Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Right now I have a sharp knife and I am digging it deep into my brain. Not because ‘Love Camp’ or ‘Divine Emanuelle’ as it is known in some circles, despite the fact that the character of Emanuelle is nowhere near this movie, is a horrible film, but because of the fact Writer / Director / Star and Composer Christian Anders horrifically insipid theme song in this movie, ‘Love, Love, Love’ will not leave my head. Dear God in Heaven… please expunge this tune from my psyche… I’m begging you on bended knees. Terrible music aside, and there is plenty of it, I think I may have just stumbled upon the best of the bad Laura Gemser sexploitation movies.

Say hello to the cult known as the Children of Light that is led by a woman known only as The Divine One (Gemser). But before we actually meet The Divine One, we first get to spend time with her right hand man or her Messiah as it were in Dorian (Anders) who from a distance you could easily confuse with actor Owen Wilson. And to think I used to believe Owen Wilson’s wacky hairdo was an original. Dorian walks the beach of this beautiful Grecian island, singing bad pop tunes and leading people to the cult of the Divine One, a cult whose main belief is that you can have sex with anybody at anytime and do anything to anybody you are having sex with. For instance a pair of dudes pay their ‘tithes’ to have sex with a lovely lady from the cult… this is called prostitution in my country… and everybody is having a good time until one of the dudes tries to stuff a lighted candle up this ladies ass. She protests, runs to Dorian for support and Dorian promptly slaps the shit out of her for disobeying the teachings of The Divine One. This is our hero, the guy we will be pulling for in this movie. A guy who slaps bitches for resisting candles being stuck in their butt. Outstanding. Another strange thing about this scene was the image of one guy tagging our lady friend doggie while his boy was under them… face down. I didn’t quite get what enjoyment he could get out of that.

Moving along, eventually we meet The Divine One and her left hand man and muscle-bound bodyguard Tanga (Sasha Borysenko) with The Divine One greeting her flock by disrobing and then ordering an orgy. First she had to brutally whip a couple of young folk who claimed love for each other and hoped to be monogamous. Children of Light are not monogamous my friends, come on now.

There are problems for The Divine One. For starters the police are hounding her and her cult and have even placed an undercover cop within the cult in the form of actor Gabriel Tinti to get the goods on The Divine One. Note that as far as undercover cop gigs go, and observing this cops ‘undercover techniques’, this is the best gig ever. Trust me on this one. More importantly though The Divine One and her organization is running low on cash. This particular problem just might be remedied in the form of Patricia (Simone Brahmann), the daughter of a filthy rich U.S. Senator who has fallen in love with our Dorian. Dorian’s task, as mandated by The Divine One, is to capture this woman’s heart, loot her bank account and all will be well.

The senator is none too happy about his baby girl going out with this nut and sends a tough guy to take him out. If this tough guy was paying attention he would’ve observed that Dorian was meditating while wearing a yellow Bruce Lee style gi, replete with a Black Belt when he confronted him. Bad move tough guy. We could ask ourselves why Dorian was meditating while wearing a yellow gi with a black belt, especially since this was the only time he wore it, but were not going to ask silly questions like that.

Regardless, The Divine One’s plan works like a charm with the one exception that Dorian himself has fallen in love with Patricia. We know that’s a bad thing. We also know that leaving the Love Camp is a really bad thing. Wanna know what else is a bad thing? Coming to the love camp as a virgin. If you are a young lady and you want to join The Children of Light I strongly recommend you find someone to take care of that for you before you join, because if you don’t, Tanga will take care of it for you in a ‘womanhood ceremony’. Tanga told one particular young lady ‘It will be painful at first but then it becomes wonderful’. At no point did that look ‘wonderful’ to me.

The Divine One is distraught, the undercover cop has exposed her murderous operation, her Messiah is in love and wants to leave and God isn’t answering her prayers. What to do? How about a TNT laced orgy? Works for me. Owen Wilson and Hercules over here will be doing some kung fu.

While ‘Love Camp’ is still a bad movie complete with horrific music, terrible acting, horrible English dubbing and bad kung fu, it’s the best of the bad Gemser joints I’ve seen if only because it has a simple storyline and it sticks to this simple storyline until the explosive end. There’s plenty of fake sex in this movie without the D’Amato hardcore inserts and aside from the rather lame whipping scene it’s also devoid of the D’Amato violence such as titties being cut off by dull knives and gang rapes and cannibalism and the like. Ms. Gemser has never been more beautiful or more wooden, Christian Anders definitely has an eye for naked women and the movie was never dull.

Seriously, where else are you going to find a soft sex flick with musical numbers, a Jonestown Massacre homage and Kung Fu? Only here my friends. All hail Christian Anders. How greatness sidestepped this modern Renaissance man is beyond me.

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