This week’s movie is the classic horror-comedy Creepshow, written by AND starring Stephen King, directed by none other than George Romero (with special effects by zombie makeup god Tom Savini, no less)

More after the cut.

So this brings us to week number 3, and thus the third theatrically released Stephen King movie, Creepshow. Unlike The Shining, where directorial decisions arguably watered down King’s influence, it’s pretty safe to say that this is a distinctively Stephen King movie, perhaps the Stephen King-iest, if you like (please don’t like that). After all, not only did he write the original screenplay, he stars in one of the five segments AND teamed up with Romero again for a sequel. Also, two of the segments are based on very obscure King short stories, with a third up for debate.

So what is Creepshow like? Creepshow is a horror anthology, five short stories filmed and put on screen, all done in the style of Tales from the Crypt or other EC Comics from the golden age of pulp horror. Creepshow is a labor of love to this almost-forgotten age in comics (or sequential-art, for the acedemic types forced to read Scott McCloud). The movie is full of Dutch Angles, painted effects and cartoon art, shots often feature panel borders and expository dialogue is sometimes delivered in the form of narration boxes. The lighting and special effects are also way over the top, expertly simulating the heavy coloring and melodrama found in your classic EC products. Creepshow is perhaps the most literally minded comic book adaptation ever put on screen, often seeming more like a comic book cut out of a collage of moving images than a traditional film, and what’s more, since this was the intention from the beginning, it *works*. Unlike, say, Ang Lee’s Hulk, which aimed for the same effect but relied on dizzying camera work and frenetic modern editing, and thus failed to be either a high octane action movie OR a comic book on screen, Creepshow knows where its loyalties lie, and chooses to stay true to the comic book medium rather than playing it down the middle. Lee could have done a much better job on Hulk if he had shown a similar decisiveness, in my opinion. (Sam Raimi’s Spiderman movies, on the other hand, take the opposite tack, and play as straight movies, without the conventions and art design of the comics they’re based upon.. and they *also* work.)

So, Creepshow is a comic-book movie, for lovers of EC, specifically. What is it about? Well, as I said earlier, it’s a horror anthology, and so it’s actually five stories, plus a clever and somewhat disturbing framing device. Ostensibly, Creepshow is the reenactment of the stories in a single issue of a fictitious EC style comic book called, naturally, Creepshow, published in 1982. In the framing device we see a young boy with an abusive, halfwit father, who has discovered his son’s choice in reading material and is deeply outraged. The bleached-blond asshat takes the kid’s gruesome little reading material, slaps him around a bit for standing up for himself, then storms off downstairs to guzzle beer while gloating about a victory over his gradeschool offspring. A dark and stormy night rolls in, and the child takes refuge in his imagination, which allows us to see the stories from said comic book, now residing in the curbside trash can…

Two comments on this framing device: first, it’s incredibly ballsy. The father, in his ranting about the comic book, actually describes and spoils the surprises in several of the stories that you’re about to see. Thus Creepshow doesn’t rely nearly so much on shock as a typical horror film; how can it, when the stories have been outlined in advance? King is laying down a marker here, that he can make a horror movie without using jump scares and startling the audience, that he can make the story work on style and art and acting alone. Gutsy.

The second comment comes in casting the comic-loving kid; he is played by Joe King, who now is a writer of his own, under the psuedonym Joe Hill. I actually have a comic book of his downstairs, which brings it sort of full circle for me in a wistful way. The casting choice adds another layer to the story, from a Sundays with Stephen perspective; King presumably wrote this piece too, after all. Did he always intend it for his son, or was that choice made later? Is it a little strange writing a script for a father to beat his son, when that son is then played by your own, real-world son? What about the subtext of the father being hinted at as a heavy drinker, since Creepshow was made before King got off the drugs and boozing? Or for that matter, the son finding his father’s porno stash (awkward family moment makes for comedy gold onscreen, perhaps?)

After this we go to the segments, which I shall briefly review, individually.

Father’s Day: This short is about a family of aristocrats gathering to celebrate Father’s Day at the ancestral home. The stereotypically wealthy elitists overact with gusto, while a shockingly young looking Ed Harris has a bit part as the ‘hick’ who has recently married into the clan. The larger story concerns their crazy aunt, a murder some years ago on Father’s Day (which they are indirectly celebrating, as it made them all wealthy via inheritance), and some supernatural goings on. I think Father’s Day is the weakest story in the movie, but it’s interesting as an inverted morality tale. Often in EC comics, a bad person, a murderer, what have you, gets their comeuppance through gruesome means. In this segment the inverse is true; injustice is brought to basically decent people by cruel supernatural means. Interesting choice.

