Campfire Stories

A much better title for this low-rent Creepshow wannabe would have been Bedtime Stories because it's far more likely to send the viewer off to sleep than to scare them. With three incredibly mundane tales, directed with little flair or skill by Bob Cea, Andrzej Krakowski, and Jeff Mazzola (yes, it really took three people to direct this mess), the film belongs to the lowest echelon of horror anthologies, on a par with garbage like Creepshow III.

The wraparound narrative sees a pair of guys, on the lookout for a party in the middle of nowhere, blowing a tyre after almost running down hot babe in distress Natalie (Jamie-Lynn Sigler), who has also been experiencing car trouble. Wandering into the woods in search of help, the trio meet a creepy park ranger (David Johansen), who claims to have arranged a tow truck for the trio; while they wait for it to arrive, the ranger tells some (supposedly) scary stories around his campfire...

Story one has some jocks tormenting their school janitor, unaware that he is actually an escapee from the state facility for the criminally insane; story two features a gang of thugs who kill an native American Indian, smoke his hallucinogenic weed, experience some truly dreadful CGI creatures, and finally get their comeuppance when the Indian returns to suck out their youth; in story three, two girls plan a special evening of sexy fun and games to payback their boyfriends for their bad behaviour, but things go awry when a killer interrupts their party.

Having already suffered three of the park ranger's mind-numbingly feeble tales of terror, the teens decide to make a run for it, lest there be a fourth; they make it to a strange night-club (where horror punk band The Misfits just happened to be playing a gig), but realise too late that they've made a big mistake.... as I did when I bought this dreck.

Campfire Stories is what's usually called an "Anthology" or "Portmanteaux" movie - in other words, a movie that tells a number of stories. Amicus made a number of very successful movies in this vein in the 60's and 70's, adapting EC Comic's most famous titles, including The Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt, to produce some classics of the "twist ending" genre and it's this style Campfire Stories emulates, even going so far as being based upon a horror comicbook (which I'd personally never heard of...)

The strength of the Anthology movie is that - because the writer has such a short time to develop his story - the plots are usually much tighter and concentrated than in a regular movie, with the focus being more on delivering the macabre or ironic twist.

Unfortunately, nobody told this to the writers of Campfire Stories. The three tales on offer are predictable, limp and - at times - lacking in logic. Supposedly they're tales of ghostly/otherworldly revenge, but in reality, the movie's central message seems to be "Teenagers are bad and deserve to die for being teenagers," a motif that runs through the entire movie.

Even the most ardent collector of Anthology-style movies should avoid giving this movie space in his collection.

If you want to see how it should be done, watch the Amicus classics Asylum, From Beyond the Grave, Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, The House That Dripped Blood and Dr. Terror's House of Horror.

This is one of the titles I bought from play earlier in the year for £1.99. This movie makes the other ones seem good but I am getting ahead of myself.

The plot A couple of teenagers breakdown in their car in a forest. They meet a gal and she is cute so they follow her into the woods probably under the assumption that one of them will score big with her by the end of the movie. They get a bit lost but see a campfire and go towards it. The movie then turns into an anthology of shlock horror movies. The movie contains three stories each one atrocious. The best one is about an red Indian who steals the youth off to teenage thugs who want to do him harm. Then there is a lame female serial killer story and lastly a really lame psycho janitor story.

Summation. All in all this movie sucks. If i had got this free with a mag I would have felt ripped off. It has dodgy digital effects of the lowest quality. The acting is really below par and the plot is atrocious. This movie has nothing to offer. Avoid at all costs.

Upon going to the local video store with a 2-for-1 rental deal, I decided to rent Campfire Stories as my free one. Well, I probably should have known what I was in for when I saw "Starring Jamie-Lynn Sigler of the Sopranos!" as its publicity.

Basically, two guys on their way to a bangin' woods party get a flat tire and pick up a random hot girl on the way. They go into the woods, and hear three cute sweet tales told by an over-sized boy scout. The first story is one of revenge--four football players are killed by a criminally insane janitor who escaped from a mental institution that conducted "pain threshold" experiments. Yeah. Death by croquet mallet--nothing is better.

Honestly, I didn't really watch the second story. The third story has a bit of a twist--two girls decide to get even with their boyfriend at one girl's crazy-dead-grandmother's house. Chaos and death ensues! The ending that ties it all together is 'eh' at best.

I did not expect much. I really didn't. I love campy humor, but even this tried me. I would recommend this movie for twelve-year-old slumber parties and/or bad horror movie marathons.

then this one is definitely for you. Just don't expect to be frightened or wake up screaming in the middle of the night. And don't expect anything extraordinary. This film wasn't meant to be any of those things. It sticks to the classic "B" horror movie genre with it's cheesy classic monster movie special effects and over acting to make it seem scary. It plays more like an hour and a half long episode of Tales From the Crypt. But is amusing in its own fashion. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting back, relaxing, and just letting this movie be exactly what it is: a corny "B" style horror movie made because they had the budget to make it. And as long as you enjoy movies like Killer Klowns from Outer Space, you can probably appreciate this movie as well. But if you are expecting an edge of your seat thriller, that makes you think, sends chills up your spine, and is guaranteed to give you nightmares, then look elsewhere.