Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare

I think the piece grants more screen time than required to cover the muddled opinions of Steve Cartisano's family (who sound so full of themselves) and much less on the victims and the tragedies they faced. That could either be an error in judgment on the filmmaker's part or, most likely, a Netflix decision to try to soften the emotional blow until the closing moments. Institutionalized abuse and the resulting trauma are discussed in all their somber detail, in what feels like American parents trying to run behind quick fixes for habitual (and often psychological) issues of their teenagers.

While I'm not surprised that wilderness therapy camps continue to exist in the States, given there are people who willingly sign up for haunted experiences and get tormented (oh, watch that documentary too if you must), what bothers me is how some folks still believe in the ideology of putting teenagers through clearly abusive methods to "teach them a lesson" and "turn them into good people". And if you're you're gonna say "Stuff like this would never happen in 2023", then I guess you're the one living under a rock. Worse things happens today.

From hiking the desert to child slave labor, this Steve. Cartisano guy was a real psychopath who preyed on distraught families once their kids started acted out. This man had a real evil about him that seemed obvious to most the kids but not the dumb parents who were paying outrageous fees just for their children to be bullied into behaving better, a method which always works. Steve is the real POS here no doubt about it but the documentary would have been better if we heard less from his wife who made him sound like a pioneer and almost heroic. Her along with their daughter keep trying to say he had nothing do with the bad things that happened, not only at 1 but 3 of his camps since he was never there. Not really a great argument for a man preaching how much he cares.

It's clear the director just wanted to simply get the story out, which can be perfectly adequate, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

They had the opportunity to ask some difficult and challenging questions to the aggressors and defendants of this story, but they didn't. They even use a clip from another interview where someone does ask those questions, which stuck out to me.

Without spoilers, Steve Cartisano, starts this abusive camp for kids and his entire family defend him vehemently, and not once were they asked any challenging questions. Maybe the director didn't want to scare them off, but you need to do these things if you want to make something that truly sticks out. But instead they took the easy route. They don't even mention the Mormon half of the story which you'll only learn about if you research this more after you watch the documentary.

The average score for this documentary is 6/10. The story itself is very interesting and it's doing all the work. I still recommend this though since it's an interesting story, but anyone could have directed this.

Not to mention it's SO DARK! Even day shots are dark! What is wrong with cinematographers these days?

I get showing the full perspective and including every voice, but maybe 3/4ths of the people interviewed in this documentary defend the camps and Steve Cartisano's actions instead of talking about what went on and interviewing more victims. It's honestly disheartening,- the ex-wife, daughter, and ex-camp counselor don't show much (or any) empathy. When they talk about how a teen died at the camp, the wife mentions how upset it made Steve and then starts complaining about the court-case, and the daughter complains about the news coverage while coming across as very arrogant.

It felt like a lot of this was intended to diminish the degree of the abuse that went on and excuse or justify what Cartisano did. It did well when telling the stories of the survivors, but unfortunately falls short otherwise.

First off, I respect various organizations who legitimately assist with youth programs for "troubled" kids, I think we all do. At the same time, the finger can be pointed at the parents who don't fully understand where and what they are sending their child to because they haven't done their due diligence. Sounds like they are failing on both fronts, failing their kids and failing themselves.

Secondly, The absolute most satisfying part of this, and I don't mean this harshly, is the kids this man was trying to "save" were the exact same as his own kids who he did basically nothing for. So, you have this man taking thousands of dollars from other parents to "save" their children, and this person is also a parent who is actually failing his own! It's funny how that works out isn't it? The timeless classic of people not practicing what they preach, like this child abuser did. Publicly announcing himself as a saint, but just another wolf in sheep's clothing..an absolute Hypocrite!!

Nevertheless, if you want to watch some unfortunate children being pushed to near death experiences to "make them a better person" then this is for you.

Or If you like seeing hypocrisy exposed, then this is for you as well.

Camp Hell it's called, well there's a special spot for this man in the afterlife version.