Campfire Tales

Campfire Tales

Plot:

A group of young teen boys are camping out in the woods when they are approached by a disheveled figure. He asks if he can warm up by their fire, and in exchange he promises to tell them the most frightening tales they've ever heard.

This can't be good.

Comments:

There's no doubt about it, 'Campfire Tales' is a hard film to stumble across. It's not that copies are particularly scarce or valuable, but hell, who would actually know enough to look for South Carolina's answer to Amicus? Sadly, the old Mom n' Pop vhs sections are quickly going the way of 50 cent coffee and the G4 network's watchability. Even renting online seems to be hit or miss, as the film tends to be confused with a 1997 dtv of the same title. Lest you do the same, the specimen we're examining today features Gunnar "Leatherface" Hansen as a creepy drifter who tells four tales to a group of delinquent campers. (You know, the first lesson I teach my kids will be 'Never trust anyone who bathes less than you do.')

Our first story is a mutation of the old escaped killer stalks parked couple chestnut. The main difference here being that when the two get home they don't find a hook on the car door, but rather decapitated parents and a rather testy mental patient. I must say our heroine takes it a lot better than I would, but that's mostly because the tale is as poorly acted as it is penned. But there's something weird going on here; the whole movie is so amateurish it becomes bizarre and dreamy. Cold green and blue tones turn pedestrian direction into weirdly enjoyable cinematography. Having the killer just about exploding into a mess of Karo syrup and cherry pie filling goes far beyond gratuitous into the realm of cartoony, and a segment that could have been offensive is instead surreally silly.
You might want to take note of that effect kids, because we've just uncovered this film's unifying theme.

Back around the campfire, one of the kids pulls out a joint, prompting a cautionary tale from Hansen about the dangers of drugs. (Wow, I'd like to live in a place where even the grizzled psychotic derelicts impart sound moral guidance.)
A pair of basement dwelling losers run out of marajahoobie and are forced to buy from a curious source. Their new contact possesses a huge plant of unknown origin, and is surrounded by users with hideous growths all over their faces. Yeah, you'd pretty much have t wake and bake ever day for 20 years to think this was a good idea. This is probably the weakest part of the film, though as the whole thing is uniformly goofy yet uncannily enjoyable, that's a pretty relative statement.) The rest of the story pretty much consists of Beavis and Butthead watching public domain clips and smoking up. Oh, and of course turning to melty-faced skeletons as their flesh dissolves into puddles of cannabis colored goo. (So yes, in case you harboring any delusions of a rational, ordered universe, someone apparently saw 'Troll 2', and said to themselves 'this has inspired me'.) As a metaphor for the deleterious effects of pot on a man's ambition, having characters literally fall apart isn't bad. Although I always found "Smoke enough weed and Dennis Kucinich will start to make sense" to be a much more chilling caveat.

Back in our framing device, one dull lad begins whittling with a knife he got for Christmas, triggering a yuletide terror tale, and making us all merciful he didn't tell the storyteller he had to go take a pee break. (You boys like to pee, eh? Once, ten years ago there was someone who liked to pee…)
On a holiday jaunt to mom's house we join our antagonist, a greedy yuppie so flatly evil he makes a 'Tales from the Crypt' villain look well developed. (Hell, even a 'Hitcher' character would be deep compared to this clown.) He promptly offs mom for her inheritance, despite her pleas that it's Christmas (So, she wouldn't object if he killed her in March?) then heads over to baby-sit his niece and nephew as an easy alibi. To shut up their creepy caregiver, the brats relate a bit of schoolyard folklore that's started floating around; not only is Santa real, he has an evil twin, Satan Claus, who mercilessly slaughters the wicked.

I'm gonna' give you a minute and let that soak in.

While this hunk o' narrative shares the same shortcomings as the rest of the film, (acting, dialogue) it thankfully is chock full of the same goofy-ass charm. While our yuletide booger is obviously just a guy in a Halloween mask, it's also an oddly effective nightmarish thing that seems plucked straight out of some ancient Slavic folklore. Likewise, the dreamlike muddy color, odd pacing, and a stop-animated demonic rotting reindeer make me like this stupid, stupid segment so much more than I should.
Be sure to watch for an oddly detached scene where our villain makes a sandwich, then leaves the room. Now there's some tight editing!

The segue into our final tale finds a camper improbably playing with pirate doubloons, which Gunnar identifies as coming from the late 1600's. (Gunnar Hansen, homeless antiquary numismatist.) The last turkey meatball in our cinematic samach is the longest and fortunately also the most artistically accomplished of the lot. (I refer you now to my previous statement about relativity.)
An incomprehensibly accented swashbuckler successfully mutinies against his captain, only to crash his ship on a god-forsaken island for want of a full crew.
Venturing inland, he comes across an ex-slave who lives as a hermit on the island. Oddly enough, they had once served on the same ship, and the strangeness doesn't stop there; this is not just any island says the hermit, and our murderous novice is far from the first pirate to wash up on this particular beach. Seems the island lures evil souls to itself, and there's even a buried treasure to serve as bait. Trouble is, no one leaves alive, and after disposing of the hermit and attempting to nab the gold, a few of the pirate's old shipmates arrive to keep him where he belongs. The end result is something of a cross between 'Lost' and a Fulci film, with a cursed sentient island tormenting a sinful man by vomiting up endless waves of dead buccaneers. Yeah, it's pretty neat, and even though this tale features the worst acting we've seen yet, it's energetic enough to make the film worth checking out all by its lonesome. Furthermore, the pirate zombies are realized with some surprisingly decent practical makeup effects, and the pseudo tropical locale (most likely a private southern beach) is quite scenic

'Campfire Tales' is that oddest of forgotten videos. Laughably low budget, howlingly silly, blindingly obscure, and burn down the barn enjoyable. The hard to rent dvd release also includes a short film called 'Tenants'. (Most likely because distributor Sub Rosa had it lying around and couldn't think of any other place to stick it.) While it shares the same paltry production and esoteric provenance as its accompanying feature, unlike 'Campfire' the short is both subtle and eerily effective. It reminds me something of the haunting homemade horror films that used to play on USA network late at night. And while our main attraction is more like a public access presentation, together the whole package makes me pine nostalgic for the days when YouTube wasn't the only place to find weird bits of cultural flotsam.
It is oddness in its purest essence, and though the whole deal might strike you one day as a lucid dream, I can honestly say that 'Campfire Stories' is unforgettable in its own f*cked-up little way.

Artistic Merit = 3.5 Cheesy Enjoyability = 10