Creepshow

     It's absolutely true. CREEPSHOW is the most fun you'll ever have being scared, and I love, love, LOVE this movie. Inspired by the wonderful E.C. comics of the 1950's, it's a loving tribute to the horror genre, and deliciously brought to life by the combined talents of Stephen King, George A. Romero, and Tom Savini. CREEPSHOW is a horror fans dream, and dammit why aren't these types of films made anymore?  (I'll get toTRICK 'R TREAT later...)  Perfection this movie is, in every way possible.  Any movie that combines corpses and cockroaches and features the likes of Adrienne Fucking Barbeau, Leslie Nielson, Tom Atkins, and Ted Danson is alright by me.

     CREEPSHOW begins with some young kid being punished for reading an old horror comic by his douchebag father, played by the awesome Tom Atkins. Dad throws the comic out the window, which magically comes to life.

     The fun starts with "Father's Day". This is your typical, 50's-style, back-for-revenge tale complete with a rising corpse crawling out of his grave to terrorize Aunt Bedelia and family on Father's Day.  Look for a very young Ed Harris disco dancing. It's irresistibly creepy and entertaining.

     "The Lonesome Death Of Jordy Verrill" is the second story, and it's a valentine to those nifty sci-fi/horror films of the 50's.  Stephen King himself plays a dumb-witted farmer who discovers an asteroid in his back yard and stupidly picks it up.  Soon, he finds his farm and himself overgrown with weeds, being slowly consumed by the alien foliage. Probably my least favorite segment, but it's still a lot of fun.

      "Something To Tide You Over" is definitely one of the scariest of them all, as it offers a cold-blooded Leslie Nielsen who catches his ex-wife and Ted Danson in an affair. Before they know it, the lovebirds find themselves up to their necks in the sand... with the tides about to come in... Of course, being a horror comic, Danson and partner return from the dead for a little old-fashioned revenge on poor  Leslie.

      "The Crate" is the most awesome story of the bunch, as the divine Adrienne Barbeau plays wonderfully loud-mouthed and sassy Wilma, the wife of hen-pecked Hal Halbrook. Seems ole' Hal has discovered a huge crate hidden under the stairs at the university where he works that's obviously been there for many years, with something alive inside it. Adrienne Barbeau is a tour-de-force in this segment- she delivers one of the best performances of her career, if you ask me. She's a total delight here, delivering a perfectly sarcastic and bitchy performance. She rocks and rocks it hard.

     Finishing off the mayhem is "They're Creeping Up On You", a squirm-inducing tale about cruel Upson Pratt (E.G. Marshall) who suffers from a severe phobia of germs and bugs. He lives inside a futuristic, bug-proof penthouse apartment, in a paranoid and angry state of mind. But, during a blackout, he discovers he's not alone in his fortress as he's overrun by literally thousands upon thousands of cockroaches.  This one is definitely not for the squeamish.

     Chock full of gruesome black humor, some genuine scares, and rad actors, CREEPSHOW is a true 80's gem that only looks better as the years go by. It's certainly one of the better horror anthologies, if not THE best. This is classic stuff, kids. CREEPSHOW perfectly straddles the line between horror and humor, and was obviously a labor of love for King, Savini, and Romero. This was when scary movies were made by people who genuinely loved horror movies, and loved making them.  Like kids in candy stores, and it usually showed in the final product. You can easily sense the love of the genre that went into the making of this movie. CREEPSHOW was a huge part of my childhood, and it's still a hell of a lot of fun to watch.  This is essential Halloween viewing, for sure.