Creepshow is a crazy trip of movie with tales of mystery and fear, revenge, people rising from the dead, or being devoured alive by monsters and bugs alike. This film is a whole package. It tells the stories of a parent who comes back from the dead, a bizarre meteor, an affair gone wrong, a man-eating monster, and a businessman who meets a grisly end!
The film, directed by George A. Romero and presented in the manner of a comic book, immortalizes Stephen King’s novels. Father’s Day, The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill, Something to Tide You Over, The Crate, and They’re Creeping Up on You! are among the five pieces included in this 120-minute anthology. Creepshow is a charming cult classic with a perfect blend of fright and comedy that will leave you wanting more!
The Most Fun You’ll Ever Have Being Scared! – Creepshow (1982)
The movie opens with a scene in a household, with a young child enjoying his horror comic ‘Creepshow’ while his father does not care for it. He scolds him and then tosses the comic into a bin. As the scene pans towards the bin, we see the book open as the characters come to life.
After a short interlude as the opening credits roll, we dive right into the first story in the comic book panels – ‘Father’s Day. The scene is set in a living room, as Sylvia Grantham and the rest of her family gather for the annual Father’s Day dinner. Along with the siblings, Richard and Cass. She narrates the story behind Father’s day to Cass’s husband, Hank. As it turns out, Aunt Belinda used to look after her father after he suffered a stroke.
As Belidia found a new love interest, Peter, her father, murdered him and covered the death up as an accident. Enraged by this, she smashed a marble ashtray on his head and killed him. Every year the family returns to the family home in remembrance of that day. As Aunt Belidia arrives, she heads off to visit the grave.
Through her flashbacks, we learn that her father was verbally abusive and kept harassing her to make a Father’s Day cake. After being patient for a while, Belidia lost her cool and killed him. Sitting by the grave, Belidia reminisces over the past. She reaches out to replace the flowers on the grave when a skeletal figure crawls out of the grave and reaches for her. Her father seems to be half alive, as he repeats the same words and keeps asking for his cake. He tackles her to the ground and attacks her.
As the rest of the family is worried, Hank approaches the grave to look for Aunt Belinda. He loses his balance and trips over the gravestone, only to find her dead body holding onto him. The murky skeletal figure of the father looms over him and wanders away in search of his cake. He finds his next victim in the housekeeper and finally comes across Sylvie in the kitchen.
Meanwhile, Richard and Cass look around the house. In a terrorizing finale, the father sneaks upon them. He holds a platter with Slyvie’s deadhead decorated like a cake. “It’s fathers day. I got my cake”, he declares out loud to the petrified siblings, and the story comically ends with the characters turning back into sketches from a comic. Interestingly, the marble ashtray that kills the father shows up in every segment when one takes a closer look!
The next segment explores the ‘Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill’, a simple farmer living on a farm. Played by the legendary Stephen King himself, Jordy witnesses a meteor fall off the sky. It doesn’t seem very bright and he touches it with his bare hands and hurts himself. He starts daydreaming about selling it for some money to pay off his college fees. He tries to find a way to transport the meteor without touching it.
He splashes water on it, which causes the meteor to break into two. As some liquid from the meteor spills, he gathers the broken meteor in a basket and turns it for the night. However, when he wakes up the next day, he finds mold growing on the injury on his hand. Yet again, in a comedic sequence, he imagines a doctor cutting off his injured fingers.
As the night progresses, the liquid from the meteor causes the barren landscape to turn to greenery everywhere. The weird plantation covers almost every ground surface, and the house surfaces, even his entire body. As Jordy looks around, he tries to figure out a way to get rid of the itch from the plant.
He decides on having a bath and gets the water running. Jordy’s father appears in the mirror and warns him against exposing himself to water, as it will only help the plant to grow. He doesn’t listen to him and ends up with a plantation overflowing on his body. Somehow, he emerges from it and shoots himself in the head before the pain worsens. The sequence ends with a television reporter talking about expected heavy rainfalls, which might only cause the plantation to spread further and doom everything.
An unhappy marriage, a doomed affair that ends horribly, is a tale as old as time. This anthology segment titled ‘Something to Tide You Over’ deals with the same, but of course, with a twist. When a young man, Harry, awakens to the sound of a visitor, he does not expect to find his lover’s husband, Richard.
Upon being confronted, Harry admits to the affair, and as they talk over it, the intruder makes himself comfortable, he then plays a tape recorder of Rebecca, asking for Harry to rescue her. They drive off to a shore, and Harry finds a freshly dug hole. He turns around to find a gun aimed at his head. Held at gunpoint, Harry is forced to bury himself alive in the hole and pour sand on himself. Harry protests but ends up buried up to his neck in the sand.
Richard sets up the television and plays a video of Rebecca buried in a different place. He frantically looms for Rebecca but the waves keep crashing, and the footage shows Rebecca struggling to breathe. No one can help her, we can only pity her state of constant agony. Richard leaves and goes back to the comfort of his house. He watches the two suffer through the video monitor, and Harry swears to get revenge. In the last clip.
Richard gets back the next day and recovers his television. He cannot see Harry and he is satisfied, he has got his revenge and goes home. However, this happiness does not last for long, as he hears voices that seem to be calling him. Shadows linger around his house, and Richard finds himself face to face with two zombie-like creatures: Rebecca and Harry, though unrecognizable their bodies are covered with seaweed, they have returned from the dead to seek revenge. They express their desire to take him back to the beach.
