm, and original character Swiss Miss. Yes, that’s seven characters. Just let it go. Carnage ended up being the best looking of the villains, since most others came off as looking like goofy sports mascots. He didn’t really do anything, but he was immortalized in this cringeworthy David Letterman performance.

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...did Osborn suggest Kraven is into bestiality?

Gavin Jasper writes for Den of Geek and still can’t believe Carnage never showed up in a single Capcom Marvel game. Read more of Gavin’s stuff here and follow him on Twitter @Gavin4L

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2018 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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analogscum · 6 years

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SUMMER CAMP NIGHTMARE (1987, d. Bert L. Dragin)

OK, campers. Since it’s our last day together here at Camp Analog Scum, I thought we might have a little discussion about the power dynamics inherent in the summer camp flick. For a lot of kids, summer camp is a chance to blow off some steam. You’ve spent all year getting bossed around by your teachers, your principal, your parents, whomever, and now you get a few weeks of relative freedom out in the wilderness to run wild. Sure, you’ve got counselors to answer to, but what are they gonna do? In a lot of ways, summer camp is like one big dare to see how much shit you can get away with and not get in trouble. It’s the ultimate quest for extreme fun. But what would happen if that fun got a little too extreme? Could it lead to, say, armed revolution and lawlessness? Well, that’s what we’re working with in today’s film, 1987’s Summer Camp Nightmare, either the darkest comedy or the funniest drama ever, depending on who you ask.

Things start out innocuously enough, with busloads of eager kids arriving at Camp North Pines for Boys. Our hero, a nerdy kid named Donald Poultry (amazing name) is narrating everything into his trusty tape recorder, because he’s a tech wiz, because he’s a nerd in the 80s, c’mon, try and keep up. These little devils are pumped for a summer of gorging on junk food, reading nudie mags, catching up on reruns of Dynasty, and most of all, trying their luck with the girls over at Camp South Pines for Girls. We meet a few of our junior counselors, including Mason, the obnoxious Guido; Chris, the attentive older brother type; Stanley Runk, aka “Runk the Punk” who is, well, you can figure it out; and last but certainly not least, Franklin, who is super smug and really into philosophy and believes that society is governed based off of fear. Yeah, Franklin is “that guy.”

Unfortunately, everyone’s plans for a summer of debauchery and decadence are ruined by the arrival of Mr. Warren, the new camp director. Mr. Warren is kind of an old fuddy-duddy who speaks in a hushed voice and with great moral authority, so in other words, he’s supposed to remind you of Ronald Reagan. Anyway, Mr. Warren is like, no one is allowed to curse, smoke cigarettes, or drink booze, all of which seem like pretty boilerplate rules for a kid’s camp, but everyone acts like he’s a total fascist. What’s not as cool is when he rigs the TV in the rec room to only play the televangelist channel. OK, that sucks. They literally do that to punish Hannibal Lecter. Mr. Warren also decrees that the old rope bridge that leads to the girls’ camp is off limits, because it’s in disrepair and too dangerous. Damn, guess the panty raids are cancelled, huh?

Oh, and Mr. Warren is super into catching butterflies, which is a perfect hobby for this character in that it’s so innocent that it’s kinda weird at the same time. So he takes a bunch of little kids in Franklin’s bunk on a butterfly hunt, and one of them, I think his name is Eddie, comes back in tears, because he peed his pants. But Franklin somehow twists this around and concocts this story about Mr. Warren molesting Eddie. He even tells Runk the Punk about it. This is our first hint that there may be more wrong with Franklin than just being “that guy.”

Before long, our boys are engaging in shenanigans. Chris and Donald rig the TV in the rec room to play some good ol’ scramble vision porn, but Mr. Warren catches them, unplugs the TV, closes the rec room for good, and locks Chris up. Then it’s time for the cross-camp talent show! We get a rapping emcee, because he’s the only black kid in camp! Cool! Then three of the girls do an original song about how the girls will take care of the boys “down south” while dressed up like Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, and…um, I think also Madonna? For some reason Mr. Warren doesn’t seem to mind, perhaps the innuendo just goes over his head? But then, in easily the best scene in the movie, Runk the Punk and Mason do a totally bitchin’ lip sync to Fear’s classic “Beef Bologna.” This time, Mr. Warren understands that the song isn’t actually about lunch meat, and freaks out. He sends the girls home, and cancels the dance scheduled for next week. This proves to be the final straw. Franklin holds a campfire pow wow with some of the other counselors in training, plus Donald, who by the way owes Franklin a favor because he saved him from drowning one day. They decide to stage a coup and take Mr. Warren and the other counselors into custody. Viva la revolucion!

