The Movie: Creepshow (1982)
Director: George A Romero
Starring: Hal Holbrook, Leslie Nielson, Ted Danson, Stephen King, et al.
This movie was written by Stephen King, and features makeup work by industry legend Tom Savini. Following the format of old EC and DC horror comic books (Tales from the Crypt, for instance), it consists of five short tales of terror - "Father's Day", "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill", "Something to Tide You Over", "The Crate", and "They're Creeping Up on You!" - framed by the story of a father punishing his son for reading a Creepshow comic book.
Depending on how you view retro horror comics, the stories will either make you groan grotesquely or giggle ghoulishly. I fall into the latter category. Watching awful people receive their comeuppance at the talons of a gore-dripping corpse is immensely satisfying, no matter who you are; it speaks to the kid inside you, the little angry fearful bit that can't accept its own impotence in an unfeeling world and so invents monsters to wreak justice upon the unworthy. Yeah, true, some of the effects were hokey, and the attempt to inject "comic book-y stuff" like panels and background bursts could get a bit annoying; but overall look and feel of the movie was exactly right.
These are definitely Stephen King stories, so your feelings about the movie depend on your feelings about King. Personally, I'm a pretty big fan. He gets to the essence of his characters really quickly, with their quirky interior monologues (here spoken aloud) and their "catch-phrases", sometimes spoken from beyond the grave, are like a drumbeat in your skull. His concept of horror is that exterior, unexplained forces interact with interior, human frailty to create gruesome situations. I also like the way he describes supernatural encounters, like an ultra-vivid dream you can't wake up from. King's distinctive writing is evident here, showing through the B-movie trappings, and gives the stories a personality that more traditional horror-movie writers would miss.
The stories begin with an eye-roller called "Father's Day", in which a family of very rich, very unlikeable people meet to celebrate Father's Day for their murdered patriarch. The segment performs an odd reversal in which all the sympathetic characters are picked off first, leaving only the spoiled siblings at the end. It's a bit of a dud. A flashback sequence showing the moment of the murder conveys the kind of "domestic insanity" that King is good at, but by the time we're treated to a stumble-drunk Savini corpse squawking, "Where's my cake?!" I found myself ready for the next story.
"The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" has Stephen King himself acting in his own story - I'm not sure if that's meta, or if there's another term for it. King plays the eponymous homely dolt who discovers a meteorite with strange properties. I was worried at first that King was doing a sort of kiddie-show yokel, and at any moment would look into the camera and go, "Gee kids, d'ya think it came from outer space?"; but he actually wasn't that bad, injecting a surprising amount of pathos. By the end of the segment you actually feel sorry for the guy. The alien plant life is satisfyingly creepy, and the mold growing on Jordy is both hilarious and convincingly itchy-looking. As a "Bad-Things-Happening-to-Innocent-People"-story, it's definitely a good one.
"Something to Tide You Over" has the pleasant surprise of Leslie Nielson returning to a straight role, post-The Naked Gun. Here he plays a chipper psychopath, with Ted Danson as his victim. See, Danson's character was cheating with Nielson's wife. So Nielson does what any extremely rich, mentally-disturbed oceanside resident would do: bury Danson up to his neck in wet sand, and film the tide coming in. Hilarious hijinks ensue. No, I'm kidding - it's actually pretty intense. Nielson's nutcase has just the right WASP-y affability to make his actions hair-raising. The ghouls are sufficiently terrifying. I'd say the ending of "Something" is the best of the bunch.
"The Crate" features a resentful, downtrodden University faculty-member; his contemptuous, drunken wife; and a crate full of horror. Draw your own conclusions. Another entry into King's trademark "domestic strife plus otherworldly threat equals horror" formula, and this one is really satisfying. The ensemble acting here is probably the best of the bunch, with the characters bouncing off one another and reacting to the horror in really convincing ways. This is good, because the monster - which they show too much of too early - is a little too silly-looking. A little tweak here or there in the design, and maybe using a puppet instead of a rubber suit, might have done it a little more justice. Then again, the monster itself isn't really that important to the story - as in all great monster horror - so "The Crate" is a solid entry.
Last but definitely not least - I'd say it's the tightest of the bunch - is "They're Creeping Up On You!" E.G. Marshall plays a Howard Hughes-type phobic, living in a relentlessly sterile little room at the top of a skyscraper, where he monitors the stock market and torments his underlings. Unfortunately, he has a little cockroach problem...which quickly escalates. Marshall plays his white-gloved, haggard hermit with demented glee, rapping out "Bugs...bugs!" in staccato bursts. The opening image - of Marshall in gray, in a pure-white room with a white chair and a silver spraycan, focusing on the one black spot of a roach on the floor, is pure minimalist-surrealism. The whole segment is a sort of one-man, one-set play; the other characters are just voices on a speaker, or barely glimpsed through a window. The ending is the most truly horrifying of the bunch, and makes you wonder, "How did Savini do that?" The best segment of the whole movie.
I give props for the framing story, too, sketchy as it is - Billy is an evil little shit, and I giggled right along with him. The little bits of animation were fun, too, and helped cement the comic book connection. The movie makes me want to go out and find a treasury EC horror comics, and even write some of my own. That, in my mind, is the best kind of movie.
