Grim Prairie Tales (1990)

Directed by Wayne Coe. Starring Brad Dourif, James Earl Jones, William Atherton, Scott Paulin, Marc McClure, Will Hare, Michelle Joyner, Lisa Eichhorn, Bruce M. Fischer, Wendy J. Cooke, Tom Simcox. [R]

Low-budget four-part horror anthology with a Western theme finds two men crossing paths on the prairie and telling each other campfire stories: a haunted gunslinger, Native burial ground desecration, a homesteader joining a lynch mob, etc. The scenes between the storytellers (played by Dourif and Jones) may not make for great drama, but they’re more interesting than any of the all-too-brief yarns, which lack visual imagination, satisfying conclusions, or scares of any sort. Written by the director, his only feature film credit for either role. First motion picture photographed by Janusz Kamiński, and you’d have had to have been psychic to have expected the lenser to ever become Steven Spielberg’s go-to guy and pick up a couple of Oscars.

41/100