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The Appropriate Tune: "Creep", by TLC
We might have touched upon this before, but in spite of superheros being around since the inception of comic books, they were not always the sole interest of the medium. Indeed, there was a time not too long after what is called the ‘Golden Age’ of comics that superheros were barely worth the cheap paper it took to print them, and newspaper stands (back when they were still newspapers and comic books were still sold outside of comic shops) were packed instead with issues of Archie and Young Romance. Yet of all these other genre comics, the leader of the pack were the horror comics. House of Mystery, Vault of Horror, Chamber of Chills, these 4 color compilations of gruesome death and grisly murders in sharp detail shocked audiences across the country in the early 1950s, all the while raking in the cash. In fact they were too shocking: That whole ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ business, where that dude wrote a book about how Batman was trying to fuck Robin, wasn’t really about superheroes so much as it was about those horror comics, and so when comic companies adopted the Comics Code Authority in response horror comics kinda died off. You’d still see horror-based comics made afterwards of course, it’s not like the CCA was legally binding, but with this drive towards kid-friendly content came the introduction of the Silver Age, and that largely meant the financial end of anything that wasn’t wearing spandex or had magic alien powers. Or Uncle Scrooge I guess, people love that old fucking duck.
While DC and Marvel had their own line of horror comics at the time, when talking about that period you have to mention EC Comics. EC was the home of Tales From the Crypt after all, which was revived as a film (which has been covered in a previous Marathon) and later became its very own multi-media franchise. Beyond that though, their comics just hit differently than other comics of the time; They looked better, went farther, said more than other companies did at the time. Which is probably why they basically collapsed after the CCA thing, but it’s that drive beyond simply selling funny books that can often resonate with readers. Perhaps even inspire someone to make a movie some thirty odd years later, which would inspire some weirdo on the internet to write a review about a couple more decades after that. Funny how things work out sometimes.
Released in 1982, Creepshow was directed by George A. Romero (who made a couple zombie movies I doubt anyone has heard of) with a screenplay by horror maestro Stephen King, thus fulfilling our anthology and based-on-a-novel-by-Stephen-King movie quotas for the year. With a framing device centered around the guy from Night of the Creeps beating a child over a comic book, we then get a glimpse of the horror within: “Father’s Day”, a tale of familiar abuse and baked goods; “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”, in which a bumbling farmer stumbles across a bizarre meteor; “Something to Tide You Over”, a story about sandy beaches and psychotic ex-husbands; “The Crate”, a narrative detailing marital problems and mysterious boxes under the stairs; Capping off with “They’re Creeping Up On You!”, where a rich asshole/paranoid germaphobe receives a six-legged surprise. Each tale is more grim and ghastly than the last, each one a dagger of terror ready to pierce your heart at a moment’s notice. What more could you expect from a Creepshow?
When it comes to anthology movies I think a lot of stock is placed in how much they push the overall theme. Tales From the Hood featured stories that dealt with issues relevant to those from ‘the hood’, it featured characters from ‘the hood’, it featured music people listened to in ‘the hood’, everything in that movie was built around that central theme. Spirits of the Dead on the other hand was an adaptation of Poe stories, but other than that there wasn’t really anything that connected the stories together beyond that, and I doubt the directors would have been interested in doing that anyway. In the case of Creepshow the idea is that it is an EC horror comic brought to life, and that’s exactly what it tries to replicate. Lots of color saturation, scene transitions made to look like the panel layout of a comic, even incorporating some animation to go the extra mile. If you have never read a horror comic from EC Comics before, Vault of Horror, Tales From the Crypt, what have you, then this movie does a great job at showing you what made those comics so popular in the first place. Which might make it one of the better comic book movies ever made, admittedly not a great feat, but they did it.
