Friday, 24 November 2017

Review: Creepshow (1982)

Stars: Stephen King, Leslie Nielsen

Budget: $8 million

Directed By: George A. Romero

I may have mentioned it just a few times, probably not enough for you folks to pick up on that I like me a good old anthology story film.
3 or more spooky tales upon one film brings a smile to my face.

Maybe i'm just tricked into thinking that i'm getting more for my time or money. More than likely it's due to the fact that I don't have commit myself to one thing taking up 90+ minutes of my time.
I can instead watch anywhere from 3 thirty minute shorts to 5 or 6 15-20 minute shorts instead.

Creepshow is one of the best to do this genre, along side body bags etc. Creepshow however hearkens back and takes it's inspiration from the old horror anthology comics of our past like tales from the crypt etc.

This also features a plethora of well known actors and cameo's. From the  Comedic, Leslie Nielson, Ted Danson and many others.

Theres five stories in total started and ended by a prologue and epilogue, i'll explain about one and give the film it's over all rating at the end:

Prologue:
A young kid named is told off by his father for reading what he believes to be trashy horror comics and is grounded, in his bedroom Billy see's the creeper who beckons him on a journey.

1. Fathers Day:
When a daughter, elderly herself plus mentally unstable due to her fathers constant nagging, demands and put downs (which we see in flashbacks) kills her father on fathers day after his constant demands for a fathers day cake.
The rest of the family descend on the house like vultures when his fortune is to be shared out. The daughter (Bedalia) we see is drunk and shouting at her fathers gravestone. Her rotten fathers corpse sudden pulls itself from the grave much to her horror. He starts asking for his cake again over and over, he kills everyone one by one until he gets his cake, in a most frightful way!

2. The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill:
Jordy (played by King) is a down and out loser with not to much in the brains department comes across a meteorite on his travels. Thinking he'll be able to sell it to the local college for study for enough to cover his $200 bank loan tries to grab it but it's to hot to handle.
when he douses it with water the thing cracks open exuding a green goo that he touches, unfortunately to Jordy he now thinks the thing will be worthless. He starts to itch and very soon a weird green growth starts growing on him, in dream sequences both the doctor and his father scold him for being stupid or not to take a bath.
When he can't bare the green growth anymore he does take a bath and despite it feeling good initially later on he's seen pretty overgrown with the stuff. In one last attempt to do something right Jordy sticks a shotgun to his head...

3. Something to Tide You Over:
When a husband (Nielsen) finds out his wife is cheating on him he hatches a plot to kill her and her lover. Luring them both to his house one by one he then takes them to the beach and burries them up to the neck with the tide rushing in.
Both of them drown but when the husband thinks all is done the soggy fish eaten zombies come back from the grave to exact revenge against him!

4. The Crate:
Probably one of the scariest shorts of the whole film, when a freaky hundred or so year old crate is found under some stairs in a college. Of the two one of the guys gets murdered brutally and gory by it's occupant. The other one escapes to tell someone only for them to be murdered too.
He then goes to his close friend another university professor, he however thinks his friend has murdered these people in some weird turn of sanity and tries to clean up the mess. The professor see's this crate as a way to kill his loudmouthed braggart of a wife. Once the deed is done he secures the crate with chains and dumps it in a lake, is the beast dead?

5. They're Creeping Up on You:
A rich tycoon afraid of dirt bugs and germs does everything he can to keep himself in a clean, sterile area. He achieves this by paying a lot for a room that's sealed and pumped full of sterile air.
It's monitored by security and one night when the power goes off his nightmare truly begins, Cockroaches start appearing out of every hole. From the sinks, ventilation and anywhere else they can squeeze in through. Making his way to his panic room he dies of shock when he see's it too is full of cockroaches. When the lights come back on however, not a trace of cockroach

Prologue:
Aaah young Billy hasn't been idle while we've been away he has gone to the pages of the comic where you can buy assorted things like x-ray specs, young Billy has bought himself a voodoo doll to exact some revenge on his father.

truly one of the best anthology films you can get your hands on THN awards Creepshow  4 out of 5 stars