I remember the day "Creepshow" opened in 1982. I raced to the theater to see a film directed by George Romero (Night of the Living Dead (Millennium Edition)) and written by Stephen King (The Shining). To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. Watching it again after many years, I now respect the film for its attempts, a comedic, gross-out horror celebration possessing the adolescent spirit of a live comic book, even if most of the segments are average at best.
Frankly, I still struggle with the comedy, though am aware this is a nostalgic tribute to those fiendishly clever The EC Archives: Tales From The Crypt Volume 1 (v. 1) comic books of the 1950s. Camp is never easy to create on the screen, and it requires good acting. Oddly, "Creepshow" has an impressive cast and even they struggle with the shaky material. The film is separated into six wildly uneven stories, with two being good, the rest average or poor. It opens with a clumsy frame detailing an abusive, beer-swilling father (Tom Atkins) berating his son for reading comic book trash. It's an unimaginative, mostly disturbing segment due to the portrayal of an uncaring mother who could care less her son is apparently slapped on a regular basis. This segue-ways into the stories, starting with "Father's Day," a slow-moving exercise noteworthy for being the lone example in film history where (a young) Ed Harris gives a poor performance. But you have to love his awkward attempt at disco dancing.
Stephen King's acting debut follows in "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" as a Max Baer hillbilly who makes the mistake of poking a meteor. It's easily the worst vignette, compounded by King's flamboyantly bad portrayal. This segment is so supremely awful, it practically destroys the entire film. "Creepshow" rebounds with the following two segments "Something To Tide You Over" and "The Crate," eerie exercises aided immeasurably by the fine acting of Ted Danson, Leslie Neilsen, Hal Holbrook and Fritz Weaver. These episodes are clever, if a bit shallow, but Weaver's freak-out after viewing what's inside the dusty crate is memorable.
The film closes on another mediocre note "They're Creeping Up On You," with E.G. Marshall as a Howard Hughes-type battling a growing tide of cockroaches. My guess is in post-production Romero and King uncomfortably realized they were stuck with three bad vignettes and two passable ones (leaving out the frame here), thus confronting the great curse of anthology films. If you open with three bad stories, viewers lose interest in a marathon march of mediocrity. So the equation becomes two bad stories, followed by two good, closing with the lessor of the bad (leaving out the frame here). You can't fault the uneven quality of "Creepshow" too much as even one of the best horror anthologies in history Trilogy of Terror, penned by Richard Matheson, sandwiched a weak story in the middle.
What's interesting is that "Creepshow" is far inferior to its lessor budgeted sequel Creepshow 2, released in 1987. Every vignette in that film was strong, and the closing episode, "The Hitchhiker," is easily the best story of both films combined. "Creepshow" is an average exercise, a disappointment considering the talents involved. The best that can be said is it's superior to Twilight Zone - The Movie. Perhaps these storied directors with blank checks should have watched 1972's Tales From the Crypt (1972) [VHS]?
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More Detail For Creepshow Blu ray
- Two macabre masters - writer Stephen King and director George A. Romero - conjure up five shocking yarns, each a virtuoso exercise in the ghouls-and-gags style ofic '50s horror comics. A murdered man emerges from the grave for Father's Day cake. A meteor's ooze makes everything . grow. A professor selects his wife as a snack for a crated creature. A scheming husband plants two lovers up to their
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