Bill (Joe King) is a young boy who is attracted to horror comic magazines, while his stern father Stan (who instead leafs through newspapers with naked little women) constantly scolds him... When one of Bill's latest purchases (in the style of 1950s E.C. Comics) based on macabre tales is thrown by his father into the trash can, the character who introduces the stories (Creepy) comes to life and manifests himself to Bill, inviting him to take revenge...
Creepy then presents the five stories contained in the book.
In the first, Fathers Day, we witness the revenge of a misanthropic and moody elderly man who was murdered by his daughter Bedelia Grantham (Viveca Lindfors) on "Father's Day," for the benefit of a treacherous genius of heirs. After seven years, on the holiday dedicated, precisely, to Father's Day, while Bedelia is intent on "meditating" on her parent's grave, the parent manifests himself in the form of a "living dead" who claims the well-deserved cake...
The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill is instead the story of Jordy (Stephen King), a demented farmer who, having witnessed the fall of a strange meteorite, sets out to recover the "space" artifact, imagining he will sell it to some scientist. But when the effect of a strange contagion sets in, Jordy begins to undergo a disturbing metamorphosis....
In Something to tide you over, Richard Vickers (Leslie Nilsen), after discovering his wife Becky's (Gaylen Ross) betrayal with Harry (Ted Danson), concocts a "diabolical" revenge: by a ruse he leads Harris to his private beach, where he has dug (in the sand) a pit; after forcing, under duress, Harry to throw himself into the hole, Richard buries him alive, leaving only his head outside. As the tide produces the rising of the water level, the vengeful husband videotapes (with camera) the torment that, in parallel, he has also inflicted on his wife. But the spectacle Richard is enjoying (crowned by the screams and moans of pity of the poor victims) is short-lived... someone, in fact, is approaching the uxoricide's house and has ghostly, not to say "zombesque" appearances.....
The discovery of a mysterious chest (The crate) dated 1874, in the basement of a university proves illuminating for Professor Henry Northrup (Hal Hoolbrok). Locked inside, from an Arctic expedition, is a ferocious creature that feeds on those (out of curiosity or circumstance) who approach the crate... Henry, harassed by constant humiliation from his consort Wilma (Adrienne Barbeau), concocts a plan to eliminate his wife by leading her into the crawlspace, where the ferocious creature dwells...
In They're creeping up on you we are introduced to Upson Pratt (E.G. Marshall): a wealthy and ruthless speculator who operates in the financial market, throwing indebted entrepreneurs onto the street and taking over their properties. But Pratt is also deeply misanthropic and maniacally hygienic: in fact, he lives isolated in an aseptic environment, and precludes all human contact. The presence of cockroaches in his luxurious (but depressing) mansion prompts him to call pest control. Meanwhile, he receives a phone call from Castonmeyer's wife, one of his latest "victims," who has killed herself because of the Pratt-induced financial meltdown. The woman, after being further denigrated by the contemptuous hygienist, "curses" him... That night a blackout sweeps through the city and Pratt, left alone and in the dark, begins to notice that cockroaches are, in increasing numbers, present in every nook and cranny and even in the food...
When the fifth story closes, we witness the final frame of Bill, who, after ordering a voodoo doll, takes revenge on his father...
Creepshow represents a happy example of a successful marriage of director (Romero) and writer (King). The film is geared toward a macabre type of horror, but veined with a background of irony that enhances its qualities. The stories are purely in the style of the famous 1950s E.C. Comics that, for a few years, haunted American newsstands, delighting young teenagers (including Romero and King themselves)...
What makes Creepshow a good example of episodic horror is the almost Bavian comic book style (with predominance of red, green, and blue colors), the appropriate use of split screen, an excellent script, and performers who are very much in their parts. Add to this the fact that the stories have an underlying (seemingly trivial) moral, that the effects are taken care of by Tom Savini, and that the splendid piano-based soundtrack (by John Harrison) sets the mood in a "fantasy" world, and it is easy to understand the cult aura with which the film is surrounded.
The macabre character who presents the episodes also circulated in comic reduction in Italy as Uncle Tibia (and enjoyed fleeting fame as a horror movie host on private broadcaster in the early 1990s)...
In the Italian version circulated in theaters, the second episode (actually the less successful one) is missing, reinstated for the home video edition by "fantastic" cinema expert Giovanni Mongini (at the time curator of the Profondo Rosso store -now closed- located in Ferrara).
In addition to Stephen King's entertaining performance (as Jordy Verrill), it is noteworthy that Tom Savini plays the role of the "creature" locked in the crate (and a scavenger in the film's lock) and that King's own son Joe plays Billy (the child in the prologue)...
Curious is the presence of Hal Holbrook and Adrienne Barbeau, who have been tracing the same set since John Carpenter's The Fog. Tom Atkins (Bill's father in the prologue) in that year plays a substantial role in Tommy Lee Wallace's film: Halloween 3... Gaylen Ross (Becky in the episode Something to tide you over) is known to horror buffs for her performance in Zombi, another horror milestone, also directed by George A. Romero.
When the script was being written, the short story The Cat from Hell, also by King, was planned in place of the 5th episode. Due to budget problems the story was recovered in John Harrison's The Black Cat Crimes-Tales from the Darkside (1990)...
Similar fate for the hitchhiker episode, which later ended up in the Creepshow 2...
A masterpiece of episodic horror cinema, essential for any lover of the genre and reflecting a way of making (and understanding) (American) horror films now diluted and dissipated by a "respectable" and cable-oriented current...
Review by Undying1
