Dorkgasm Gonzo Is God

Creepshow: A Tongue-In-Cheek Look at a Tongue-In-Cheek Movie by Kenneth Holm Dorkgasm Senior Staff Writer             Back in the early 80's, a studio executive had an interesting proposal hit his or her desk. Imagine a movie written by Stephen King, directed by George A. Romero, with effects by Tom Savini. Fortunately, this executive was not a douche bag. He realized genius when he saw it, and green lit what would go on to become my favorite movie ever.             For those of you who have not had the distinct pleasure of seeing Creepshow, let me try to summarize it for you. The old EC Comics, like Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Terror, are made into a movie just as campy and horrid as the comics were before the creation of The Comics Code Authority. I know, it sounds awesome, right? Creepshow was released on November 12th, 1982, and did moderately well in the theaters, becoming a sleeper hit with over $100 million in box office receipts. Not too shabby for a movie that was deemed excessively cheesy by a number of critics. The movie is separated into five vignettes, each of which is a separate story. There is a wrap-around story which bookends the first and last stories that take place "in the real world". I guess I cannot really go any further without some plot exposition.             The film starts out with the story of Billy Hopkins, a boy who loves his Creepshow comics. Well, his dad doesn't. Dad is actually somewhat furious and moves to throw the comic away. There's a little domestic violence going on, which we all know only adds to the inevitable payoff. After Dad throws out the offensive piece of crap, the movie cuts back to young Billy, as he smiles at a floating ghoul outside his window. And cue credits! The meat of the story is about to begin, and it starts out with… Father's Day:             This is the first story out of five and what a way to start it out. The plot here is simply revenge motivated. We begin by meeting the Grantham family, which consists of Richard (Warner Shook), Cass (Elizabeth Regan), and Aunt Sylvia (Carrie Nye). Sheer upper class snobs, the lot of them. Money has been doled out to them, and there seems to be nothing that can upset them. Of course, we know better. New this year to their annual Father's Day dinner is Hank, Cass's new husband. A younger Ed Harris plays hank. Yes, that Ed Harris. Note to everyone, you can see him disco dancing while sporting a full head of hair. Everyone has shown up to celebrate the passing of "beloved" Nathan Grantham. All they're waiting on is Great-Aunt Bedelia (Viveca Lindfors). You see, Bedelia and Nathan had somewhat of a disagreement which involved Nathan's head meeting with a marble ashtray, and ever since then, everyone meets at the Grantham homestead for a wonderful ham dinner. Unfortunately, this time, things don't go as planned. After spewing a drunken tirade at her father's grave, Bedelia meets up with Zombie Nate, who promptly does away with her in the way flyblown reanimated meat usually does. Of course, his desire for revenge is not sated with this kill, and he trots off to dispose of the rest of the family. People meet with ugly deaths here, and while Romero never spells it out, one can assume there are absolutely no survivors.             I like the fact that this truly continues the style of "You kill someone, you shall snuff it" of the old "Tales from the Crypt" comics. One wonders what William Gaines thought of this movie. After Nate finally gets his Father's Day cake, the story moves right along into the next chapter, which is. The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill:             Now, this is a classic story. Hick-ass farmer sees meteor. Thinks he can sell meteor. Then, he goes and violates the 15th Commandment: "Thou Shalt Not Fuck With That Which Comes From Space". One Stephen King, who wrote the movie, plays Jordy with incredible gusto. He's everything a movie hick should be: dumb, kind of ugly, and looking to get ahead the quickest manner possible. When said meteor crashes in his field, his first thought is "Maybe I should touch it". Dumb move, sir. He receives a spiffy set of blisters from touching the meteor. His second thought is, "How much can I get for it?” In a series of amusing daydreams, he bargains with the head of the Department Of Meteors. Fully digging on paying off his bank loan, he fetches some water to "cool the sumbitch off.” Of course, we all know what will go wrong. When the cool, country water hits it, the meteor splits in two, releasing some sort of noxious neon-blue liquid, which our doltish hero dumps into the fertile soil. Fearing he will now not get any money, he promises himself he will glue it back together in the morning. While enjoying some quality drink, he notices his fingers, and his tongue where the fingers touched it, have begun to sprout a space fungus which looks curiously like earth moss. As the night