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Campfire Tales 97

Campfire Tales is a 1997 American anthology horror film directed by Matt Cooper, Martin Kunert, and David Semel. The film is made up of three individual short segments that are presented in an overarching narrative, told by a group of friends around a fire after they crash their car in the woods. It stars James Marsden, Christine Taylor, Amy Smart, and Ron Livingston.

Plot[]

In the 1950s, Jenny and Eddie are kissing in a car at a viewpoint. Jenny becomes nervous that someone is watching them after they hear a radio broadcast of a madman on the loose in the area. She forces Eddie to drive them back to town, thinking she sees someone lurking in the woods. They arrive at a drive-in, and Eddie walks to the window to order a milkshake. When he returns toward the car, he sees a hook hanging from the car's passenger door.

In the present day, Cliff, his girlfriend Lauren, and her little brother Eric and friend Alex are driving home from a concert. Cliff, drunk and driving erratically, crashes the car in the woods. They light flares and discover an abandoned church foundation nearby, where they start a fire. To pass the time, they begin telling a series of campfire tales.

In the first story, Rick and Valerie are on their honeymoon driving through Nevada. They take a detour to visit caverns, and park their RV in a rural area. They are disturbed by a local man who warns them not to spend the night there, insisting they park elsewhere. They ignore him and park a little further up, still in the rural area. The local is attacked by unseen creatures and brutally killed. As they have sex in the RV, a creature watches through the window. Valerie sprains her ankle and Rick leaves to walk to a gas station nearby, even though he had recently filled their tank up. On his way to the service station, Rick stumbles upon the body of the local man and he too is attacked. Rick gets choked, damaging his vocal chords, making it difficult for him to speak. He runs back to the RV but Valerie doesn’t recognize his knock. Valerie is attacked through the sunroof of the RV and terrorized by the creature. She pepper sprays the creature and sounds a panic alarm before passing out. She awakens to a police officer knocking on the door of the RV. As she exits the RV, she hears a screeching noise; the officer tells her to look straight ahead but she looks back, and sees Rick's eviscerated corpse hanging upside down from a tree, his wedding ring scratching across the metal rooftop.

In the second story, twelve-year-old Amanda is in an online chat room talking to a girl named Jessica, who is actually an online predator posing as a young girl. One night, her parents go out and rely on her teenage sister Katherine to stay with her. Katherine leaves to go meet her boyfriend, leaving Amanda alone. Later on while searching the garage to find her dog the lights go out, and she becomes anxious and feels as though there is someone else in her house. After finding out that her sister Katherine has just returned home, Amanda heads back to her room. Seeing what looks like her dog under the bed, she lies down and puts her hand down to allow it to be licked by the dog. While looking in the mirror Amanda sees the phrase "People can lick too" and the man licking her hand. She runs to Katherine's room telling her to call 911. Katherine enters Amanda's room, finds the corpse of the family dog underneath Amanda's bed, and the window open.

In the third story, Scott is riding his motorcycle through the country. He notices a rural farmhouse and seeks shelter there during a rainstorm. Inside is a beautiful mute woman named Heather; she communicates with Scott by writing on a handheld chalkboard, and invites him to stay the night. During the night, they are disturbed when her father, a rancher, arrives. Scott hears a commotion downstairs, and runs to the kitchen, where he sees two bloodied bodies, and witnesses Heather's father throwing a woman's severed head into the well outside. He finds Heather unharmed, and she insists they leave the house. On the chalkboard, she writes that there are ghosts there. Suddenly, they are confronted by her father, who attacks Scott with an axe. They flee from the house, and as they leave, he passes by Heather's father, who walks toward the front door and enters the house, as if in a time loop. Scott and Heather ride away on his motorcycle, and spend the night under a willow tree. In the morning, he removes the locket from her neck and opens it; inside is a photo of them both, dressed in old-fashioned clothing. As Heather awakens, a wound appears across her neck, and her head falls into his lap.

After each of the friends have told a story, Cliff decides to return to the road to see if anyone has stopped at the site of their car accident. Suddenly, Lauren, Eric, and Alex vanish, and their campfire disappears from the church. When Cliff returns to the road, he sees himself near the wreckage of his car and an RV, surrounded by paramedics who are attempting to revive him. Lauren, Eric, and Alex are lying dead on stretchers. The RV drivers are Rick and Valerie from the first story; Scott, from the third, is a paramedic attempting to revive Cliff. The attempts to resuscitate him fail, and Cliff dies. Later on, as the paramedics clean up, a car approaches the scene of the accident, with a hook emerging from the open window.

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