Review: Creepshow (1982)

Director George Romero and novelist Stephen King obviously have affection for (and were heavily influenced in their career choices by) the horror comics of the 1950s, most particularly those produced by EC Comics. These stories featured gruesome, graphic artwork and well-written, scary stories that often had "twist" endings.

Creepshow is their tribute to those comics, and Romero gets the look of the movie just about right, with tilted camera angles and bright primary colors. He even employs comic strip borders in many scenes and brought on EC veteran Jack Kamen to draw the comic book seen between stories.

It's too bad the stories themselves can't match the dead-on tone of the visuals. King's first attempt at writing directly for the screen falls short in the same way that many of EC's imitators did: he can mimic the style, but not the substance. Most anthology horror films are uneven, with some stories holding up better than others, but few swing so wildly in quality than Creepshow does.

The framing story features a little boy who gets slapped around by his beer-swilling dad (Tom Adkins) because the kid likes horror comics. Dad throws away his son's copy of the first issue of Creepshow ; the pages turn, and we get to see five stories.

FATHER'S DAY. A daughter whacks her elderly, mean-spirited father (literally, with a marble ashtray) on the title occasion, denying him his cake. She then visits his grave every year, swilling Jim Beam straight out of the bottle while cursing dear old dad ("You called me a bitch!"). Seven years after his murder, Dad crawls out of his grave and returns the favor, then sets about knocking off other members of his family, including a grandson-in-law he's never even met (Ed Harris).

The story lacks any particular logic-a failing of many stories attempting to duplicate EC's success--and makes for a really weak start to the movie. I mean, why does Dad wait seven years to go zombie on the family? Once he's killed his killer, why does he go on killing? Why does he kill Harris, when he's never met the boy? And why DOESN'T he kill the snotty rich kids? This story just annoyed me. But it could have been worse...

THE LONELY DEATH OF JORDY VERRIL. As bad as that first story was, it's fucking Shakespeare compared to the second one, which stars King himself as a rube who finds a meteor, has visions about making a fortune on it, cracks it open accidentally, gets the green glowing stuff inside ("Meteor shit!") on his fingers and starts turning into a plant. Most of this is played for broad comedy, with King's performance consisting entirely of wide-eyed mugging, but it ends on a serious note striving for pity for this dumbass. Sorry. Not buying it. This is an ego-stroke for King and nothing more. But even an ego-stroke can be at least a little fun for the audience--can't it?

SOMETHING TO TIDE YOU OVER. Easily the best story of the bunch, maybe because it comes the closest to the style of the EC stories, which often featured James M. Cain-style lovers' triangles. Leslie Nielsen gives a surprisingly nasty performance as a husband who gets revenge on his cheating wife (Gaylen Ross, from Romero's zombie classic, Dawn of the Dead) and her boyfriend (Ted Dansen) by burying them in the sand up to their necks at his private beach and watches the tide come in. Of course, they don't stay dead for long, returning to haunt Nielsen as seaweed-draped walking corpses. (Their faces are all wrinkled and distorted, but their hands seem to have no makeup at all; what, did makeup artist Tom Savini run out of Latex?)

THE CRATE. The goriest story. A janitor at a college tells one of the professors (Fritz Weaver) about this crate he's found under the stairs. (Note to everyone in horror films: if you find anything under the stairs, no matter how interesting it looks, LEAVE THE SHIT ALONE!) It's from an Arctic expedition in 1834, but there seems to be something moving around inside...something with very sharp teeth and bright yellow eyes. The prof tells another prof (Hal Holbrook), who would dearly love to ditch his shrewish, boozy floozy of a wife (Adrienne Barbeau). So he takes her down to see the thing under the stairs, and....

This story still works, despite the thunderous lack of logic--just how does this creature stay alive for 148 years--because of the performances of all involved, especially Holbrook, whose chilly, opportunistic approach to the horrible find (he calmly mops up the blood spilled by previous victims so his wife won't suspect a thing as he leads her to slaughter) oddly makes him hissable and sympathetic at the same time. And the only way that works is if we feel sorry for him because he's married to Barbeau, who makes her character pretty loathsome.

THEY'RE CREEPING UP ON YOU. A one-man show, essentially, with E.G. Marshall as a truly repugnant millionaire who delights in his business triumphs--even when they end in suicide for those he conquers--but has a fear of germs in general and bugs in particular. So, of course, his spotless apartment gets overrun with millions of cockroaches, leading to a (literally) explosive conclusion.

Marshall is perfect as a man we instantly hate, and the situation carries the irony that EC relished so. But the special effects fail in the end, with roaches erupting from an obvious dummy head. Still, a strong end story to wash away the bile of the first two.

Oh. And the kid who got smacked by Dad to start the movie gets his revenge in a most pointed way--via a voodoo doll.

There's more than a bit of fun to be had with some of the stories in Creepshow. And with DVD technology and a nimble finger, you can skip the first two stories and get right to the good stuff.

(NOTE: There never was a Creepshow comic book, although there was an official movie adaptation featuring lovely...er, scary artwork by horror comics legend Berni Wrightson.)