“Did you see that crap? All that horror crap?”
Creepshow must have been the easiest pitch in the world. Stephen King, hot off the success of Cujo, and George A. Romero, still riding high on Dawn of the Dead, want to team up and make a collection of short horror films that pay homage to the horror comics of their youth. How could you say no to that? Why would you say no to that? It’s always tempting, when a horror movie is fun, to brand it as “dumb,” because you need to draw a line between, say, Slither, and cerebral genre entries like The Shining. But Creepshow isn’t dumb, not at all; King and Romero know what makes this genre work, and they approached the film with patience and artistry. Not all of it clicks, but it holds up really well.
The first entry, “Father’s Day” is a nasty bit of work slightly undercut by a cheesy punchline. The Grantham family is gathering for a dinner party, and awaiting the arrival of great aunt Bedelia, who is rumored to have killed the family patriarch, Nathan. She stops by his gravestone first, to drink and taunt him, only for him to rise from his grave on the anniversary of his death. You can guess where it goes from there. Viveca Lindfors does terrific work as Bedelia, despite her limited screen time, bringing real pathos and depth to the character, and a young Ed Harris shows up to be effortlessly cool. The real star of the show, though, is Tom Savini’s makeup work on the undead Nathan. It holds up much better than his work on Dawn of the Dead (I’d take my name off of that movie if I were him). Nathan looks horrifying: a rotted skeleton in a tattered suit, matted with dirt, maggots crawling in his eye sockets, croaking out “Where’s my cake?” in an otherworldly voice (that’s that cheesy punchline I was talking about). “Father’s Day” doesn’t have the depth or creativity of some of Creepshow‘s later installments, but it’s fun enough and scary enough to tell the audience exactly what they’re in for.
“The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” is a different beast altogether: this one is pure black comedy. (And that title is an insane play on Bob Dylan’s protest song “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.”) Jordy, played by King himself, comes upon a meteor outside his gas station. He has dreams of selling it to the college (in the “Dept. of Meteors”), but those get derailed when he touches it and starts growing spores. Soon everything is covered in weeds, grass, moss, and fungus, and when Jordy, against his better judgment, takes a bath, that about cinches it. This one doesn’t play as well on a rewatch, simply because some of the humor hasn’t aged very well. It’s very broad, and King plays Jordy at his most manic, bug-eyed, and coked-out. Still, there’s something very funny, and very Stephen King, about a dumbass causing the end of the world. What does it say that the role was played by King himself?
The best of the batch is the middle entry, “Something to Tide You Over.” It has only two locations and a cast of three, and Romero uses that compression to wring real tension out of what transpires. “Something” could conceivably be mounted as a one-act play. Richard (Leslie Nielsen, terrific) confronts Harry (Ted Danson), the man who’s been sleeping with his wife, Becky. He takes Harry out to the beach, where he buries him up to his neck. Richard leaves, but sets up a TV monitor with a live feed of Becky in the same situation. The resolution is pretty predictable – Harry and Becky come back from the dead, bloated and covered in seaweed, and bury Richard in the sand – but what works best about “Something” are the performances, particularly that of Leslie Nielsen. Primarily known for his wonderful deadpan and Swiss-watch timing in Airplane! and The Naked Gun, Nielsen has a blast as the sadistic villain of the piece, and never plays it as campy. He was a dramatic actor by trade, and really relishes this role. He projects genuine menace, and is somehow the most realistic part of the short, maybe even of the film.
“The Crate” is more of a slow burn, and it’s a bit flawed structurally, as it keeps the ostensible protagonist, Henry Northup (a terrifically restrained Hal Holbrook) out of the main action until the climax. But it’s very much a penny dreadful plot put to film. The titular crate is discovered underneath a set of stairs at a university. Within it is an ancient monster – think a fanged ape, or something akin to a yeti – that starts picking off whoever gets close enough. The gore in this one is good, and Romero uses comic-book lighting to maximum effect. The movie is awash in lurid blues, greens, and reds, and throughout Creepshow he frames action in comic-book panels. It’s the most effective here.
Unfortunately, Creepshow ends on a lame note, with “They’re Creeping Up on You,” easily the weakest of the five stories. A germaphobic tycoon, Upton Pratt (E. G. Marshall) conducts business from within his hermetically sealed apartment. He scolds his assistants, threatens them with termination, and hangs up on a woman whose husband killed himself due to Pratt’s awful treatment. Throughout, roaches are infiltrating the clean penthouse, so “Creeping” definitely does right by its ick factor. It ends on a memorably gruesome image, of Pratt’s lifeless body bursting at the seams with roaches; they crawl out of his mouth and burst from his chest.
Anthology films are experiencing something of a resurgence in horror; tomorrow we’ll look at VHS, and beyond that there’s The ABCs of Death and Trick ‘r Treat. The difference between those films and Creepshow is that Creepshow doesn’t take itself too seriously, although its makers certainly do. King and Romero set out to pay tribute to the schlock they grew up on, and in doing so created a classic entry into the genre.
10/1: Dawn of the Dead
10/2: Drag Me to Hell
10/3: Pet Sematary
10/4: The Descent
10/5: Repo! The Genetic Opera
10/6: Desierto
10/7: The Blair Witch Project
10/8: Blair Witch
10/9: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
10/10: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
10/11: Prince of Darkness
10/12: 30 Days of Night
10/13: Friday the 13th (2009)
10/14: Slither
10/15: Tremors
10/16: Pandorum
10/17: It Follows
10/18: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
10/19: Poltergeist
10/20: Paranormal Activity
10/21: Creepshow
10/22: VHS
10/23: Nosferatu the Vampyre
10/24: An American Werewolf in London
10/25: The Witch
10/26: The Rocky Horror Picture Show
10/27: Cronos
10/28: The Hills Have Eyes
10/29: The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
10/30: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
10/31: Halloween (2007)
About Author