Of course you can’t have a horror film, especially one based on EC Comics (we’re close to drinking game levels of repetition here) without some proper make-up and special effects, and we’re in luck, because getting George Romero behind the camera means we also get Tom Savini, gore extraordinaire. You’ve got decomposing corpses, horrific monsters, bodies getting ripped apart, and buckets and buckets of fake blood. Originally I was going to criticize it for being a little too on the nose, like they don’t even try to hide the fact that this is shit is happening to a rubber-faced mannequin rather than a human being, but upon reflection I’ve come around to it. In Romero’s Dead films it made sense to treat the gore more realistically because the world it took place in was meant to be taken seriously (in spite of the satirical elements), but Creepshow is a movie based around comics books from the 50s, so having things come across as a tad goofy makes sense in the context that Romero and company are dealing in.
If a movie directed by George Romero and written by Stephen King wasn’t enough for audiences in 1982 though, they did folks a favor by throwing recognizable names up on the marquee. Not as big as the cast for Twilight Zone: The Movie a year later, but not a bad haul if you’re a fan of cult films: Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Leslie Neilsen, Ted Danson, Fritz Weaver, Tom Atkins, Ed Harris, Stephen King himself, even the kid who played Billy ended up becoming famous author Joe Hill. The best surprise of the bunch personally was Leslie Neilsen, who plays the psychotic ex-husband Richard in “Tide”. I know that he spent the bulk of his career doing dramatic work before moving onto comedy with Airplane!, but it still feels like a treat to see him drop the zaniness and get serious. I also have yet to see anything that Fritz Weaver was in that I didn’t like, there’s just something about his gaunt features and imposing stage presence that draws my eye to him.
Speaking of Twilight Zone: The Movie, a common complaint that appears with that movie is also one that could apply to Creepshow, which is the choices of stories that were covered. There’s no cogent examination on the nature of man and our place in the universe when it comes to Creepshow, it’s all ironic deaths which may or may not include a monster. Which isn’t a bad thing, in fact it’s a foundation of horror fiction, but it’s not until “Tide” that the film finds a good footing in that regard. “Father’s Day” goes for that shocker ending to draw you in but since I never had the time or inclination to care about the characters for that ending to really affect me. The second segment “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” ends strong, but mostly acts as Stephen King’s demo tape for Hee Haw. Had these two been spaced out I doubt there’d be an issue, but because they run right after the other it ends up grinding your gears. Not only thoughts of ‘man, is the entire movie going to be this ephemeral?’ running through your head, but ‘why didn’t they cut one of these out to beef up the other segments?’. Although the three main segments work well enough as they are, the fact that it is Stephen King writing the screenplay does lead to assumptions that the writing must be of a certain level of quality. I guess you could blame George a bit too, since he’s likely the one that organized the segments, but that doesn’t really factor into the stories the segments told, which is all King.
As for the best segment, as I said I have a fondness for Leslie Neilsen and therefore I have a fondness for “Tide”, the inclusion of Ted Danson being the icing on the cake. “The Crate” is the most well-written; It has the set-up, the suspense, the gore, it’s allotted a certain amount of time and it fills it out expertly. “They’re Creeping Up On You” is pretty good as well, built around a solid performance by E.G. Marshall, but it pulled off something not too dissimilar to “Father’s Day” that soured the ending for me. If this story was adapted from an actual comic book, it literally felt like they tacked on a ‘this ain’t your daddy’s EC Comics!’ stinger at the end. I dunno, it might seem contradictory when I was just praising excessive 80’s gore effects a couple paragraphs up, but if the story you’re telling doesn’t have a place for it then don’t shoe-horn it in there for kicks.
If you’re looking into anthology horror movies the first title out of my mouth is still going to be Tales From the Hood, but second place would go to Creepshow. While 80’s directors revisiting stuff from the 50s wasn’t exactly uncommon, in fact this film shares a release year with a rather famous remake by John Carpenter, to their credit Romero and King don’t try and reinvent the wheel, they just have fun with it. If you’re a fan of the Tales From the Crypt TV series from back in the day, Creepshow is the prototype of all that mess. Those who need their horror strictly business however, or who want to find out what all the Stephen King hype is about might want to look elsewhere. Maybe Locke & Key, now available on netflix?