Rick Out.
Director: George A Romero
Starring: Hal Holbrook, Leslie Nielson, Ted Danson, Stephen King, et al.
This movie was written by Stephen King, and features makeup work by industry legend Tom Savini. Following the format of old EC and DC horror comic books (Tales from the Crypt, for instance), it consists of five short tales of terror - "Father's Day", "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill", "Something to Tide You Over", "The Crate", and "They're Creeping Up on You!" - framed by the story of a father punishing his son for reading a Creepshow comic book.
Depending on how you view retro horror comics, the stories will either make you groan grotesquely or giggle ghoulishly. I fall into the latter category. Watching awful people receive their comeuppance at the talons of a gore-dripping corpse is immensely satisfying, no matter who you are; it speaks to the kid inside you, the little angry fearful bit that can't accept its own impotence in an unfeeling world and so invents monsters to wreak justice upon the unworthy. Yeah, true, some of the effects were hokey, and the attempt to inject "comic book-y stuff" like panels and background bursts could get a bit annoying; but overall look and feel of the movie was exactly right.
These are definitely Stephen King stories, so your feelings about the movie depend on your feelings about King. Personally, I'm a pretty big fan. He gets to the essence of his characters really quickly, with their quirky interior monologues (here spoken aloud) and their "catch-phrases", sometimes spoken from beyond the grave, are like a drumbeat in your skull. His concept of horror is that exterior, unexplained forces interact with interior, human frailty to create gruesome situations. I also like the way he describes supernatural encounters, like an ultra-vivid dream you can't wake up from. King's distinctive writing is evident here, showing through the B-movie trappings, and gives the stories a personality that more traditional horror-movie writers would miss.
The stories begin with an eye-roller called "Father's Day", in which a family of very rich, very unlikeable people meet to celebrate Father's Day for their murdered patriarch. The segment performs an odd reversal in which all the sympathetic characters are picked off first, leaving only the spoiled siblings at the end. It's a bit of a dud. A flashback sequence showing the moment of the murder conveys the kind of "domestic insanity" that King is good at, but by the time we're treated to a stumble-drunk Savini corpse squawking, "Where's my cake?!" I found myself ready for the next story.
"The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" has Stephen King himself acting in his own story - I'm not sure if that's meta, or if there's another term for it. King plays the eponymous homely dolt who discovers a meteorite with strange properties. I was worried at first that King was doing a sort of kiddie-show yokel, and at any moment would look into the camera and go, "Gee kids, d'ya think it came from outer space?"; but he actually wasn't that bad, injecting a surprising amount of pathos. By the end of the segment you actually feel sorry for the guy. The alien plant life is satisfyingly creepy, and the mold growing on Jordy is both hilarious and convincingly itchy-looking. As a "Bad-Things-Happening-to-Innocent-People"-story, it's definitely a good one.
"Something to Tide You Over" has the pleasant surprise of Leslie Nielson returning to a straight role, post-The Naked Gun. Here he plays a chipper psychopath, with Ted Danson as his victim. See, Danson's character was cheating with Nielson's wife. So Nielson does what any extremely rich, mentally-disturbed oceanside resident would do: bury Danson up to his neck in wet sand, and film the tide coming in. Hilarious hijinks ensue. No, I'm kidding - it's actually pretty intense. Nielson's nutcase has just the right WASP-y affability to make his actions hair-raising. The ghouls are sufficiently terrifying. I'd say the ending of "Something" is the best of the bunch.
"The Crate" features a resentful, downtrodden University faculty-member; his contemptuous, drunken wife; and a crate full of horror. Draw your own conclusions. Another entry into King's trademark "domestic strife plus otherworldly threat equals horror" formula, and this one is really satisfying. The ensemble acting here is probably the best of the bunch, with the characters bouncing off one another and reacting to the horror in really convincing ways. This is good, because the monster - which they show too much of too early - is a little too silly-looking. A little tweak here or there in the design, and maybe using a puppet instead of a rubber suit, might have done it a little more justice. Then again, the monster itself isn't really that important to the story - as in all great monster horror - so "The Crate" is a solid entry.
Last but definitely not least - I'd say it's the tightest of the bunch - is "They're Creeping Up On You!" E.G. Marshall plays a Howard Hughes-type phobic, living in a relentlessly sterile little room at the top of a skyscraper, where he monitors the stock market and torments his underlings. Unfortunately, he has a little cockroach problem...which quickly escalates. Marshall plays his white-gloved, haggard hermit with demented glee, rapping out "Bugs...bugs!" in staccato bursts. The opening image - of Marshall in gray, in a pure-white room with a white chair and a silver spraycan, focusing on the one black spot of a roach on the floor, is pure minimalist-surrealism. The whole segment is a sort of one-man, one-set play; the other characters are just voices on a speaker, or barely glimpsed through a window. The ending is the most truly horrifying of the bunch, and makes you wonder, "How did Savini do that?" The best segment of the whole movie.
I give props for the framing story, too, sketchy as it is - Billy is an evil little shit, and I giggled right along with him. The little bits of animation were fun, too, and helped cement the comic book connection. The movie makes me want to go out and find a treasury EC horror comics, and even write some of my own. That, in my mind, is the best kind of movie.
Rick Out.
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