PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*
Neither of these sex-romps from the sixties are technically good, but there's much more energy in the first than in the second.
MONSTER OF CAMP SUNSHINE is a late nudie-cutie which seems poised to mutate into a "roughie," except that all the comic bits ensure that none of it can be taken with even marginal seriousness. In brief, two young women of New York, nurse Marta and model Claire, are encouraged by a third friend, Susana, to visit Camp Sunshine, a local nudist camp. I think Marta's already a nudist at that point and talks Claire into going to let her clothes down, so to speak.
By a stunning coincidence, the installation at which Marta works happens to be doing experiments with rats, giving them chemicals to increase their aggressiveness. When the head scientist thinks the chemicals are far too dangerous for whatever use they're intended for, he shows his vast commitment to the public good by tossing the bottled formula into a local river. The river carries the vessel all the way to Camp Sunshine, and it winds up in a stream from which the camp's gardener Hugo (brother of Susana, BTW) drinks. The drug changes him from a mild-mannered voyeur (he's seen ogling the nude girls) into an axe-wielding freak, until he's slain by nothing less than the entire US army, called up out of nowhere through the use of stock footage. (He survives so much gunfire that maybe he was supposed to be bulletproof, though in other scenes he feels pain when he gets his foot caught in a bear trap, or when one girl bashes a bottle over his head.)
The basic story, written and directed by one-flick wonder Ferenc Leroget, is not nearly as interesting as all the wacky little touches Leroget employs. Overacting narration with minimal use of actors' voices was pretty standard for low-budget nudie films. However, Leroget also makes liberal use of goofy title cards after the fashion of silent films, and constantly throws in silly slapstick like the aforementioned bear-trap scene. None of the acting is memorable, of course, and there's not even all that much nudity, but Leroget has a little fun with the conventions of both nudies and roughies.
In contrast, I'm not going to waste much space on H.G. Lewis' HOW TO MAKE A DOLL. It sounds like pretty typical sixties sexploitation fare: a scientist comes up with a device that instantly can conjure up artificial women for the delectation of the scientist and his mama's boy assistant. I say "mama's boy" advisedly. Although the young guy lives with his mother and has no courage to approach real women, the mother isn't a domineering type, and she frequently encourages Young Guy to date. The fact that Lewis couldn't get any mileage out of this venerable trope shows how little energy he brought to this project.
But as tedious as the setup scenes are, they're far easier to take that the plotless melange of scenes that follow. Over and over, the two experimenters use the android-making device (I think it was just a closet) to make a living doll, but there's always some piddling problem with the hot girl they create, and she's banished in favor of the next product. Young Guy does end up with his true love, whom I think was supposed to be a real woman even though by some legerdemain she transforms into a girl with bunny ears.
I've always held a low opinion of Lewis's films, but here he seems to be deliberating making a sex-film so boring as to frustrate rather than titillate his audience. Maybe that was because he knew he wasn't going to make anything off DOLL, so he decided to rook the unlucky customers who actually paid money for this piece of crap.
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