The next day, everyone springs into action. Franklin creates some unrest by starting a “Free Chris Wade!” chant, then head over to the administration building to bust Chris out. Mr. Warren and the other counselors are like, what the hell this is insane you’re acting like total jerks, at which point Franklin is like, oh no, we’re super serious about this whole revolution thing, and by the way, I have a gun. Oh shit, Franklin DOES have a gun. Mr. Warren and the counselors are lead into the administration building at gunpoint, and locked up. Chris is like, hey man, I appreciate you busting me out and all, but we’re not really gonna take the law into our own hands, right? To which Franklin is like, don’t worry, we’ll let them go soon, we just wanna have some fun, I’m definitely not a power-hungry sociopath. Yeah, this is the point in the movie where it becomes more and more clear that, despite his guarantees, Franklin miiiiiiiiight just be a power-hungry sociopath.

Feeling the rush of having staged a successful, bloodless revolution, Franklin decides to also liberate the girls camp. Before long, all of the boys and the girls are living together, and it’s just a nonstop hormonal jamboree. During one of the now nightly dances, Runk the Punk decides to bring in the tied up and gagged Mr. Warren, to torture him by making him witness all of the grinding and making out that’s going on. None of these kids are leaving room for the Holy Spirit! Chris and this girl Heather, whom he’s fond of, are like yo, what the hell, this is going too far! And Franklin is like, oh hey, I’m wearing military fatigues now, so don’t fuck with me, you’re excommunicated. He orders Runk the Punk to take Mr. Warren back to his like, prison cell or whatever, but along the way, Mr. Warren tries to fight back, kicking Runk the Punk a bunch of times.There’s a scuffle, and oh shit, Mr. Warren accidentally gets stabbed and dies! Whoa! When Franklin finds out, he orders Runk the Punk and some other dude to ditch Mr. Warren’s body down by the caves. They’re in too deep now, there’s no turning back.

Things start to take a turn into Lord of the Flies territory. Franklin decrees that anyone who talks to Chris or Heather will be punished, and names Donald minister of propaganda. The whole free love thing turns dark too, when Mason rapes Joanie, whom you may remember as Cyndi Lauper from the talent show. Donald and another girl catch him, and he’s put on trial. Mason acts like a super gross, misogynist piece of shit, and Franklin decides that, as punishment, Mason will be forced to cross the rope bridge, hand over hand. If he lives, then he’s innocent. If he dies, then, well, he’s dead? He makes it, but then decides to mouth off to all of the girls, which is a bad idea, because they literally form a mob and Lynch him. Holy hell! I mean, it’s hard to feel bad for this piece of shit, but I didn’t think the movie was gonna go THERE.

At this point, some of the campers start to think that maybe this whole revolution thing wasn’t the best idea, while others just go more and more insane. Donald uses his computer nerd skillz to try and contact the outside world, but gets caught, and is sentenced to also walk the rope bridge. But Donald is a total dork, he’s gonna die for sure! Chris decides this is the time for the counter-revolution to begin. As Donald flails along on the rope bridge, losing his precious glasses in the process (which of course made me think of the classic Milhouse gag, “I need those to live!!!”), some of the kids start just straight up wailing on Franklin and his gang. Runk the Punk gets thrown off the hill, wow! Chris punches the shit out of Franklin’s face until he’s hamburger meat, whoa! Then the cops show up, somehow? Anyway, since Donald had been keeping his tape recorder diary thing, the cops are like, ok, we’re arresting the perps, everyone else get on the buses, you’re going home. Franklin is in the back of a cop car. The cop is like, we’re gonna contact your parents in Europe, implying that Franklin was never this salt of the Earth revolutionary, just a fucked up rich kid looking for some kicks at any cost. Whatever, man.

It probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that Summer Camp Nightmare was co-written by none other than Penelope Spheeris. Early in her career, before she got famous thanks to directing the Wayne’s World movie, Spheeris excelled in this kind of movie: the kind of story that starts out looking like a typical popcorn flick, before descending into pure darkness. She did the same thing with Suburbia, her excellent film about a group of punk squatters living in Los Angeles, which features one of the heaviest, most gut-punching endings to any movie I’ve ever seen. If she and director/co-writer Bert L. Dragin were trying to combine Meatballs with Lord of the Flies, then they definitely succeeded. It’s far from pleasant, especially when things get rapey and murdery, but that’s the point. Subversion is the name of the game. Best of all, both sides are judged in equally harsh terms. Mr. Warren may be a sanctimonious dick, but Franklin’s way is even worse, and it doesn’t let either of them off the hook. It’s a somber note to close up Camp Analog Scum on, but hopefully next year won’t be quite as macabre. Though I doubt it…

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