Hysterically, Richard breaks into laughter, and the scene shifts to him buried up to his neck in the sand. He continues to laugh and says, “I can hold my breath for a long time,” as the scene merges back into the comic book panel.
Interestingly, this segment was supposed to have an alternate ending wherein Richard gets caught by the police and ends up on death row. Played by none other than Leslie Nielsen, Richard’s character has an eerie vibe that gives one the chills, even as he sees his ending. With a stellar cast that also includes Ted Danson in the role of Harry, this segment has one of the best performances in this anthology.
As the comic panel shifts to the next scene, the page opens to the tale of “The Crate,” wherein a college janitor finds a mysterious crate under the stairs. Meanwhile, the college seems to be hosting a mixer for the teachers. Professor Henry shows up with Wilma, who appears to be a chatterbox and tries to intrude on almost everyone. While Wilma makes a fool of herself, Henry converses with his colleague, Professor Stanley.
However, Stanley gets a call from the janitor regarding the old crate, and he leaves to look into it. The segment turns into an imaginative scene in Henry’s head where he fantasizes about shooting his wife. Meanwhile, the janitor and Stanley try to open the crate. They feel movements in the box and try to hammer it open. As the wood creaks, the crate half opens as the monster inside wants to get to Mike and attacks him, and starts eating him up. As special effects go, Fluffy is a compelling monster.
As Stanley runs to ask for help, he comes across Charlie. Charlie tries to analyze the bite marks around the crate when the monster gets to him too. Stanley runs away to Henry’s place and tells him the whole story. Henry thinks he is crazy and spikes his drink with sleep medicine. He leaves for the college, but not before leaving a letter for Wilma to lure her there as well. Reaching ahead of time, Henry finds blood all over and cleans the whole place.
In the meantime, Wilma falls for his trap and reaches the college. She bosses around, asking to look for the problem. Henry laughs out loud and says that he will show it to her instead. He lures Wilma under the stairs and against the crate. She hurls insults at him when the monster finally gets to her as well.
As Wilma gets her comeuppance, Henry finds new locks for the container and secures it. He drives off to a creek and drowns the crate. Henry and Stanley discuss the entire evening and agree to keep things a secret. As the shot pans to the sunken crate, we see the monster make its way out of it. This segment also pays homage to the film ‘The Thing’ [1982], as one can see on the inscriptions written on the crate.
Finally, the star of the show is ‘They’re Creeping Up on You.’ The sequence tells the tale of Upson Pratt, a germaphobe businessman living in a sterilized germ-proof apartment. However, he finds his house infested with cockroaches this evening. Receiving a work call, that he hardly pays attention to, he keeps going about the bugs and cockroaches.
However, the news of a suicide catches his attention, and he seems to be glad to be rid of this person. Gleefully he cuts the call and redirects his attention towards getting rid of the cockroaches. Meanwhile, he gets another call from the widow of Norman Castonmeyer, who curses him and wishes him dead.
He does not seem to care much for it and is very selfish. Pratt acts superior to everyone and believes he is entitled to the best treatment. Threatening to fire his housekeeper over the infestation, he talks to himself while eating his cereal only to find cockroaches in it. As
lightning strikes and causes a blackout, the infestation escalates, as the roaches take over his entire apartment and cover every surface. However, he still keeps his fighting spirit and escapes to the bathroom, only to find cockroaches there as well. As the power comes back on, we see a terrifying turn of events as Pratt is seen lying on the floor as cockroaches make their way into his head, mouth, and his entire body bursts open, as he lies there, helplessly.
The household gleefully calls from outside as the roaches cover his dead body, and the scene merges into the comic. Originally this segment was supposed to be shot in a posh apartment; however, they went for a more hospital-like setting that ended up looking even better and eerier.
The scene takes us back to the household from the opening segment. As the trash collectors rummage through the garbage, they come across the comic and read the story of a voodoo doll. In a parallel scene, the camera pans to the household where the young child’s father complains of searing pain in his neck.
It appears that the child uses a voodoo doll himself to teach his father a lesson. The scene merges back into comic book panels, and in an outstanding finale, we see our host ‘The Creep’ holding the comic in his hand and laughing out loud as the screen fades to black.
Fluffy, the Crate Beast
Fluffy is a furry monster, it resembles an ape. His claws and sharp teeth are his prominent features. After being chained up in a crate for decades, he seems to have worked up quite an appetite. With its brute strength, Fluffy eats every human that comes across his path. However, it does not chase people or go after its victims.
It seems to have a fighting spirit and a lot of hunger too. Even after having sunk at the bottom of a lake, Fluffy manages to break open the crate, as the story ends, leaving him to his ambiguous fate.
Why should you watch Creepshow?
The theatrical performances, comic book origins, humor, special effects, and a perfectly paced storyline are all put together to make ‘Creepshow’ a masterpiece. The segments are short, and the stories do not drag on for too long. The art style of the movie and the short interludes in between the segments add a fun element to horror.
The actors do a terrific job, along with a stellar background score and special effects that have been executed perfectly to engage the audience in these dark tales. Creepshow has also set the trend for anthologies in Hollywood and it was the most successful one of the bunch. It was also followed by a second part that sadly did not live up to the same standard as this masterpiece. If you’re a horror fan, who loves a dash of comedy, it is the perfect watch for a movie night!