Campfire Stories

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.

Movies like CREEPSHOW 2 were just not good movies, but at least they were fun gore fests. Well, CAMPFIRE STORIES is a much better version of it. I love low-budget horror films, and I truly think that some of the lower budget horror films are actually some of the creepier ones, this film was not that bad in my opinion.

There were not very many authentic scares and that acting was nothing to brag about, but the acting was believable enough. It is far better than some of the other crap films I have seen (BLOODY MURDER for example). There are not much usages of special effects or much blood or gore for that matter, and I think that is one of the things that adds to the creepiness of this film.

The "Ranger Bill" character was pretty laughable, but otherwise I thought CAMPFIRE STORIES was decent enough. Not the typical story of serial killer slaughters people, people get naked, people get killed, etc. This film was different. Very low-budget, but good to watch one a dark night when you're all alone. Recommendations include CREEPSHOW 2, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and BLOODY MURDER. Give this film a try when you have nothing better to do.....4/5.

I didn't have much faith in this movie when I bought the dvd, but it was cheap and I figured it had to contain at least a couple of scares. After the first few minutes I thought I was wrong, this movie was going to suck but as it progressed it did get better.

The wrap around story is easily the worst of the bunch, the acting and production is amateurish at times. While it does contain some humor David Johansens hammy acting takes away any suspense that could possibly be being produced. The whole plot of the wrap around story is pretty flimsy as well and seems very forced, as if the producers just needed to get the film to the point where the stories are told. The resolution that comes at the end is just as forced and is pretty pathetic.

The first story, about a group of jocks picking on a school handyman, doesn't fair much better in it's acting or production values. Once it gets going there is a level of creepiness to it but the whole set up before the climax is so poorly done that you find yourself caring very little about what happens.

Aside from some poor special effects (well good in a high school class project sort of way) the second story involving three troublemakers looking to profit from the murder of a native man, fails to really grab the viewer. There isn't much wrong with the story it just doesn't do much until the twist ending. At that point everything registers and the story makes sense, unfortunately it's not much fun getting to that point.

The final, and best, story is a nice little "who-done-it". While the story, of four friends getting together for a night of "passion" which ends in murder, doesn't really set itself up as well as it could, it does contain the most suspense of the 4 stories. This entry contains the best of everything in the movie, best story, acting and suspense. The topper is that is also contains the best ending as you continue to guess who the culpret is.

I could almost recommend this movie if it had a better wrap around story to hold the rest of the movie together. Also, if you want a professional type horror movie it is best to stay clear of Campfire Stories. I realize I'm probably going very easy on this film but I did like it much more then I thought I would, it's a guilty pleasure that's worth 90 minutes of mindless enjoyment if you can find it for the right (read VERY LOW) price. Mind you, I would recommend 1997's Campfire Tales over this film any day. Campfire Stories rates a 4 out of 10.

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.