{"id":17025,"date":"2015-10-23T20:32:41","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T00:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=17025"},"modified":"2015-10-23T20:30:41","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T00:30:41","slug":"campfire-tales-1997","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/23\/campfire-tales-1997\/","title":{"rendered":"Campfire Tales (1997)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"campfiretales\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Urban Folklore and Legends have comprised some of the best tall tales and words of warning ever created. Often times they\u2019re based on some grain of fact, and can serve as subtext for the dangers of premarital sex, and not talking to strangers. \u201cCampfire Tales\u201d from 1997 is one of the few anthology films that pulls from the catalog of urban legends and utilizes them to produce a pretty great horror film. Directed by a trio of talented filmmakers, \u201cCampfire Tales\u201d is one of the few anthology films that have shrunk away in to obscurity unfairly. In the gamut of anthology horror, \u201cCampfire Tales\u201d is a strong contender for one of the top ten. It\u2019s shocking that the movie is barely discussed when good anthologies are discussed.<\/p>\n

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Surely, it\u2019s not \u201cCreepshow,\u201d but it\u2019s definitely on par with \u201cCat\u2019s Eye,\u201d or \u201cVHS.\u201d The opening of the film is set in the mid-fifties and evokes one of the best bits of urban folklore of all time: The Hook. A young Amy Smart and James Marsden play the loving couple making out in their car, before they hear of an escape maniac on the loose from a mental institution over the radio. While making out Smart\u2019s character begins to realize there\u2019s some kind of screeching and moaning interrupting their love making, and asks Marsden\u2019s character to take her home. Upon driving up to her door, the audience knows what\u2019s coming up, but damn it, watching that hook snagged on to the door of the car is still shocking and terrifying.<\/p>\n

The couple barely evaded being murdered. If not for their decision to skip premarital sex, they\u2019d be doomed. The rest of the film really has no reliance on the prologue, but it\u2019s a wonderful introduction course for people that aren\u2019t quite familiar with these kinds of campfire tales. From there we meet a foursome of teenagers that have narrowly survived a car crash. Though their car is totaled, they decide to wait up for road services and share a campfire to keep warm. There\u2019s the implication that they\u2019re being stalked by another maniac throughout their scary segments, but that\u2019s oddly side stepped throughout. It provides a creepy little detail within their hope for survival, but it\u2019s a mysterious plot device, especially considering we\u2019d just seen the Hook tale only minutes before.<\/p>\n

\u201cCampfire Tales\u201d touches on three of my favorite urban legends. The first entitled \u201cThe Honeymoon\u201d is the scariest and easily the best. Starring Ron Livingston as a newly married man who is traveling along the road with his new wife, there\u2019s a combination of tales involving some kind of feral people, and the famous scratching on the roof of the car tale. We\u2019re never quite sure what\u2019s watching the couple, but they\u2019re in immediate danger when they park their RV in the middle of a clearing and decide to frolic and make love. \u201cThe Honeymoon\u201d increases in tension as the screw turn every minute, leading in to a wonderful surprise ending that takes from a classic urban yarn. There\u2019s \u201cPeople Can Lick Too\u201d about an escaped pervert, and a young girl home along with her dog. Things lead up to a disgusting and disturbing final scene that plays upon the fear of leaving children home alone and lack of parental responsibility.<\/p>\n

Finally, there\u2019s \u201cThe Locket\u201d about a wandering motorcyclist who discovers a gorgeous young mute girl living alone. He takes a liking to her immediately, but it curious about the locket she keeps firmly wrapped around her neck. All three segments are beautifully filmed, with seething tension, and loyal adaptations of some of the best bits of folklore ever imagined. \u201cCampfire Tales\u201d doesn\u2019t end at its stories, opting for a very interesting and sad surprise ending that toy with the viewers\u2019 perceptions of what was fiction and what was reality. I try to mention \u201cCampfire Tales\u201d as often as possible whenever good anthology films come up as a topic of discussion. In the decade of straight to video fare, it\u2019s three notches above the typical horror fare that filled video store shelves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Urban Folklore and Legends have comprised some of the best tall tales and words of warning ever created. Often times they\u2019re based on some grain of fact, and can serve as subtext for the dangers of premarital sex, and not talking to strangers. \u201cCampfire Tales\u201d from 1997 is one of the few anthology films that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[103,170,477,703,1008,1087,1142],"class_list":["post-17025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halloween-horror-month","category-movie-reviews","tag-anthology","tag-c","tag-horror","tag-mystery","tag-supernatural","tag-thriller","tag-urban-legends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17027,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17025\/revisions\/17027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}