Grim Prairie Tales
by Wayne Coe
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VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Brad Dourif, James Earl Jones, Marc McClure, Michelle Joyner, Will HareDirector: Wayne Coe
Writer: Wayne Coe
Producer: Andrzej Kamrowski
Producer: Chet Halperin
Producer: Evan Brunenstein
Producer: Larry Huber
Producer: Richard Hahn
Producer: Rick Blumenthal
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, NTSC
Running Time: 86 minutes
Release Date: 1992-12-09
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: Academy Home Entertainment
Studio: Academy Home Entertainment
VHS Movie Reviews of Grim Prairie Tales
Movie Review: Interesting and different, but not exactly grim
Summary: 3 Stars
For such a distinguished actor, James Earl Jones has made some really forgettable movies, and I would count Grim Prairie Tales among them. This 1990 anthology piece seems to have garnered decent reviews, but I personally can't see how this movie could impress anyone. Just because it's different - a horror/Western anthology which eschews the standard formula of "it is the story, not he who tells it" (i.e., the two storytellers are more interesting than the stories they tell) - doesn't mean it's very good. Without the overpowering presence of James Earl Jones as an uncouth, darkly mysterious range ride, I daresay Grim Prairie Tales would border on the unbearable.
Brad Dourif plays Farley Deeds, a squirrelly-looking, city slicker-type who looks and dresses like he should be running away from the Headless Horseman rather than traveling alone through the desert. He's all set to turn in for the night when a stranger disturbs the peace and quiet of his little campsite - a veritable mountain of a man with a strange air about him whom Deeds doesn't exactly welcome with open arms (in his defense, the stranger does arrive with a dead guy draped over the back of his horse). Morrison (Jones) is a strange one, but the two eventually bluff and argue their way into a round of storytelling. Aha, you say, this is where that whole "horror" part kicks in, especially when both fellows start talking about stories that will make bats fly out of your ears. Well, I hate to break it to you, but an impressionable five-year-old kid wouldn't take fright over anything these stories have to offer.
Morrison opens up with a story about some old coot who foolishly decides to cross over an Indian burial ground at night, followed up by a strange tale of "a good man" who comes to the aid of a pregnant woman out wandering alone. Given the campiness of the second story in particular, Deeds thinks he can do better and gives us a sort of morality tale in which a wife and daughter try to deal with the father's participation in a monstrous human act - unfortunately, the rather dark print of the film leaves you a little unsure of the specifics of that act. Morrison, obviously more impressed than I was with Deeds' story, then sets out to top it with the story of a gunslinger haunted by one of his victims.
Morrison and Deeds are much more interesting than the stories they tell, but I didn't find these two men all that riveting. Their exchanges are far too theatrical to make me forget I'm watching a movie - James Earl Jones is great, but Dourif seems to spend most of his time over-acting. With its anthology angle, Grim Prairie Tales is certainly different, but I found the movie to be average at best.
Summary of Grim Prairie Tales
Writer-director Wayne Coe's low-budget anthology is not as scary as its title or packaging would have you believe, but it is a charming effort nonetheless. Brad Dourif and James Earl Jones star as a city slicker and a bounty hunter who meet at night on a quiet prairie and end up swapping stories by the campfire. Since the four tales are part of a slowly building competition between the two men, they become progressively more gruesome. The two most memorable revolve around a grotesque gunfight and its aftermath, and a wandering prairie woman with a bizarre appetite. Ultimately the stories are mood pieces rather than outright scare fare, but they are absorbing, and the connecting scenes with Dourif and Jones are so energetically played out that you forget how calculated some of their exchanges are. --Bryan ReesmanHorror VHS Video
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