Creepshow: Proof the Anthology Wasn't Dead

For four seasons, Tales from the Darkside offered fans of the weekly horror series an alternative to Serling's The Twilight Zone. When you watch Darkside, I think you realize it is certainly different next to the 80s version of The Twilight Zone.

I believe Creepshow was the inspiration and motivation for Darkside. The music and use of really fun talent in Creepshow seems to feel so similar to Darkside which was a week to week offering of a mixture of comedy, sci-fi, and horror.

Savini and Romero's involvement on Darkside might not be so completely dominant but I think their stamp is quite present.

What I love about Creepshow is just its variety of content: it is what I think an anthology should be actually. It should have a little of this, and a little of that.

People take such a giant shit on Jordy Verrill, for instance. I think it is King's goofy expressions and approach to his character, but ultimately if you truly let it sink in, this is a rather tragic tale. It ends with poor Jordy doomed, blowing his head off while overcome by the results of "meteor shit". I'm the first to admit that this is the weakest among the stories and deserves some critique for perhaps maybe being a bit too comedic, but each tale offers quite a bit of "loud" humor, black as pitch, but considering its EC Comics that is the chief inspiration for Creepshow, it is to be expected, right?

King's character is right out of a cartoon; perhaps it is something out of the silent film comedy era. It is without subtlety. It is Kabuki theater. But underlying the comedy, broad as it might be, is a sad fate that leaves poor Jordy to suffer his demise all alone. The radio continues to inform us of the economic news as Jordy goes silent, his head taken off by the shotgun blast, the farmer unfortunate enough to have that meteor (and it glowy shit) land in his field, on his land.

Something to Tide You Over is perhaps my second favorite next to The Crate. I just love the way it is presented, perhaps the most EC of the tales. A revenge tale in two respects. A psychotic, very wealthy husband getting even with his wife and her lover, by burying them up to their neck on his isolated beach (owned by him). Then after the "tide takes them", the lovers return to retaliate in ironic fashion, by having Richard (Leslie Nielsen, mining some of that psycho that devoured the scenery of Day of the Animals) understand what it feels like to have to "hold your breath". It was always cool to me to see a young, pre-stardom Ted Danson as the victim trying to hold his breath, willing himself to rise from his watery grave to get his own brand of justice for two lives taken (the wife is played by Dawn of the Dead alum, Gaylen Ross). The seaweed undead makeup by Savini is a winner, especially when Nielsen shoots Danson and Ross in the head, with the wounds spitting out water.

Something that always comes to mind in Tide is my uncle's comments on Richard's pad. The television monitors and security cameras. The video tapes and just the expansive room in the really impressive home of Richard was a dream my uncle always desired. Everytime we watched it together he'd always remark about how awesome Richard had it. To own that whole beach and the affluent digs do stand out to me. It allows us to see how well Richard has it. Danson tells Nielsen that all he and Ross want to do is be together; Ross doesn't want his money. Nielsen admits that he doesn't give up anything: that includes a miserable Ross. So instead of lose her, he'll just drowned her, along with the man that came between them. Nieslen is always cold-blooded, and you can tell he is not where he is without destroying people along the way. I can imagine there might just be other bodies buried around the beach near his home.
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Now I had already made a post talking about The Crate, but I do think out of the tales in Creepshow, this is the showstopper. It has two—no three—great talents in the tale. Hal Holbrook gets top honors and he deserves it. The Crate gives him one of those seething emasculated husbands. The kind of husband that is so demoralized and tattered, when his polarizing, blabbering, obnoxious drunk wife (played to absolute monstrous perfection by Adrienne Barbeau) spurts out her smart-ass comments that make all those around her extremely uncomfortable and anxious he stands nearby, often addressed as if he were her little whipping boy, poor Holbrook can only agonize quietly. His colleague and dear friend, a fellow professor of the local university, played by Fritz Weaver, shows his pity for Holbrook, wanting to say something that might diffuse a situation that has all the faculty and attendees squeamish and troubled.

The crate, having been left under a stairwell for nearly 150 years after a type of Arctic expedition must’ve found it, turns out to be Holbrook’s salvation! It features a flesh-eating, blood thirsty monster, covered in fur, with a mouthful of teeth. If you go near it, and it can get you, look out! It also has fearsome talons on its fingers and a force behind its hands that does serious damage to a grad student of Weaver’s who lets curiosity get the best of him, going too close towards the crate, not knowing the monster was not inside but nearby in the darkness. Weaver is mortified already, when the university handyman is pulled into the crate and eaten alive, leaving lots of blood. When it eats his grad student, too, Weaver has nowhere else to turn but Holbrook. Holbrook, listening intently (yet never showing shock or awe), sees this beast as an opportunity to rid himself of his wife!

