By Geno McGahee
The combination of Stephen King and George A. Romero got most horror fans sexually aroused. The two meet up in a 1982 anthology by the name of “CREEPSHOW,” featuring five tales. Written by Stephen King and Directed by Romero, this film had plenty of potential but falls short in the end.
We begin with “Father’s Day,” about a mean old man that was murdered after demanding his “father’s day cake.” He was furious. The guy must really love cake. As the family gathers to talk about this, he rises from his grave and kills everyone. There are cool visuals and some good dancing, but this tale is rather empty. The ending where he is holding a severed head on a plate and saying ‘it’s father’s day and I’ve got my cake’ makes it worth the watch, but you have to scratch your head and wonder why he came back from the dead and why the cake was that important to him.
The next tale is about as bad as it gets and features Stephen King in an acting role. In “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verill,” King plays a hick named “Jordy,” that finds a meteorite and immediately plans to sell it. I hate when writers that don’t belong in film force their way in because they desperately want the spotlight…like Stan Lee. I can’t stand Stan Lee. Every time he shows his face in one of the superhero movies, it’s like watching the Hulk giving the viewer a Cleveland steamer.
Jordy touches the meteorite and becomes a plant and then blows his brains out. This is just a horrid segment and King’s acting is almost as bad as the writing in this one.
In the best tale, we have “Something to Tide You Over,” we have Leslie Nielsen as “Richard Vickers” and Ted Danson as “Henry.” Vickers is upset that his wife has been cheating on him and tells Henry that he will kill her if he doesn’t follow him to his remote home on the beach. When there, Richard buries Henry in the sand up to his head and watches on via video as he drowns. Richard really enjoys it, but then things get strange. With Henry and his wife both dead, both drowned, Richard begins hearing noises and eventually the two shows up at his door in zombie form. “I’ll shoot you dead.” “You can’t shoot us dead Richard….we’re already dead Richard.” The over the top reactions from Nielsen mixed with the fun factor of this tale makes it the best of the bunch.
“The Crate” is next and it’s about a monster in a crate…and it’s very slow and boring. I liked Adrienne Barbeau as “Wilma,” a complete bitch, but other than her performance, the tale really stunk. That’s a shame because Hal Holbrook was in it and he is an amazing actor. He wasted his talent on this movie. This tale is long and boring and if you made it this far into the movie, congrats!
Finally, wrapping up the movie is “They’re Creeping Up On You,” featuring a germ freak in a “germ proof” apartment. E.G. Marshall plays “Upson Pratt,” and he is hilarious in the role. He chases cockroaches, yells at people, rejoices when he hears that somebody that worked for him died, and is rather racist. The roaches end up overwhelming him and if you are creeped out by roaches, you’ll enjoy this. The tale isn’t anything special, but the over the top performance by Marshall makes it worth the watch.
CREEPSHOW is not a very good anthology. One of the tales is very good, two are mediocre, and two are horrid. This movie has quite the following, but it has more to do with the team of Romero and King then the quality of the film. I reluctantly recommend this…
Rating: 5/10
