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.

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.

My story: I was in the video store, trying desperately to find something to rent, so I could just get home and end what was probably a miserable day. (It's been a long week. Don't ask.) As I've found myself so many times before, I was standing in front of the "horror" section. I thought it might be fun to rent a bad scary movie to laugh at.

Now see, the trick to renting a "good" bad scary movie is in finding one that's just good enough to almost justify watching. There is nothing better than finding a horror movie that walks that thin line between being at least redeemingly scary and laughably stupid. I repeat: nothing better. Not fresh baked brownies. Not sex. Not puppy breath. Nothing.

Problem with this film is my review thus far is just as frightening as the entire movie. It wasn't even good enough for me to waste my time laughing at. I saw better acting at my brother's second grade Christmas pageant. The special effects were comparable to sock puppets. And there were plot holes big enough to throw Ranger Bill's big stupid hat through. It's like the writers thought up the twists at the end and convinced themselves they didn't need to go along with the actual stories themselves. It's the film equivalent of someone tearing out the last few pages of The Grapes of Wrath and writing in "Rosasharn kills them all" in crayon on the back cover. I fell asleep for the beginning of the third story and didn't even bother rewinding it, because by that time I'd learned that seeing the whole thing still wouldn't make it make any more sense.

If you're looking for a glorious trainwreck of a movie . . . this one is not for you. However, if you're looking for a movie that drags itself along like a half-dead chipmunk, searching hopelessly for even a modicum of redemption before finally fading into a painful death that couldn't have come soon enough, maybe you should check it out.

If not, give it to someone you hate to kill them a little inside.

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.