There’s that dark edge to the humor all the way throughout, from Holbrook fantasizing about ways to murder Barbeau, to feeding his wife to it. I think the conclusion, where the crate is dumped in the water after Holbrook chains it in (wondering how it could eat so much of three people), and the monster frees itself is the perfect way to end. To know that it is out and the world at large is in deep shit is a rather scary thought. I love it. Holbrook’s cleans up real well crime scenes; his commenting on how surprised he was that no one was around and that he could get away with getting rid of his nuisance busybody, foul-mouthed wife is hilarious!

Savini’s work on display is reason enough to recommend Creepshow. When people say this is overrated, look at the makeup work alone. I can’t fathom practical effects fans not digging this movie!

A case in point is “Father’s Day” about greedy ancestors preparing to celebrate another father’s day, owing their affluence to a murdered crotchety, bootlegging murderer, earning his wealth through criminal means. His malicious, all-consuming, demeaning cruelty to his daughter (played by a guest-starring Viveca Lindfors) causes her to smack him over the noggin with an ash tray. There was only so much a person who endures insult after insult (“You bitch!”) could take. I always get a good laugh out of how a bottle of Jim Beam dropped open onto a dead bootlegger’s grave re-animated his rotted corpse. Lindfors never expected the skeletal remains of her pops to strangle her to death! It all results in the family getting a nice shock—a visit from grandpappy, if you will—they weren’t expecting.

In regards to Father’s Day, I think the one scene that just is too much for me is Ed Harris’ death. I have a hard time swallowing the idea that he would lay there in a disturbed grave (thanks to the rising of Father) while the gravestone of the undead patriarch (played by Jon Lormer, who had a memorable supporting part in The Boogens) moved twice and yet he didn’t get his ass out of there before being crushed. His discovery of Lindfor’s body and seeing Lormer’s (awfully powerful) corpse is fun, though. Seeing Ed do this hilariously lame disco dance along with his squeeze (played by Elizabeth Regan) is good stuff. Nice turn, too, by Carrie Nye as the older member of the clan of Grantham, with a laid-back, conscious-free understanding of how her riches were acquired and when she tells of the salacious details of her family’s past, there’s an amusement you can see. Warner Shook, as the liquored brother of Regan, is about as apathetic and impassive regarding the money he inherited as Carrie. Well, a head turned all the way around and found on a plate as the “cake” so desired by pops is certainly unexpected. It is so fucked-up, how could I not get a kick out of it?

If you think Wormer was crotchety, EG Marshall, as this heartless, sociopathic businessman (a clean freak holed up in a white, sanitized (or so he thought considering he paid for it), and mechanized building (he makes sure he has the bells and whistles that allow him to contact everyone hired under him at any point and time, not to mention, he keeps a garbage recycler handy to suction every piece of napkin used due to his obsessive cleanliness and fear to touch anything.) one-ups him. This guy, with patches of hair clowning off two sides of his head, is so horrible a human being, he cheerfully mocks the wife of a suicide victim who took his life because Marshall fired him! If you are not at his beck and call, Marshall waves unemployment at you like a weapon. His pad gets crashed by roaches. If roaches give you the creeps, then avoid “They’re Creeping Up on You”. These creepy crawlies are Karma for Marshall. What he loathes the most will get him good in the end. As the electricity goes off in the city (unknown, but could be Pittsburgh), and only the emergency lights help Marshall to see. This is his worst nightmare. All those nasty bugs bursting from a fake torso of Marshall might just get under your skin. It is damned chilly-willy for sure.

I thoroughly enjoy the framework to the tales. Tom Atkins is such a tool. What a bastard. He plays the father of a kid who loves horror comics. Landing a slap to the kid’s face after being reminded of his own “collection”, Atkins points that finger, harangues him for his return comment in defense, and takes his comic book from him. I’m sure many kids had a similar experience. When the kid (played by Stephen King’s son) announces in his bedroom, “I hope you rot in hell” with a voice quite sinister, the outcome of the framework is fitting for what he has endured. Savini, as one of two garbage men who find the discarded comic book, gleefully reading it in remembrance from his own childhood experience, is a nice cameo.

Romero was able to escape the stigma of “just directing successful zombie films” (although “Martin” is a fine film that is considered close to a masterpiece) with Creepshow. In the 80s, Romero would eventually return to zombies with “Day of the Dead”, but here is a creative, imaginative, inspired horror film lovingly devoted to EC comics and horror of all types. What a great deal of fun this always is for me personally. I don’t know how any horror fan couldn’t find *something* to like about it.