This camp is less than monstrous. Or interesting.

So I ended up watching quite a few documentaries over this past weekend, two of which had a common theme. What was the common theme you ask? It was nerddom. Utter and glorious nerddom. I feel a special affinity for nerds because, to be frank, I kind of am one. I understand the attraction of games and genre fiction. However, these films showed some of the more extreme examples that are out there. Let the awkwardness begin!

Let’s start with “Monster Camp.” “Monster Camp” follows the trials and tribulations of the Seattle branch of NERO, the New England Roleplaying Organization. NERO is basically a live action fantasy roleplaying game where players assume the roles of wizards, warriors and various monsters. Face paint, homemade costumes and foam rubber swords are everywhere you look. Think Augie from “Role Models” and you get the idea.

The first thing that struck me about this “game” is how ridiculously complicated it is. In one scene, a man named Fern (yes, Fern) is instructing a new recruit on the finer points of dealing damage in a melee battle. Fern explains that your weapon deals out a certain number of damage with each strike and may have enchantments that make it deal out certain types of damage. It is your responsibility to then yell out what type and how much damage you are doing with each strike of your mighty Nerf sword of doom. For example, you would yell out “Normal 2!” for 2 points of normal damage. Got all that? Of course you do.

How this actually plays out in practice is a bunch of grown men and women spastically swinging “weapons” at each other screaming “NORMAL2NORMAL2NORMAL2!” in a swarm around some poor sap that is playing a monster. This really underscores what I think is the major problem with the film. The game is boring to watch. Really, really boring. It’s needlessly complicated and they all take it very seriously. While the film goes for the predictable “look-at-how-ridiculous-this-all-is” laughs, that pretty much gets old after the first ten minutes (although a very husky man playing the part of a giant death moth or something shouting “HYPNOTIC STARE!” while spreading his cape “wings” is pretty hilarious).

The film’s attempt to humanize the players is mostly done in such a way that we pity them. Two best friends/roommates that are profiled haven’t finished high school, one a seventh year senior and the other a fourth year senior. Of these two, one of them doesn’t even have a job. He plays World of Warcraft all day while his roommate is at work and then moves to videogames on the TV when his buddy gets home. Another player is criticized by his daughter for playing too many games and his solution is to buy her a computer so they can both play in the same room together. You just never get any more emotionally invested with these people because they seem so alien, to me at least. And if your documentary can’t make you connect with the subjects, what’s the point?


Grade: C-