I have over 1,200 DVDs, 3,000 CDs and a couple hundred books; over half of them the average person would be completely embarrassed to own. I, however, defend my purchases.
EPISODE 3: CAMPFIRE TALES
I used to be terrified of horror movies. I admittedly hadn’t watched them at the time, I was terrified to watch them. I was literally scared of being scared. It may have been because when I was a kid the ending of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (when I killed your brother I talked JUST LIKE THIS!?) gave me nightmares for weeks, and I got this crazy idea I didn’t enjoy being scared. What made all of this more complicated was that Halloween was ALWAYS my favorite holiday.
All of this changed in the summer of 1996 when in the same week I rented The Frightners (Michael J Fox was my favorite actor in those days) and my cousin made me watch Scream. I immediately became a gore/horror fan and stared to actively track down more horror. I found some websites like badmovies.org and video graveyard to provided me good suggestions and reviews. One title on Video Graveyard seemed really interesting to me despite its average 2 ½ star rating, that movie was Campfire Tales. For a long time this was my favorite movie ever. Admittedly it’s no longer my favorite movie, but I still love it.
Campfire Tales is an Anthology film in the vein of Creepshow, however I feel the stories are presented in the best possible way an anthology film could pick; people telling stories around a fire. It’s almost like “Are you Afraid of the Dark” the movie. In 90 minutes you get 4 short stories as well as a wrap around story. Our wrap around story involves a group of friends coming home from a concert (including Christine Taylor) when they veer off the road and crash the van. They set up some flares and while waiting for help to arrive they sit around a campfire telling classic scary stories. Unlike things like Creepshow and Creepshow 2 where the stories were originals or based on EC Comics and/or Stephen King shorts, they do classic campfire tales that are part of the public consiousness.
The First story tells of a group of teens in the 50’s (James Marsden & Amy Smart) convinced that an escaped convict with a hook for a hand is outside their car. The following story is about a couple on their honeymoon (with Office Space‘s Ron Livingston) whose RV gets terrorized. The 3rd story is the most impressive and legit terrifying titled “People Can Lick Too” about a child predator stalking a young girl as she stays home alone. The Final segment is called The Locket, which I remember reading in elementary school in the “Scary Stories” book series which fucked me up for months.
Is the acting good? Not really. Are the twists predictable? Absolutely, these are classic stories that I’ve heard since we were eight, but damn it, it’s fun not to mention well shot. The Movie definitely looks good. The film looks like they had fun making the movie which is something I’ve always enjoyed seeing. It’s the reason why I can enjoy movies like Can’t Hardly Wait and Empire Records. Shit movies? Yeah pretty much. But you can tell that it was a blast making those movies.
What it comes down to is this. You obviously can’t watch direct to DVD movies (specifically horror movies) and expect to be getting John Carpenter’s Halloween. In fact most of the time you get the worst of the worst; to get a mildly creative and entertaining film like this is a rare find in it’s own right.
Be warned, there is a movie called Campfire Stories from 1991 that’s a pile of shit. Don’t netflix/buy that by mistake and bitch to me. But if you enjoyed films like Creepshow 1 and 2 and even Tales from the Hood; this is movie is right up your alley.