Campfire Tales

"Campfire Tales" (1991) is no where near being a great horror flick: the acting is- for the most part- not the best and one can clearly see right off the bat that it is a low budget picture. And yet, the movie manages to somehow be entertaining. The movie centers around three teenagers who are camping out in the woods when town drunk Ralph (Gunnar Hansen who manages to play the role of storyteller pretty good) tells them four tales: one about a murderer with a hook for a hand, one that is an obvious tribute to "Reefer Madness" (with a more graphic image, mind you), another about Satan Claus (my personal favorite of the bunch), and one about a marooned pirate who learns the price of treachery. Even with the shoe string budget, the film crew manages to do a decent production job with each individual story in the areas of tone, lighting, bizarre music, and (again, considering that this is a low budget movie) very well done makeup. I'll admit, I'm a sucker when it comes to anthologies (especially now that nobody seems to make them anymore) but if you're like me and you like to see the filmmakers put some effort into their work (especially if they're working on a low budget) then check out "Campfire Tales". PS: Not to be confused with the 1997 version. Also, this movie is available on you tube but just to give fair warning, you will have to put up with a software water mark on the screen. However, with the movie's charm, you might not notice it after a while.

In this very low-budget horror anthology, Gunnar Hansen plays Ralph, a booze swigging homeless guy who joins three young horror fans around their campfire in the woods and recounts a series of scary stories, which, as one might expect from a guy who has rotted most of his brain cells with cheap alcohol, aren't very good. In fact, all four stories are so elementary that they can easily be summed up in a single sentence: 1) An escaped maniac with a hook kills people. 2) Two guys smoke bad weed and melt. 3) On Christmas Eve, a heartless yuppie receives a visit from Satan Claus. 4) A mutinous pirate is attacked by his zombie shipmates.

Although writer/directors William Cooke and Paul Talbot's obvious energy and enthusiasm for the genre does result in some cheap and cheerful, unsophisticated entertainment along the way, particularly whenever the blood is being thrown around, it is the film's weak script that prevents it from being a success, with each uninspired story notably lacking any satisfactory resolution (whereas most anthologies strive to deliver a neat pay-off or cool twist ending, these tales are happy to just peter off at the end). By the fourth and final story, the least enjoyable of the bunch, I found myself seriously struggling to stay awake.

When I watched this movie three years ago at TV I thought it was going to be a turkey. that´s was perhaps the reason why I enjoyed it. This extremely cheap but effective movie is divided in several stories and I can remark specially two of them: "Satan Claus" a terrific Christmas story and one chapter in which a guy arrives to an island searching for a treasure and becomes the victim of a group of pirate zombies, but the other two stories are also funny and you can watch some gore here(not very much), so, what more can you expect? If you are a fan, rent it and you will have a lot of fun.

Horror icon Gunnar "Leatherface" Hansen is on hand in this horror anthology, as he essays the role of Ralph, a rough-hewn stranger who materializes out of the night before three young male campers. He proceeds to spin a quartet of horror tales, and for the most part, they're actually pretty entertaining; this little film does live up to the word "horror". It gets pretty damn disgusting at certain points, so it will appeal to gore fanatics, and the stories are entertaining and succinctly told. This little film was the product of the imagination of William Cooke and Paul Talbot (if the second name rings a bell, it's because he's a Charles Bronson expert who's written books and recorded commentaries for a number of Bronson vehicles).

"The Hook" is pretty standard stuff about a couple who run afoul of the title maniac. It's decent, but is basically just a warm-up for the tales to follow.

"Overtoke" is good, gruesome fun. Two stoners come into contact with a supplier who gives them some VERY strange stuff indeed ... stuff that has dire consequences when ingested.

"The Fright Before Xmas" has the appeal of a "just desserts" sort of yarn, as a resentful, greedy son experiences his own consequences of a murderous act. As you can expect, the ending is very satisfying.

Finally, "Skull and Crossbones" is a solid, atmospheric tale of a pirate shipwrecked on an island. He's determined to unearth whatever treasure may be there, but is warned that he won't be successful if he tries to get off the island. This segment is pretty talky for a while, but it has a VERY fun payoff.

Overall, Cooke and Talbot do a good job with this little film, well worth seeing if slowly paced at times. Hansen makes the journey(s) worth taking; one might think that as the token "name" actor, that his cost made up a substantial part of the budget, but he proved to be quite reasonable, to the filmmakers' delight.

Horror anthology aficionados should dig this.

Seven out of 10.

Three young boys are told four very eerie Campfire Tales by a creepy homeless man who make have a few dark secrets of his own..

The movie begins with three kids by a campfire, feels very much like the "Are You Afraid of the Dark" midnight society crew. An old man all of a sudden pops up looking for warmth from their fire, startling the kids. They all sit by the fire and the old man begins telling them scary stories that he claims are real.

The first story is your typical girl and guy park their car in the middle of nowhere to make out. It's Halloween night, and the young couple hears over the radio that a serial killer named "The Hook" has escaped a psych ward. The girl Susan (feeling scared) begs her boyfriend to leave and take her home, which he does. The Hook attacks the two of them leading to a bloody and very predictable ending.

The second tale involves two guys who love to smoke pot. While driving around, they pick up some guy off the street who tells them that he can find them weed off of some guy named Frank. Once they start lighting up some of his stash, they discover the pot they're smoking has some devastating results to their overall health. Easily the weakest of the four tales.

The third scary story is a holiday horror themed tale. An ungrateful man named Steve comes home on Christmas Eve. He makes a point that he needs money when his mother mentions her inheritance. Steve murders his mother by pushing her down a flight of stairs. Everything is lining up according to his plan, until an evil Santa Claus figure decides to give him a Christmas present he'll never forget. My favourite of all the tales for sure.

The fourth and final story is about a pirate who ends up shipwrecked on an seemingly deserted island. He learns that there is some buried treasure on the island somewhere, but it is guarded by zombies. The pirate of course ignores the warning and steals the treasure, only to discover that the warning was very real.

Campfire Tales is a very low budget horror film, and the quality of the movie shows how low budget it truly is. I have an old VHS tape of this movie and it's hard to see much of what is going on in the dark. I will say there was something super chilling about how bad the quality of the tape was when watching some of the scary moments, especially in the first story. The grittiness of the tape added to the overall creep factor, it looked way more like an early 80's movie and not one made in 1991.

The acting is extremely average in all of the stories and wraparound story. The best thing about Campfire Tales is the obvious passion that the writers and directors have for the horror genre. It's hard to rate the overall film higher than a 4, but a lot of credit goes to the filmmakers for putting together a decent watch on a no budget. I recommend giving it a viewing for the third story alone which I found the most entertaining of the bunch.

4/10