Film Review: "Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare" (2023).

From the director of The Yorkshire Ripper comes Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare. This documentary films directed by Liza Williams. Out-of-control teens across America were sent to a therapy camp in the harsh Utah desert. The conditions were brutal, but the staff were even worse.

On May 4, 2019, Steve Cartisano died of a heart attack after his long battle with cancer. However, the Challenger Foundation founder evidently left his mark on the world. Numerous teen rehabilitation programs exist today, and many of them have been accused of abuse over the years. In 1988, Cartisano created the wilderness therapy organization, which had the goal of rehabilitating "out-of-control" teenagers by utilizing negative reinforcement and forcing the campers to learn survival skills. However, conditions at the camp in the Utah desert were horrid, and the staff certainly did not make the children's lives any easier. Parents would pay thousands of dollars for workers at the Challenger Foundation to kidnap their teenage children from their homes and drag them to Utah, where they experienced awful treatment and had to hike five-hundred miles in the desert. They believed their kids would be reformed from their rebellious ways when they returned home, but most cases were not success stories. Following the death of a sixteen-year-old, Kristen Chase, in the summer of 1990 due to heatstroke during a brutal hike, the Challenger Foundation was shut down. However, Cartisano had to face the music and answer to the numerous allegations of abuse following the wilderness therapy program's end. However, according to Rolling Stone, a jury found Cartisano not guilty, and he was free to go about his life. But Chase's parents sought justice for the death of their child, so they filed a federal lawsuit against the therapy camp and Cartisano. The lawsuit was ultimately settled in 1994 for $260,000. Aside from that, Cartisano was essentially shunned from society, seeing that he had ruined his reputation by creating the controversial Challenger Foundation. But that didn't stop him from trying to continue his work. Cartisano opened more therapy camps for troubled teens and continued to leave a trail of abuse in his wake. He founded HealthCare America, which was shut down when teens under Cartisano's care were found tied to a car and had been abused. Once again, the organization's closing didn't stop Cartisano. He later opened Pacific Coast Academy, a pricey therapy camp in Samoa that the United States Embassy put an end to after a video exposing the horrific conditions the teens experienced was leaked.

Taking these omissions into account, the film remains a compelling story. Williams takes her time escalating the intensity of Cartisano's downward spiral, but the tale never feels slow, and it is perfectly plotted. An extreme documentary film that well and truly exhausts the con artist craze. An unbelievable if repetitive tale of deception and defrauding in 20th century America. In the end, it raises an important question: should you believe therapy camps entirely? And by doing so, it makes you question your own gullibility.

Simon says Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare receives: