Im going to keep this one brief because, honestly? I dont have that much to say. ‘Creepshow’ is a 1982 Anthology horror film written by Stephen King and directed by George Romero, both were basically riding high at this point in their relative fields, with Romero fresh off of ‘Knightriders’ with ‘Dawn of the dead’ and ‘Martin’ not that far behind it. and King somewhere between ‘Cujo’, ‘The Running Man’ and ‘Christine’. The pair struck up on the idea of making a movie literally in the style of the old horror comics of the 50s and 60s. and so King wrote a few original ideas and re-adapted a couple of his short stories into ‘comic style’ takes of his works. With a star studded cast to help really lift this thing up and above where it could have ended up.
We go through the film like flipping pages in a comic book, with stories of ressurected vengeful fathers, killer weeds from space, 150 year old killer yetis, a bug infestation and a tale of betrayal and bloody vengence.
I didnt really get around to ‘Creepshow’ till about 3-5 years ago when I chanced upon a VHS copy in amongst a haul of tapes I picked up. Creepshow infamously hasnt really had a release past VHS in the UK. and even then, the VHS copy is kind of hard to come by. But for spooky season this year? I decided to upgrade, picking up the 4k release from Scream factory, and it looks absolutely astounding.
The film itself is really good honestly, The stories are all consistently decent quality, with the best stories being incredibly solid and totally engrossing, and even the worst ones are still pretty watchable…if not a little slow paced. While I do take some issue with the 2 hour runtime (an unfortunate fact that means I may not watch this one again for a while…) Its a rock solid production, that isnt as good as the sum of its parts…PURELY for how MANY good parts there are in this. When you have Romero and King on writing and direction, and a cast that includes Ted Dansen, Leslie Nielsen Adrienne Barbaue, Tom Atkins, Tom Savini, Hal Holbrook and E.G Marshall, its kind of inevitable that their combined performances dont really match expectations…But thats okay! because they DO get BLOODY close!
Direction is rock solid, hyperstylised ‘comic book’ aesthetics give this film a real flare that helps it stand out against its contemporaries, It could have been easy for this to look cheap, but it has a kind of endearing ‘cardboard’ feel to it for the most part that I really quite enjoyed.
Shots are heavily considered to match the ‘comic’ aesthetic, and transitions that include fades in and out of the comic book frame, page turns and other novelties, really help give this a feelgood ‘Halloween’ spooky vibe. In many ways, I think this is probably a perfect movie for this time of year, just for how it balances actual true horror with that hokey spooky vibe that Halloween gives off.
The scorings superb. Honestly? barring the length of the movie and a couple of slower paced moments dribbed and drabbed across the runtime. I think this is a fantastic little film. Not one that I think i’d choose to watch regularly, but definitely one i’ll keep coming back to over the years. Highly recommended, especially around Halloween time. If you havent seen ‘Creepshow’ you really gotta change that!
TYTD Reviews 