The Lonesone Death of Jody Verrill (sp): The next short stars Stephen King himself, as an ignorant hillbilly farmer (living five miles from Castle Rock, Maine) who finally has a stroke of luck when a meteor lands on his blasted heath of a property. Unfortunately for Verrill, the meteor has some rather remarkable properties as an extraterrestrial fertilizer, over the course of a few hours his life becomes a perverse parody of the normal life of a farm, of the growing of wholesome, green living things. King’s a pretty decent actor, and plays it in the EC style, slightly exaggerated and melodramatic. I remember this segment in particular from late night television as a kid, and it haunted me then, particularly the ending. *shudder* Apparently, and I did not know this until researching this post, this segment is based on a King short story from 1976, published in Cavalier magazine, called ‘Weeds‘.

Something to Tide You Over: The third segment is a revenge story of sorts, perhaps a double revenge story, starring Ted Danson and Leslie Nielson as two sides of a love triangle. Nielson plays an old, wealthy sociopathic videophile, who has discovered that his wife is seeing Danson on the side, and plans a very nasty surprise for the younger man. This is perhaps the best segment in the movie. Nielson is outright compelling, charming even as he plots murder and torture, and it does well to remind those of us born late in the 20th century that he started out life as a dramatic actor, not as the star of Lethal Gun and the like. Here he blends drama and comedy together, very nicely, daring you to like his charm even as you hate his cruelty.

The Crate: The fourth bit is a story about two university professors, one miserable shrew of a wife (played by Adrienne Barbeau), and a crate containing a cheerfully murderous occupant. This piece is played for comedy as much as horror, and has a lighter tone in places to match. The Crate also plays with morality tales in an interesting way, suggesting that, at least in a fictional universe, characters you love to hate really do deserve what they get. This story was also apparently based on an obscure early King short, again published in a magazine.

They’ll Creep Up On You: The last segment is a story about isolation, madness, and contamination, particularly memorable for… well, for cockroaches. Many, many, many cockroaches. If you’re cockroach-averse, you might want to skip this one. There’s interesting stuff in here about germophobes, capitalism, technology providing detachment from your fellow man, and the like… but also an enormous number of cockroaches. Be fairly warned. (My roommate hates, and I mean HATES roaches, so this bit gets to her sometimes, but she still likes to watch it)

Then the movie wraps up with a funny cameo from Tom Savini and a little bit of a surprise for our abusive father from the start of the movie. Muahaha. (This only adds to the family dynamic stuff I was wondering about earlier btw).

Creepshow has been with me since I was myself a small child, and scared the hell out of me, so it’s safe to say I’m not impartial. I also love EC comics, particularly their horror lines, so it’s a natural fit. I’ll admit it’s not a perfect movie, but I think it comes out really well, both as an homage to EC and as King-style horror. It’s particularly interesting, for the purposes of this experiment, in the places where it deviates from the source material, playing around with morality tales, letting bad guys get away with the crime or using the supernatural to afflict the innocent rather than the guilty. King clearly loves your old horror comics, but isn’t above tweaking them either.

Something to Tide You Over is also interesting in that it may be an instance of King rewriting himself. I hadn’t noticed before this last watching, but some elements of the story bear striking resemblence to an earlier King short story called The Ledge, which also involves a love triangle and a gruesome, spectator driven death trap. The setup here, I think, is better, and certainly easier to film than in The Ledge, though. I wonder if he changed the setting to accomodate the movie and make it easier to shoot, or because he liked it better this way on its own merits? Perhaps it’s just a coincidence… I mean, the revenge-love triangle story is a very old concept.

On a personal note, I even have a Creepshow mini-poster, signed by Adrienne Barbeau. (I’m going to try to get Tom Savini to sign it the next time I see him at a horror convention, and if I ever have the chance, George Romero or King himself would be nice. It’s not a huge poster, so even in a perfect world you’d want to keep the signatures to a reasonable number.)

It’s weird meeting her in person, since this is by far the movie I know her best from. She’s obviously a very friendly and funny individual, as opposed to her character… and, to be frank, she has aged incredibly well. Like, scarily well, considering that it’s been over 25 years. If there’s an Adrienne Barbeaux health regimen, I’d seriously consider trying it. That woman will outlive us all.

(Updated for minor spelling and grammar issues.)

Next Week: Rabies! Cujo!
Last Week: The Shining!