"Circus Camp," AKA the Four Frizzy Hairs and their Boyfriends

I was looking for Charlie Barnett, the costar of the Netflix dark fantasy Russian Doll, and I saw that his first screen role was Circus Camp (2006).

A trapeze artist opens a circus camp for kids on a tropical island.  Weird hybrid concept, but it starred 1970s hunk Ed Marinaro.  Probably a lot of beefcake, and it's on Amazon Prime. Why not?

I'll tell you why.

1. It was apparently a vanity project, written, directed by, and starring Audrey and Judy Landers and their kids.  If you've never heard of them before, it's because the only other project they wrote, produced,directed, and starrred in is The Huggabug Club, although Audrey has posed in Playboy, and her son Daniel is also a writer, director, producer, and actor, best known for Shitting on Things (2018).

The woman he's with isn't his mother or aunt, but she has the same general look.  Keep it in the family, you know.

2.  "In this light-hearted family adventure, 15 year old Gabrielle runs away from home to find her dead-beat dad, who is a trapeze flyer living on a tropical island. Together, they turn the island into a circus camp for teens."

Does this look like the poster for a "light, family-friendly adventure"?

Does it help that the original title was "Island Fever"?



3. We begin with Ed Marinaro on a beach, pretending it's the 1970s (although back then he looked like this).  He's on a beach fireside date with a woman with 1970s big, frizzy hair (hereafter Frizzy Hair Senior).   "You look just like my ex-wife!" he compliments her. "You're still hung up on your ex-wife!" she complains.

4. Meanwhile, on the mainland, a Mean Girl gets out of her limo, snubs the chauffeur, and approaches Billy (Charlie Barnett): "Want to go into the woods and have a...smoke?" she asks,putting an evil tinge on "smoke" as if it's a mixture of methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and strychnine.

It's tobacco. Big deal.

Billy eefuses with After-School self-righteousness.

Then a teenage girl with 1970s big, frizzy hair (hereafter known as Frizzy Hair Teen), walks by in slow motion, while Billy gasps in hetero-horny ecstasy and a ludicrous, maudlin song plays.  Ok, this is a teen nerd comedy.

And I'm thinking: there better be some beefcake soon,or I'm out ofhere.

Frizzy Hair Teen gets cigarettes planted on her, and gets a chewing out from Frizzy Haired Mom, who is also the principal, for no reason relevant to the plot.  She decides to run away from home, to find her father.

4. Back to the Beach: Frizzy-Hair Senior enters her house and calls her three kids by name, so we'll know who they are, of course (Mandy, aka Frizzy Hair Junior, Tucker, Tyler).  Apparently she's been married to Ed Marinaro for at least 12 years.

Frizzy Hair Junior is in regular communication with Frizzy Hair Teen.  She explains to the boys: their father married two sisters in succession, so Frizzy Hair Teen is their half-sister and cousin, for reasons irrelevant to the plot.

Wait -- so when Ed Marinaro said "You look exactly like my ex-wife," he meant Frizzy Hair's sister.  And she knew it.  What an odd way to discuss the family scandal!

Wait -- so Frizzy Hair Teen doesn't need to "find her father."  She's known where he is all along? Way to fake the suspense!

So Frizzy Hair Teen sneaks onto the island, where she takes up the trapeze with her half-siblings (the girls in bikini tops).

All of the Frizzy Hair eventually get together on the island and decide to open a circus camp for kids.

5. Yeah, like kids today are all totally into the circus.  That went out in the 1950s.

6. When we finally get some beefcake, it's a shirtless Billy at the camp, being lured onto the docks by the Mean Girl (left).  Tucker and Tyler are filming them, for some reason.

In the only plot complication in the movie, Mean Girl claims that he tried to rape her, whereupon Ed Marinaro ejects him from the camp.  One of the Frizzy Hairs (who can figure out which?) reveals that he was framed.

Billy apparently was not hired for his spectacular physique.

That's the end of Mean Girl's plotline.  There's no, like, competition to see who's the best, or to save the camp from her dad's evil realty company, or anything.



7. The promised circus camp exists only in a few montages.  There are some male performers twirling around shirtless.  This would actually make a good BDSM scene.












8. Come to think of it, a lot of the male circus acts would make good BDSM scenes.  The directors must think the audience likes to look at boys tied up and girls in bikini tops.

9. We end with the whole family, Ed, all four Frizzy Hairs, the two boys, and Billy standing on the beach, happy at last.  One big happy...um, is this an episode of Big Love?

10. Horrible acting, nonsensical dialogue, costumes from the 1970s, mixed-up premise.  Where are Joel and the Bots when you need them.