Creepshow (1982)

Heh-heh!! Greetings, kiddies, and welcome to the first issue of Creepshow, the magazine that dares to answer the question, "Who goes there?"

When I was a kid I used to bike down to the local pharmacy and proudly purchase fat, fulsome reprints of the classic EC horror comics that were banned in the 1950s. Well, maybe using the word "banned: is not quite right; if I remember my history correctly, Bill Gaines at EC decided on some judicious self-censorship based on the government hearings about whether or not these gory, ghoul-laden four-color masterpieces (or, maybe "monsterpieces"?) were corrupting the youth of Eisenhower's post-War America. Incidentally, one of the most vociferous opponents of the EC brand of horror comics (Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, the Haunt of Fear) was none other than Dr. Frederic Wertham, who wrote an anti-horror comic screed called Seduction of the Innocent. Wertham, by the way, earlier in his career, testified at the trial of infamous cannibal child-killer Albert Fish.

It was the contention of the moral alarmists and repressed blue-noses of the era that horror comics were creating a generation of lawless Charlie Starkweather wannabes. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, EC switched its creative focus to the much more profitable, long-running Mad Magazine. The rest is, as they history (if I'm remembering it correctly).

It was the era of the crimes of Ed Gein, and EC comics reflected the grisly preoccupation with death and decay in much the same way as little ol' Ed in his Wisconsin farmhouse of the damned. Later decades would see Tales from the Crypt adapted for the showtime cable television network. The episodes, starring established actors and utilizing popular, talented directors, were often excellent.

But before that adaptation (and after some anthology movie adaptations of Tales and Vault from the 1970s) there was Creepshow (1982), written by Stephen King and helmed by the late George Romero, Creepshow is a film I have seen quite literally dozens of times in my life, never failing delight or a sense of nostalgia.

The film opens with a young boy being castigated by his morally hypocritical father (who has a collection of "Sex books") for reading "Creepshow," a horror comic. We don't want to give away the ending, but daddy gets his comeuppance in a shocking finale.

The boy (Stephen King's son Joe Hill), is then treated to the animated ghoul of the comic coming to life. The first segment, "Father's Day," has "Dottie Ol' Aunt Bedelia," (Viveca Linfors) coming to visit the grave of her accursed daddie, the fabulously wealthy father whom she murdered for murdering her ill-fated beau. Like an EC comic, he emerges from the grave with predictable, ghoulish results. ("I've got my CAKE!") The segment also stars a young Ed Harris.

Stephen King himself plays a backwoods caricature in "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill," a story of a strange alien object and the weird, horrific mutation it causes in him. The segment is intercut with his fantasies of "big college professors" paying him a whole "two hundred dollars" for his meteorite or whatever; alternately, he envisions the same mad doctor dissecting his fingers which have begun to blister over with mutation.

"Something to Tide You Over," features Ted Danson and the late Leslie Nielson in a revenge fantasy, wherein Danson is sleeping with Nielsen's wife. Nielsen, a seemingly very insane and wealthy man, is obsessed with videotaping events. He buries Danson up to his neck in the sand on his private beach, and videotapes as he waits for the tide to come in. However, because this is a twist-ending horror comic come to life (the scenes are animated in such a way as to suggest that the viewer is actually reading one of these old comics, with panels and backgrounds expressing the horror of various characters through colorful art, etc.), the dead Danson DOESN'T QUITE STAY DEAD.

The classic segment of "The Crate," starring the luscious Adrienne Barbeau as "Billie," the obnoxious, alcoholic termagant wife of the long-suffering professor played by Hal Holbrook, is one of the best of the film. Holbrook's professorial colleague played by Fritz Weaver and a janitor discover an ancient crate from an 1830s expedition, one carefully chained. Residing therein is some sort of demonic arctic monster, one that is as apparently deathless as well as insatiable insofar as it is always hungry. Old Hal uses the Thing in the Crate as a way to cure his marital difficulties--no muss, no fuss, no messy divorce. But, as he drops it into the bottom of a lake one asks oneself: Can the Thing ever really be killed?

The last vignette is of a Howard Hughes stand-in with Larry Stooge hair that lives in a billion-dollar penthouse and is afraid of bugs. Roaches specifically. The apartment is pristine and features American Psycho sterile, solid white walls and floors with the only ornate object of any color being a vintage jukebox. The billionaire, a racist, sexist, power-hungry, greedy tyrant, is germophobic to the point that his hankies are immediately put down a suction hole for disintegration. He abuses and terrorizes his underlings over the phone, tells an employee if he "fucks ups...he can take his wife and kids to Disneyland on his welfare check," and informs a voice on the other end of a phone line (played by the late Joan Rivers), a woman whose husband has committed suicide due to the corporate takeover of his business by the ruthless bug-o-phobe, that he only ever "cut the throat of someone...who stretched out their neck and handed me the knife." (Probably not an exact quote, but there it is.)

But then, city-wide there is a blackout, and the creepy crawlies come out to play. By the millions, it seems. Not even a hermetically-sealed room can save the wretched old miser, and the end (not to give it away), features one of the most repulsive and realistic corpses I have ever seen in a horror picture. Or any other type of picture for that matter.

The final segment has the old man receive his comeuppance at the hands of his comic book-loving son. Makeup-effects guru Tom Savini stars s a garbage man that's a little disappointed he can't order a genuine voodoo doll out of his copy of Creepshow (the comic).

This film is so beyond great, greatness has to race through a crypt of terror and a swamp of fear just to keep up. It shuffles like a meandering zombie behind the cinematic excellence of Creepshow, a movie King and Romero originally conceived as a remake of Amicus's Seventies Tales from the Crypt.

At any rate, hearkening back to the bygone innocent days of childhood, when curling up with a comic book full of killers, zombies and man-eating things in crates meant a gentle, happy afternoon of escape, Creepshow is one film you'll never tire of. or ever truly forget. Just don't turn off the lights!

Featuring an all-star cast, including Stephen King, Adrienne Barbeau, Leslie Nielsen, Ted Danson, Hal Holbrook, Fritz Weaver, Joe Hill King, E.G. Marshall, Tom Atkins, Tom Savini, and Ed Harris. How can you go wrong? n the aitch-e-double-hockey sticks can you possibly go wrong?