Some of you may be too young to remember a movie called Camp Nowhere, but if you’ve seen the 2006 movie Accepted with Justin Long, then congratulations, you have basically seen Camp Nowhere with college brochures taped over the camp signs.
I thought this the first time I saw Accepted, and after watching it again it became impossible to ignore. The basic idea behind both flicks is that a kid’s parents want him to go somewhere he absolutely does not want to go, so he gets his friends to help create a fake version of that place to keep the parents happy. Then more kids show up, the fake thing becomes sort of real, and everyone acts surprised when the lie collapses during a parent-heavy public event.
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Accepted vs Camp Nowhere: the short version
Accepted is not a shot-for-shot remake of Camp Nowhere, but the skeleton is absolutely the same. Swap summer camp for college, swap Christopher Lloyd for Lewis Black, add a fake website, and you are not that far from the same movie.
And honestly, that is part of what makes the comparison fun. I am not saying you need to call the movie police. I am saying that once you notice the overlap, you cannot unsee it.
What Camp Nowhere is about
In Camp Nowhere, Mud’s parents want him to attend a real summer camp. Mud would rather hang out with his friends, because that is what most kids would rather do when the alternative is being shipped off to structured fun with matching T-shirts.
So Mud and his friends come up with a plan: create their own fake camp where they can do whatever they want. The only problem is that parents usually like to see an adult involved before they hand over money and send their children into the woods. That is where Dennis Van Welker, played by Christopher Lloyd, comes in. Mud blackmails him into pretending to run the camp, and Dennis goes around selling different versions of the same fake camp depending on which parents he is talking to.
Once the parents are convinced and the money is collected, the kids take over an old camp and spend the summer building the dream version of childhood: no counselors, no rules, and probably not enough liability insurance.
What Accepted is about
In Accepted, all you really have to do is swap camp with college. Justin Long plays Bartleby, a kid who slacked off during high school and got rejected from every college he applied to. Instead of dealing with the disappointment from his parents, he creates a fake acceptance letter from a fake college.
Then a few of his friends need fake acceptance letters too. Then Sherman builds the fake college website a little too well. Then everyone who applies gets accepted. Before long, the abandoned building they cleaned up to fool Bartleby’s parents is packed with kids who think they have enrolled in an actual school.
That is where Accepted becomes Camp Nowhere with tuition, a dean, and a fake academic philosophy that sounds ridiculous until you remember how many real colleges also charge money for nonsense.
The similarities are not small
Both movies start with a kid trying to avoid a future chosen by his parents. Both kids build a fake institution. Both fake institutions require an adult mascot to make the lie believable. Both lies accidentally become bigger than the original plan. Both stories use the money from parents or students to keep the fake place running. And both movies eventually explode when parents show up and realize the brochures were doing a lot of heavy lifting.
In Camp Nowhere, Dennis Van Welker does not really run the camp so much as perform the role of responsible adult when parents are watching. In Accepted, Lewis Black’s Ben Lewis does almost the same thing as the fake dean. He is there to make the parents feel like the place has structure, even though the structure is basically duct tape and speeches.
The locations match up too. Camp Nowhere uses a rundown old camp that the kids fix up enough to pass as real. Accepted uses an old mental health facility that Bartleby and his friends turn into a college campus. In both cases, the setting is less important than the sales pitch: look official enough and adults will apparently stop asking questions.
The differences matter, but not that much
There are differences, obviously. Accepted is louder, more modern, and built around the anxiety of getting into college. It also has the internet as the thing that makes the lie spiral out of control. Camp Nowhere is more summer-vacation wish fulfillment, and it has that early-90s kids movie feeling where every adult is either clueless, weird, or Christopher Lloyd.
Accepted also tries to make a bigger point about education and letting students build the school they actually want. Camp Nowhere is more interested in the fantasy of kids running their own summer. That gives Accepted a slightly different flavor, even if the recipe looks familiar.
So is Accepted a rip-off?
I do not know if I would call it a rip-off in the angry internet way, but I would definitely call it suspiciously familiar. The fake camp/fake college setup is too close to ignore, and the parent-weekend collapse is basically the same kind of punchline.
That said, both movies are still watchable in their own way. Accepted has Justin Long, Lewis Black, and enough mid-2000s energy to make it a time capsule. Camp Nowhere has Christopher Lloyd, a young Jessica Alba, and the kind of premise that makes you wonder why every kid in the 90s was one forged permission slip away from committing light fraud.
Where to watch or buy them
If you want to do the comparison yourself, you can look for Accepted on DVD, Blu-ray, or digital and Camp Nowhere on DVD, Blu-ray, or digital. I would not call either one required cinema homework, but as a double feature they make a weird amount of sense.
FAQ
Is Accepted a remake of Camp Nowhere?
Not officially, but the plots are similar enough that the comparison is hard to miss. Both movies revolve around kids creating a fake institution to fool parents, only for the fake place to become bigger than expected.
Which movie came first?
Camp Nowhere came out in 1994. Accepted came out in 2006.
Are Accepted and Camp Nowhere worth watching now?
Yes, if you like light comedies with very questionable adult supervision. Neither one is perfect, but they are both easy watches, and they are more fun when you compare them back to back.