progresses, more and more fungus begins to take over, until the next morning when he is Mossman! Realizing his luck sucks, he then gives himself the old two-barreled salute to a life well lived. The morale of this story seems to be "Don't mess with stuff from space.” See Commandment #15 for further details. After a scene showing us that nearby Castle Rock (!) is going to be next on the space fungus's agenda, it's time to move on. Something to Tide You Over:             Now this is a great story. You have Ted Danson, playing the character of "Harry Wentworth", a man who is in love with another man's wife. It is reciprocal, of course, and all ends happily. Yeah, maybe in another movie. This is Creepshow, man! It's only a matter of time before the husband comes-a-calling! Enter "Richard", played with evil gusto by Leslie Nielsen. It seems Harry is clearly in violation of Commandment #27: "Thou Shalt Not Mess With A Psycho's Wife". Richard promises Harry that if he doesn't accompany him right away, something very bad will happen to wife Rebecca (played by Gaylen Ross, from Dawn Of The Dead). Like the love-struck fool we know Harry to be, he climbs into Richard's Jeep. A long drive, and several bad puns, later, they arrive at Richard's beachfront estate. Upon reaching the sand, Harry sees a sand mound, which could only be Rebecca's burial mound. Or not. See, Richard requires Harry to first allow himself to be buried up to his neck in the sand before he will reveal what he has done to Rebecca. Turns out, Richard told Rebecca the same damn thing. Boy, Richard sure played the two of them like violins! Ever the sadist, Richard is recording the potential expirations of our lovers for prosperity. By burying them in strategic locations, Richard in ensuring that when the tide comes in, Harry and Rebecca will die agonizing deaths. Leaving Mother Nature to her own devices, he heads back to the house for a quick shower and a nap. Next morning, he goes back to the beach to survey the carnage. Both Harry and Rebecca have been swept out to sea by now. As he's about to head back, he swears he hears his name on the wind. No, couldn't be. He hurries back to the house where it's time for another shower! Only this time, vengeance is only a waterlogged step away. While in the shower, strange things begin to happen. Richard jumps out and grabs the requisite gun that all villains seem to have nearby when it will do them the least good. We know what's happening, and no gun is going to help. Fearing Wentworth has come back to seek vengeance, he begins shouting, which only draws our pursuers closer. Richard gets scared, opens the door, and boom goes the dynamite! Harry and Rebecca are back, for a little undead retribution! After a drawn out, pointless struggle, Richard is dragged back to the same beach and forced to endure his own torture, all the while claiming he can hold his breath for a long, long time. And... cut. The Crate:             This story starts out nice enough. Mike, a janitor at a college is flipping coins. He misses, and it rolls under the stairs. While trying to retrieve his last coin for the Coke machine, he discovers a chained crate from an Artic expedition dated 1832. Of course, best bet is to check it out. Enter our heroes! Professor Henry Northrup (Hal Holbrook) is enjoying a faculty party with his best friend, Professor Dexter Stanley (Fritz Weaver). Unfortunately, Henry's offensive, loud-mouthed wife Wilma (Adrienne Barbeau) is also in tow. Aside from regaling the party with dirty tales and demanding other guests call her "Billie", she seems intent on making Henry's life hell. Henry responds by retreating into a Walter Mitty-like daydream world in which he kills Billie in many fun ways. While talking to Henry about an upcoming chess game, Dexter is called away with a phone call from Mike. After hearing the story of The Disappearing Quarter, Dexter runs off leaving Henry to Billie. Once at the university, Mike and Dexter muscle the crate into the lab room. Now, at this point, everyone and their mother are shouting that if it is chained and crated, leave it alone! Fortunately for gore-hounds, the characters can't hear it. Mike and Dexter begin to open the crate, pounding, breaking, and making a general ruckus. Once slightly open, Mike swears he sees some emeralds and reaches into the crate. At this point, we say good-bye to Mike's left arm. Something in the crate begins to gnaw playfully on Mike. Dexter tries to free the stupid janitor, but to no avail. In the struggle, the crate tips onto its side, and we get the first glimpse of the beast. Imagine a gorilla crossed with a piranha, and you might get close. Dexter sees way too much, and runs gibbering upstairs. He crosses the path of Charlie Gereson (Robert Harper), grad-student to the extreme. Charlie listens calmly to Dexter's ranting and decides to look for himself. Unfortunately, the beast is loose and pushed the crate back under the stairs. Charlie