The Hollywood Outsider – Film and Television Podcast | Reviews An award-winning film and television podcast for the fan in all of us
Day 6 – Creepshow
When Creepshow came out I was 11 years old, so the binding element struck a chord with me. Creepshow, if you’re unaware, is a film that is comprised of 5 “Tales of Terror”, bookended by a story of a boy being punished for reading comics. The whole movie is woven together with the premise that the 5 stories are contained within the pages of the comics that the boy was reading. It also pays homage to the 1950’s E.C. horror comics: i.e., House of Mystery, House of Secrets, The Witching Hour, Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear. These same comics were also the basis for the popular HBO series “Tales from the Crypt“.
Creepshow is influential for a multitude of reasons, the first being it was a collaboration of Stephen King and George A. Romero, two powerhouses of the genre of horror. Second, it was one of the first movies to feature Tom Savini doing special effects. Third is the fact that, even though several films based on King’s work had been released to varying degrees of success, Creepshow was the first based on an original screenplay by King himself AND the first to feature King’s acting. Creepshow was the first visible, public sign that King was not content to have an ordinary publishing career, but rather was pushing himself into what is now common occurrence, cross-media artistry.
As with most multi-tale films, the the stories have basic moral messages – good generally triumphs and evil is generally punished but with the added bonus of a generous heaping of blood and gore. Another thing Creepshow has going for it is the star power (granted most are no longer well known). It starred the likes of Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver, Leslie Nielsen, and E.G. Marshall. Probably the best reason to watch Creepshow is that the stories themselves are simple and entertaining. The horror/gore factor is actually pretty low, especially by today’s standards and the humor factor is intentionally campy. There actually have been 2 consecutively bad sequels (Creepshow 2, Creepshow 3), but they are really only worth visiting for completionists. My simple advice is NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
If you’re afraid of the undead, vicious monsters, seaweed, alien goo and especially – cockroaches – then Creepshow simply must be seen. So get on it, ya lunkhead! – Rob Rowald, Contributor
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