We have been informed that (thanks largely to us and to you, our readers!), Campfire Tales will be shown at two midnight screenings at the prestigious Laemelle Sunset 5 Theater on the Sunset Strip (at the corner of Crescent Heights Boulevard). The movie will play at Midnight, Friday, 30 October, and midnight, Halloween. This indicates that New Line is considering a theatrical release of the film even though it is already on video. (Miramax did that after Scream was released on video and the movie shot back up to Number 16 on the national box office charts! But New Line won't take that kind of risk unless the theater is packed Friday and Saturday nights, so . . .
Well! Campfire Tales has indeed been released on videotape (it is available at some Blockbuster Video stores), but New Line Cinema has declined to send us ANYTHING about the movie: no press kit, no photos, no posters -- nada. We haven't even seen it yet, despite our two-and-one-half-year wait for it. We have, however, seen the packaging for the tape, and we can safely say that it sucks eggs. (For you non-American readers, this is NOT a compliment!) The cover artwork renders the major stars who are in the movie almost completely unrecognizable, and the "blurb" which describes the film on the back of the box actually neglects to mention the leading stars who are in the film! New Line couldn't be doing a better job to kill this film through poor packaging and advertising if they tried (which, for all we know, they may be trying to do). We hope to be able see the tape (at our own expense it appears) SOMETIME before the end of the year (hopefully before the American Film Market in 1999, at least). We can tell you that the one videotape box of it which we have seen indicates that the film has been "formatted to fit your television," i.e., "panned and scanned," cutting off the sides of the picture and anything and anyone at the edges; fans of Chris Masterson may know that we coined the term "scanned and panned" to describe what MGM did to his film Cutthroat Island, in which half of his face is cut off in several scenes -- even when he is speaking! We don't know if New Line has done that badly with Campfire Tales, but we fear for its cinematic integrity.
Christopher Masterson co-stars with Jay R. Ferguson, James Marsden, and Devon Odessa in The Vault's urban legends horror film Campfire Tales, directed by David Semel, Martin Kunert and Matt Cooper. We'll be setting up independent links for the relevant people in the coming weeks. One thing which is DEFINITELY TRUE about Campfire Tales is that it has already been made available as a video in the UK. Unfortunately, some U.S. film distributors wanted to see some "big name" stars added to the film. Well, after TWO YEARS of lobbying by us and you fans out there, New Line Cinema has released Campfire Tales on video to compete with the much newer film Urban Legends.
Having waited since the 1996 American Film Market to see this, however, we want to see it in a theater on a big screen. If you want to see Christopher Masterson, Devon Odessa, James Marsden, and Jay R. Ferguson together on a big screen, too, please send us a separate and specific e-mail at Jaundiced Eye Productions or leave a specific public message in our guestbook (below) stating that YOU would pay $8 to see Campfire Tales in a theater, and we WILL make sure that the relevant people get copies of the e-mails and WE will do the "lobbying" to try to get at least a one-week theatrical release for the film. (We have no financial interest whatsoever in The Vault or New Line, by the way, we are just determined to see this thing after two-and-a-half years of waiting!)
Apropos of James Marsden, we have been trying -- with zero success -- to get his publicist at Baker Winokur Rider Public Relations to send us something (ANYTHING!) on him. Undaunted, we will keep trying to supply you with info and pix on the stars of Campfire Tales, with or without the help of "their people."
(The Vault, incidentally, is best known for The Last Supper, the creepy comedy which showed us that it is sometimes better to turn down an invitation to a free meal. . . .)
If you would like to see a German poster for the film, please click here.
