BEFORE: I've got to come clean tonight, I have never seen this movie before (that's the cardinal rule around here), however I know all the stories in the film. How is this possible? When I was about 14 years old and I was just getting into comic books, I used to spend hours in the bookstores in malls, reading whatever I could get away with reading for free. And that includes the comic-book adaptation of this movie, which itself was loosely based on the format of old horror comics. (The comic based on the movie based on comics - yeah, that tracks.). However, at the time, I was forbidden to watch horror movies, only films rated "G" or approved by the Boston Catholic diocese newspaper, The Pilot. Anything rated "O" by that paper (standing for "offensive" or possibly "Oh my GOD" was nixed by my parents, which left me only Disney films and Star Wars, maybe some old Oscar & Hammerstein musicals. It was a life that left me yearning for more, let's leave it at that.
But I was intrigued by this horror comic adaptation of a movie that I thought I'd never get to see, and I read it often, somehow as a comic book it wasn't quite so scary, and, funny story, I just never got around to watching the movie, even when I could, so I'm finally crossing it off the list tonight, even if that's something of an afterthought, and quite possibly unnecessary, because I know every turn taken by the plot already, backwards and forwards. But this year it happens to fit into my chain, as Adrienne Barbeau carries over again from "The Fog" and at least two other actors also carry over.
THE PLOT: Five grisly tales about a murdered father rising from his grave, a bizarre meteor, a vengeful husband, a mysterious crate's occupant, and a plague of cockroaches.
AFTER: I took so long to watch "Swamp Thing" that since that movie first came out, there's been a sequel, a TV series and a planned reboot. Same thing goes for "Creepshow", there have been two sequels, and at least one TV series, and I bet somebody somewhere is planning a new movie. I can include "Creepshow 2" tomorrow, but that film does not link to "Creepshow 3", so it's got to wait - I didn't get 36 films away from another Perfect Year to break the chain NOW.
There are five stories here, it's a similar format to other Stephen King films like "Cat's Eye" and other non-Stephen King films like "Twilight Zone: The Movie" and "Tales from the Dark Side: The Movie". I think this film really brought back the horror anthology film as a trend, I'd seen some movies from the 1960's that were based on several Edgar Allan Poe movies presented as sort of short film anthologies, and then of course Tarantino tried to revive the trend again with "Death Proof" and "Planet Terror", but really, it kind of goes back to TV shows like "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits" where each episode would feature different characters in bizarre sci-fi or horror situations, always with an ironic twist. "Tales from the Dark Side" I did watch, because my parents went to bed at some point and the TV was then under my control - and I made it a goal to watch every episode of "The Twilight Zone" in reruns, maybe that's why I'm so good at predicting the endings of movies, if they fit the ironic patterns.
"Creepshow" features a lot of people getting what they deserve, sometimes it's terrible people getting killed horribly, or sometimes maybe it's marginally OK people, but if you think about it, even nice people die at some point, and it's never going to be pleasant. Who am I to say about anyone's end, whether it's fitting or ironic, it's not really up to me - but sure, in a movie, there's a pattern to it all, if not irony then some form of symmetry. We the audience then get to choose whether we agree with what happens to these people or not, provided that we're not too scared or grossed out to think along those lines.
In the introductory scenes, a father throws out his son Billy's Creepshow comic book. Well, that's an easy one, Dad deserves to die. You don't mess with someone's comic book collection or their porno mags, even if you're their parent or guardian. No way, no how, I will accept no debate on this topic, hands off, full stop. Billy gets his revenge by ordering a voodoo doll using the mail-away coupon inside the comic book, and his father gets a painful lesson. Well, Billy, you shouldn't tear up a page of your comic book, either, that decreases the value - just make a photocopy, it's a simple solution. Anyway, I approve this lesson, as anyone with a comic book collection should.
In the second story, "Father's Day", a rich family discusses their Aunt Bedelia, who, according to the grapevine, killed her father after a lifetime of abuse, and then in his later years she was forced to become his caretaker. Old man Grantham died after slamming his cane on his chair too many times and demanding a cake for Father's Day. Bedelia has a bit too much to drink, and visits the old man's grave, at which point his corpse rises out of the ground (because whiskey is the "water of life"?), still demanding that cake - the rotting corpse proceeds to kill several family members, including the new spouse of his granddaughter, whose only crime seems to be marrying in to the wrong family. We also find out that Bedelia didn't kill her father, but her sister did - I'm not sure why on the last-minute switcheroo, it doesn't really matter in the end if the corpse is going to kill 'em all anyway.
