Killer Camp

The ITV press office described the show thus:

In this reality event, airing across five nights leading up to Hallowe'en, 11 unsuspecting contributors will be dropped into an 80s-inspired lakeside lodge where, after an explosive twist, they learn it's not the Summer Camp they'd envisaged but a Killer Camp with a secret murderer amongst them.

The aim of the game is to earn cash whilst avoiding being killed and therefore eliminated from the game. Over five bloody nights the murderer will bump off their fellow campers in ever more extreme, hilarious and inventive ways; it's the job of the innocents to work out who is responsible before it's too late...

Can the innocents find the killer amongst them and walk away with a big money prize? Or will the killer remain undetected and steal their cash?

The producers added their piece.

Killer Camp has betrayal, romance and horror throwback nostalgia at its core, all wrapped up with a glorious '80s bow. We hope the boxset-bingeing twists, alongside the overarching 'whodunnit' narrative, will hook viewers in and keep them locked, until the big reveal on Hallowe'en night.

The contestants become real-life stars of their very own horror movie. Shot in a beautiful lakeside campsite with cinematic production values at the core, we can't wait to unveil this Hallowe'en spectacular, in all its terrifying and hilarious glory.

For once, the show lived up to its press release. There was a (fictionalised and unrealistic) death at the end of every show, told as a campfire tale. There were challenges for cash, and for the right to learn clues about the killer. There was also a challenge for immunity from the killer's attention.

This was a contest, and score was kept in two ways. At the end of the series, the group would vote for who they thought was the killer; if they got it right, they'd split the series prize of $15,000. Come up with the wrong answer, and the killer would take the prize money that hadn't been won during the challenges.

At heart, the game in Killer Camp was about betrayal and deception and subtle intrigue. The show failed to meet expectations, it was just too brash and artificial, and didn't allow enough time for viewers to reflect on what they'd seen. When we know a competitor is sabotaging a cash game, we need to see most of that game, not very edited highlights.

The production values were first-rate. Bobby Mair excelled as the Camp Counsellor, and both the cinematography and editing were high class. There's a great show lurking somewhere here, but we didn't quite get to see it. Neither did viewers: the show attracted less than 200,000 viewers and failed to register in ITV2's top 50 for the week.

Keshet International distributed the show around the world with the tagline "Play like your life depends on it".

The CW in America bought the series for broadcast in 2020 and co-produced a second series in 2021. When shown on The CW, ratings were even lower than over here, with just 160,000 viewers. We got to see the series on ITV2 from the end of November, hours after The CW would have finished showing it.

@KillerCampTV

Bother's Bar discussion

Weaver's Week review

Killer Camp had a lot of inspirations from game show history. The Mole and Traitor tried to find a saboteur in the group, as did American show Whodunnit?. The segment where two leave, one returns, one is killed in a gruesome fashion is from The Murder Game.