YMMV / Camp Nowhere

• Awesome Music: "Linger" by The Cranberries and "The Creator Has a Master Plan" by the Brooklyn Funk Essentials really stand out as gems in a movie that's filled with otherwise forgettable pop/rock.
• Critical Dissonance: On Rotten Tomatoes, Camp Nowhere holds an 18% with critics, and a 58% with users. It helps that it's somewhat of a nostalgic Cult Classic amongst '90s kids.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Among other things, Winston Churchill speeches and kids performing A Streetcar Named Desire.
  • Dennis' computer camp persona is named Mr. Wozniak.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Dennis' comment about scamming parents and indoctrinating their kids into a cult takes on a much darker meaning after the 2010's, when Andrew Keegan started the cult-like "Full Circle," and when Allison Mack pleaded guilty to criminal activities related to her senior role in Keith Raniere's NXIVM cult.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Gaby's mom wants to send her to a weight loss camp called Camp Slenderella, and later remarks during Parents' Day that the camp thinned her out. Actress Melody Kay was quite visibly NOT overweight at any point during the movie.
• One-Scene Wonder: Burgess Meredith as Feln.
• Retroactive Recognition: This happens with some of the kids, as most were just starting their acting careers:
  • Jessica Alba plays a minor supporting character named Gail, and gets her first onscreen credit. Mud says hello to her as she's making out with another boy, and she even has a line.
  • Allison Mack (Chloe from Smallville) is also in the movie as a supporting character named Heather.
  • Mud himself is played by Jonathan Jackson, who you might recognize as Jesse Tuck and Kyle Reese.
  • Trish is played by Marnette Patterson, who would later play Christy Jenkins.
  • Hillary Tuck, who you might recognize as Amy Szalinski, plays Betty Stoller.
  • Zack is Joey Donner.
  • A non-child example: Kate Mulgrew plays Trish's mom five months before Star Trek: Voyager's TV premiere.
• Values Dissonance: Audiences here in the 21st century would be incredulous that any parents would blindly send their children away to random summer camps without doing a little more research into said camps or the camp representatives that Van Welker claimed to be.
  • That and letting their kids go off with a complete stranger, with a criminal history, with no experience as a camp counselor.
  • On the other hand, it would have probably seemed just as unbelievable to contemporary parents, since at least some of the parents — especially in the beginning, don't seem to care about their kids, with Trish's dad getting her name wrong, confusing her (perceived) acting hobby with her sister's riding hobby, and being eager to send her to a camp where they will see as little of her as possible. Of course, this is all Played for Laughs and is part of the absurdity of the entire plot.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Aside from the junior high hijinks, and completely ignoring the risqué movie poster with supermodels that aren't in the movie, you get:
  • Kids re-enacting A Streetcar Named Desire, complete with cursing.
  • Talk of the camp being a former hippie commune ("Lots of sex, and drugs, and debauchery...").
  • Zack and Dennis buying beer. And Zack never gets a "you're too young" lecture, and Dennis doesn't throw it out...
  • Dennis wanting to avoid jailtime and "a 200 pound fiancee named Duke."
  • Betty pretending to skinny dip so she could steal Walter's trunks and embarrass him.
  • The whole premise might be an unintentional Nightmare Fuel for parents if one ignores the comedy aspect of the film. For instance, kids doing all manner of things that could have gotten them seriously injured, without any adult supervision present; Mud's firework injury is a prime example.

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