Lesson: Buy your father a damn cake, even if you don't like him, because it will at least shut him up. Plus, then you probably ALSO get cake, unless Dad eats the whole thing, which is unlikely.
"The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" shows a backwoods farmer who finds a meteorite in his field, and then has dreams of getting rich from it, bringing it to the university's "Department of Meteors" (which, umm, isn't a thing) and finally paying off that $200 (?) bank loan. Stephen King stars as Jordy, and we learn why King has made so many short cameos in films based on his novels, because while he's an incredibly gifted writer, he's an incredibly terrible actor. Jordy gets his fingers burned by the meteor, and also touches the goo inside, which causes his body and his entire farm to get covered in growing plant matter. Did Jordy deserve this? Not really, he's just a simpleton, nobody ever explained the dangers of alien matter to him, and if the planet were to eventually get covered in new rapdily-growing plant life, would that really be such a terrible thing?
Lesson: We could probably use a lot more trees than we currently have. If that costs us a lunkhead or two, it's maybe a fair trade-off.
"Something to Tide You Over" is the simplest when it comes to revenge and ironic death - a rich man discovers his wife is having an affair, so he buries both his wife and her lover up to their necks in sand in different parts of his private beach. His wife's boyfriend is forced to watch her die thanks to this wonderful new VHS camcorder technology (or perhaps CCTV) and then he gets to watch the boyfriend die the same way. But then late at night Richie Rich gets a visit from two animated corpses that are waterlogged and covered in seaweed, and they want him to come down to the beach.
Lesson: Nothing good ever happens at the beach, so just don't go there.
"The Crate" centers on two college professors, one of whom gets contacted by a janitor who finds a mysterious crate under a college hall stairwell. The crate was sent to the college by an Arctic expedition 134 years ago, and then somebody forgot about it. What's inside? Something very hungry, still alive, and possibly demonic. The professor watches as it eats the janitor and an unlucky grad student, then he contacts the other professor, who tricks his annoying and belittling wife into coming too close to the crate. Look, if you want to get out of your marriage, there are much easier ways, although none of them are faster or cheaper. No notes.
Lesson: Friends will help you move, real friends will help you move bodies.
The final story, "They're Creeping Up on You" is about a business mogul who lives in a Manhattan penthouse, is germ-phobic and also very cruel to his employees, underlings and building personnel. He hates cockroaches and other bugs, and also refers to people he doesn't like and who he feels are inferior as "bugs", and he's got equal sympathy for all, which is to say, none. Possibly based on Howard Hughes, this segment would seem to have become even more relevant in recent times, what with the pandemic and the rise of more and more real-life evil billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and of course Trump (also a notorious germophobe). Here's the thing about both poor people and insects, though - there is strength in numbers.
Lesson: Sic semper tyrannis.
I think I almost prefer this film as a comic book, because with a comic book you can show anything, as long as somebody can draw it well. But with movie special effects, especially those from so long ago, there are always limitations. The drowning scenes and the roaches coming out of the body looked particularly fakey - in modern times they would just use digital effects, press a couple of buttons and CGI it, it's easy to make somebody look like they're under water, like in "Aquaman", and the roaches I'm sure would look fine in CGI and not as a practical effect.
Also starring Hal Holbrook (also carrying over from "The Fog"), Tom Atkins (ditto), Fritz Weaver (last seen in "This Must Be the Place"), Leslie Nielsen (last seen in "Superhero Movie"), Carrie Nye (last seen in "Hello Again"), E.G. Marshall (last seen in "The Chase"), Viveca Lindfors (last seen in "Stargate"), Ed Harris (last seen in "Top Gun: Maverick"), Ted Danson (last seen in "The One I Love"), Stephen King (last seen in "It: Chapter Two"), Warner Shook, Robert Harper (last seen in "Once Upon a Time in America"), Elizabeth Regan, Gaylen Ross, Jon Lormer, Don Keefer (last seen in "Sleeper"), Bingo O'Malley (last seen in "Bob Roberts"), John Amplas (last seen in "The Dark Half"), Christine Forrest (ditto), David Early (last seen in "One for the Money"), Nann Mogg, Iva Jean Saraceni, Joe King (aka Joe Hill), Chuck Aber (last seen in "She's Out of My League"), Peter Messer, Marty Schiff (last seen in "Blankman"), Tom Savini (last seen in "Planet Terror"), Darryl Ferrucci, David Garrison, and the voices of Ann Muffly, Mark Tierno, Ned Beatty (last seen in "Prelude to a Kiss").
RATING: 5 out of 10 footprints in the sand
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