gets a load of all the blood in the lab and begins to worry about good old Dex. Fortunately, Dexter convinces Charlie with a glimpse of the carnage under the stairs. Charlie decides he wants to measure the bite marks on Mike's shoe. Well, let's just say he gets a good look at some teeth, all right. Frantic, Dexter goes to the only place he can: Henry's house! Fortunately, Billie has left for class in anticipation of Dexter coming to play chess. Henry listens calmly (yeah, lot of calm listening, given the circumstances) and tries to figure out what to do. Finally getting an idea, Henry drugs Dexter and heads back to the university, but not before hatching a plan to solve his major problem of a bitchy wife. Billie, arriving home to an almost empty house, finds a note from Henry that details a concocted ploy about Dexter and a possible rape. Billie, flowing with happy venom, drives to the school in hopes of taking part in the mess. Oh, don't worry. She does. After Billie is dealt with in spectacular fashion, Henry cleans up and dumps the crate into a quarry, where our creature supposedly drowns. Of course, sticky situations never work out that simply. Which bring us to our final story. They're Creeping Up On You:             This story details one night in the history of Upson Pratt (E.G. Marshall), a rich bastard who heads up one of those despicable corporations who thrive on bad times. A germaphobe by nature, Pratt lives in a germ-proof penthouse apartment in his building. Unfortunately, he has a little bit of a bug problem. One of his executives calls with news that a senior member of a firm that Pratt is taking over has killed himself. Pratt joyously revels in the news, and begins to caper about gleefully. He then gets a call from the widow, for whom he has absolutely no sympathy. After suffering the requisite death wishes, he gets his building manager on the phone. Turns out, the bugs are worse than he thought. Of course, good help is hard to find, and the manager is on vacation in Orlando. He gets his temporary fill-in, Mr. White (David Early), to help old Mr. Pratt. After ripping into White for a good couple of minutes, Pratt goes back to trying to kill the bugs.             Around this time, the shit gets real. A blackout occurs, plunging his apartment into semi-darkness. This is the time when the bugs come out in full force, because cockroaches like the dark. Pratt is overrun with roaches of all shapes and sizes, and he retreats to his hermetically sealed bedding area. While taunting the bugs through thick glass doors, his phone rings. Guess who? It's the charming widow, with even more death wishes. It's about this time that Pratt notices his mattress vibrating. He throws back the covers to find a mass of roaches. They begin to climb him, causing Pratt to exhibit heart attack-like symptoms. He falls, and it's a wipe to about twenty minutes later. The lights come back on, and we see no bugs at all. Pratt, however, is quite obviously dead. After Mr. White begins calling pointlessly to Pratt, something icky begins to happen. Pratt begins to vibrate and blood squirts out from his head. Suddenly, roaches begin pouring out of the corpse, filling the sealed bedroom. Truly, a gruesome end to a gruesome person.             Oh, we're not done yet. Remember little Billy? Well, in a nice little wrap around, we see the garbage men come around to grab his beloved comic book. The sanitation blokes look through the book, only to see a missing offer for an authentic voodoo doll. Bummer.             Meanwhile, at Chez Hopkins’ house, Mom and Dad are sitting down for a nice breakfast. Dad is complaining of a bit of a stiff neck, though. Seems little Billy is a bit of a bastard, too. He's up in his room, stabbing the voodoo doll like it was going out of style. Does he kill his father? No one knows, but a nice cartoon prologue shows us that he is, indeed, the Creepshow comic's next cover boy. And roll credits.             Overall, I can't heap enough praise on this movie. Sure, some of the performances are a bit stilted. Some of the effects are dated. I love the old "Tales" comics, though, and this movie is a better homage to them than the actual series. The use of animation, comic book style lighting and panel transitions, and an overall narrative structure similar to those comics elevates this above standard horror movies. This movie is scary, funny, and dramatic all at once. George Romero directs this in a style that is perfectly suited to the source material, shooting angles that would have probably been illustrated in the comic quite nicely. Tom Savini hits another effects home run with his work here, especially with the crate creature, affectionately referred to as "Fluffy". Stephen King wrote a wonderful screenplay in which baddies get their comeuppance, and the stupid pay for it. Overall, I must insist that you watch this movie. You may hate it, you may love it. You will remember it, though. I know I did.