Campfire Tales
Classic horror tales are given a new, fairly dull life, chock full of cheesy fun.

Campfire Tales lets you know right up front what it's all about, and it isn't much into pretending to be more than it is. The opening sequence -- which really doesn't fit into the rest of the film and is kind of there for the sake of being there -- is filmed in black and white, because as we all know, not only was television devoid of colors in the fifties, but so was the entire world. The short scene that introduces us to Campfire Tales is a standard telling of the popular "hook" story: boy and girl make out on Lover's Lane, a crazy psycho killer with a hook instead of a hand is on the loose, girl gets scared, boy drives them back into town, and there's a bloody hook dangling off the door handle! Ahhhhhhh!

Well, okay, it wasn't all that scary. And neither, for that matter, was the rest of the film. The main premise -- once we get past to the hook thing and to the actual point -- is that a group of teenagers, coming home from a concert and driving like Utahns, crash their car and end up stranded in the woods in the middle of the night. To keep their minds occupied -- because there's a psycho killer on the loose and because they're probably still a little drunk -- they build a campfire and sit around telling scary stories, waiting for morning to come. Unfortunately their stories aren't all that scary, partly because there's little use of dramatic effect that doesn't smell like cheese, and partly because the tales they chose to retell are largely variations on the classics, so you pretty much know how they're going to turn out.

Honestly, who cares about the rest of the stories when the last one has Glenn Quinn, all damp and ruffled?

In the first story, a couple of newlyweds pull their RV off into a national park for the night, only to be interrupted by the bus driver from Speed, who tells them to go the hell away before they get dead. But they're stuck there, and some gratuitous sex later, the RV is under assault by some hairy cannibals or something. But the real classic utilized in this tale isn't the story of the hairy cannibal things, it's the old "that scraping you heard on the roof all night was the dead guy swinging back and forth, strung up over your car" kind of thing. In the next story, which was so boring that I had to fight the urge to fast-forward through the entire thing, a girl is pursued by her Internet stalker. There might've been another story somewhere in there, but if there was I've repressed it so completely that I don't remember a thing.

The real reason to watch Campfire Tales, and the reason this particular review is in our March issue at all, is the final campfire story, which stars none other than the Irishman who stole my heart, Glenn Quinn (though he does put on an American accent for this particular role). Luckily for me, he wasn't the Internet stalker, or I might've cried. Instead, he gets what turned out to be the best story of them all: the ghost story. Mmm, ghost stories. My favorite.

Meanwhile, in Lisa's dreams...

Quinn's character, Scott, is stranded on the road when his bike breaks down. (Yes, that's right: he rides a motorcycle, and he wears leather. Shades, too.) He crosses the fields to a nearby farmhouse, where the nice, beautiful, mute girl who lives there puts him up for the night. But he couldn't have an uneventful night, because that would be almost as boring as that Internet stalker thing. Instead, he's awakened by slamming doors and screaming ghosts; one particularly angry spirit is reliving the night way back when he came home to find his daughter with her lover and hacked them both to pieces. Yowch. But our boy Scott, being the stud that he is, is falling for the cute mute girl, and when the going gets tough, they get going. Smart idea, and one you don't see a lot in horror films; usually it's more like, "Oh, there's a psycho killer, we can hide in the dark basement where there's only one exit!" Unfortunately all does not turn out as planned for poor Scott, but I won't go into the spoilers.

Surprisingly, this movie's strength ended up not being the bulk of it -- which were somewhat overused but still fun horror stories -- but just the ending itself. Just when you think you're going to get nothing but super-camp through the entire thing, they pull out of the nosedive with a surprising and wonderful conclusion to the larger story of the stranded, car-wrecked teenagers. The entire film is just enjoyable enough that you don't feel you've wasted your time, though it's not exactly the kind of material to watch when you're in the mood for serious drama. The idea of using separate story segments within the larger movie also turn out to be an added plus: if one of those stories is boring you to tears, you can fast-forward through that part and not really miss anything.

DROOL FACTOR: I hear James Marsden (no, not Marsters, Marsden) is supposed to be hot and all, but nobody in this film can beat out Glenn Quinn. He's like some fine sculpture by Michaelangelo. Except that he walks and talks and has personality and is alive and stuff.

GROSS-OUT FACTOR: Well, there's a guy who gets mauled by some sorta creatures, there's the bleeding man hanging by his feet, and there's a girl whose head falls off. But none of it's really horribly graphic.

STRONG CHICK FACTOR: The newlywed in the first story puts up a pretty good fight against flesh-eating somethings, and the campfire chicks don't seem inclined to take a lot of crap, but there's not much in the way of outstanding chicks here. But at least nobody seemed to scream and fall down much.

-- Lisa Kincaid

Campfire Tales is currently available on video.

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