SoHo Horror Film Fest 2025 Coverage
Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light review
This full moon we stretch the limits of a Full Moon Feature once again.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light
Directed by Charli Sangar
Screenplay by Charli Sangar
Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light Review
Some of our reviews have a few quirks to them. Festival movie reviews don’t traditionally include a score. That’s because I’ve seen the final version of films screened at a festival change on more than one occasion. There’s also, usually, a paragraph carved out for any short film that accompanies the screening. Anthology reviews are written using a ranking template…grading the segments within the package from worst to best. And there is, of course, the Full Moon Feature. Every full moon we tackle a werewolf movie paying special attention to the usage of werewolf lore/costuming/carnage the movie contains. Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light is (kind of) all three rolled into one. Which means this review is going to adhere to a lot of established quirks.
Let’s begins with the two short films that were attached to the screening of Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light. First up we had A Guest From Elsewhere. A stop motion short about a large bug-like creature dreaming of being human in the 1930s. The director gave a brief introduction that was consistently interrupted by his cat…which was a fun way to start the show. The short film is impressive. There’s a surreal romance to the story that worked well in animated form. If you like stop motion work there’s no reason you won’t enjoy this one.
The second short was called You Can Do It Alone. It is (mostly) live action. The story involves a little boy using a public restroom for the first time. That may sound like a strange concept for a short horror film…but there are a lot of scary things in public bathrooms. Strangers, smells, the state of the facilities, the absurdly loud noise made by the hand dryers. For a first time going it alone…this kid experiences all these traumas and more. Things turn a bit demonic before the poor kid can finish up. Another good one.
Onto Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light. As it is an anthology we will be ranking the three stories within the narrative from worst to best. We’ll also be including the framing story…since, for once, it’s very good. The entire package was, impressively, written and directed by one person…so there isn’t the traditional variety of styles here. The quality range isn’t as large either…with everything here being, at worst, quite good. But this is also a Full Moon Feature. Only one segment of Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light involves a werewolf…so when we get to that story…we’ll hit our Full Moon Feature routine. We’re tackling a lot in this one.
What I would usually refer to as the framing story of the movie is, in this case, the actual plot of the movie. Actually, I’ve already referred to it as the framing story in this review…but that’s not an accurate description of Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light. The three short stories within the larger narrative are exactly that. Three campfire tales inside of a fully functioning movie. Anyone who has read a review of an anthology on this site knows I have a hate-hate relationship with framing stories. They’re almost always completely useless. Here…it is the biggest part of the movie. I’ll rank it alongside the three shorts anyway…but there’s a lot more to it than simply framing the shorts inside of it. Even though I will refer to it as a framing story again. I guarantee it.
Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light is what is sounds like. Three campfire stories told by characters within the larger narrative. In this case, three musicians who pick up a stranded couple on the highway. The couple, we learn long before the musicians do, are bank robbers. They need to wait out the night so they can try and cross the border into France with a full tank of gas. They hold the musicians at gunpoint and tell them that whoever tells the best, bloodiest story will get to take them across the border. The other two will die. That’s some high stakes storytelling.
Now that I’ve explained the set-up…let’s rank the four parts of Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light from worst to best.
4. Bleeding Blood (the final campfire tale)
The third, and final, campfire tale is the least interesting of the three. It involves a zombie-like outbreak born out of a mutated virus. While it features a nice little twist at the end (all the stories do) it’s not as dynamic as the other two shorts, or the feature surrounding them, for that matter. Its best attribute is playing off the post-Covid mindset of the world. Another virus…more masks…we’ve been through this before.
Of course, this virus is a bit different than Covid. It causes people to become violent. They spread infection like any zombie would. Shooting them in the head seems to work wonders. I mean…that kills anything…but you get the point. There are some funny moments in Bleeding Blood but the length of Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light has started to catch up to it at this point. (Almost) everything in the movie is a bit longer than it needs to be. The pacing impacts Bleeding Blood more than anything else in the story because we feel like we’ve already seen an entire movie by the time the third musician starts his tale.
3. The Fucking Pills (the first campfire tale)
Alright, here it is. The werewolf portion of Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light. The story (this is a patter with all but one of the four parts) takes a while to get where it’s going…but it ends in a pretty great werewolf bit. Drug dealers have captured some people they suspect of stealing their drugs. We see two men tied to a chair with bags over their heads. Eventually, they are interrogated by the drug dealers. One of them explains that he has an illness…and needs to get home so that he can take his pills. The drug dealers are unmoved by this…but, since I’ve told you that The Fucking Pills is a werewolf story…you can probably guess that they are making a mistake.
After a lot of talking and waiting…the full moon rises, and the man transforms into a werewolf. Like the rest of Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light the transformation is stop animated. He tears through the scene in a full wolf man frenzy. The Fucking Pills, though light on actual screen time for its werewolf, tells a fairly compelling little lycanthrope tale. The set-up is clever. The reveal is exciting. What follows is some appropriate wolf carnage. The Fucking Pills is a really strong short story that, like most of Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light, would have benefitted from being a bit shorter.
As this is a Full Moon Feature…it’s important to note just how small the actual wolf parts of the movie are. It amounts to a drop in a bucket. Still, it’s a well-done piece of werewolf business. We’ve seen plenty of movies that get the wolf story right in a short amount of time. Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light joins movies like The Monster Squad and Waxwork as films that may not be focus on werewolves…but do better with it than many features that do.
2. Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light (the framing story)
I laid out the basic premise of Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light earlier. It’s a clever way to surround three short campfire stories. It’s also very long. From a robbery that turns deadly to meeting the musicians to settling into the woods for the night so they can avoid a police check stop…it takes a long time to get to that campfire. What’s here is good, don’t get me wrong. Writer/director Charli Sangar has created a full stop motion world comprised of colorful characters. There’s a certain “kill your darlings” aspect to it all that was clearly not adhered to, however.
With that said…the premise of Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light is truly great. The stakes surrounding the stories are top-notch. And, as a bonus, we even got a fourth campfire tale. This one isn’t a separately animated piece…we watch the robbers listening to the story told by the musician who wins their contest. That’s right…the stakes were very real. Like the three short stories told inside the larger picture…there’s a twist at the end. It’s a good one…especially if you pay attention to that fourth campfire tale. As I mentioned, this isn’t really a framing device. It’s the full story of what’s happening in the movie. And it’s a good one.
1. The Tree (the second campfire story)
So, what makes the middle short story stand out from the pack? Pacing. It’s the only part of Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light that doesn’t drag whatsoever. It begins with action and builds intrigue. It doesn’t overstay its welcome and delivers the best story in the bunch. Does it win the in-universe contest from the robbers? I won’t spoil that but, were I one of the robbers, it is the one I would go to bat for.
The story involves a shootout between Communists and Fascists. The Communists are being gunned down quickly, and a wounded survivor escapes the front lines to hide in the woods. He happens across a talking tree who offers him the power to take down his enemies. In return the tree makes him promise to bring it three hearts from his enemies. With no choice but to agree…the man sets out on a delightfully brief campaign of bloody retribution. The pacing in The Tree is completely on point. The other three parts of Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light would have benefitted by following suit. Although all three short stories, and the main narrative, have plenty to like about them…The Tree, unironically, stands tallest in the end.
Scare Value
Bloody Tales in Bonfire Light is an impressive achievement. Some parts threaten to overstay their welcome…but there’s a strong stop-animated anthology here. Only one is of particular interest to our Full Moon Feature…but it does a great job presenting a short werewolf story. The total package is well worth finding. Especially for fans of do-it-yourself animated films. Even the wraparound story is good here!
