It's sad but true... I've never seen Creepshow until today. It's one of those movies that I've just never happened to sit down and watch, and despite the caliber of talent involved it's never been a priority for me. (In my defense, I thought it was a more traditional anthology and George Romero just directed one segment, not the whole shebang.) I was never exposed to the old horror comics of the 50s that Creepshow is a tribute to, so it just never seemed like anything I needed to see. But the algorithms at Netflix suggested it, and I have heard/read so much about it over the years, that I figured I had to check it out.
And I'm glad I did. It's a pretty breezy two hours with 5 stories and a wrap-around featuring Tom Atkins (I love that guy). Nothing in it is going to blow your mind - the effects are okay (gross, but in a fun way) and the stories are relatively simple, although I'd guess that's by design. I'd have to imagine the old comics that Creepshow is a love letter to didn't exactly have labyrinthine plots either.
I don't want to go into each tale one by one. But the general gist of things is: someone is an asshole, you see them be an asshole, and then they get their comeuppance - oftentimes from the person they were an asshole to. The exception is "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" starring Stephen King (who also wrote the film) - it sticks out in that it attempts to be the most comedic section of the movie, and it just doesn't work. (He's a good author, not so great of an actor.)
But this is a general formula though - throughout the five stories they touch on different subgenres - zombies, murderer (Leslie Nielsen!), monsters, creepy crawlies. So even though the overarching concepts are kind of the same, there is enough variety to please any horror fan.
Romero manages to keep a visual consistency throughout the segments. There are cool little comic book-esque flourishes all over the place; each story fades in and out of a drawing, and occasionally the action is broken up onscreen into little frames or panels. Also, when some crazy violence is about to happen, the lighting goes all red and you get sort of a skewed angle to the shot. So while each of the stories look different (there is a very different feel to each set), they all sort of come together when the horrific events happen in them.
Although in hindsight, every story except for one ("... Jordy Varrill") has at it's heart some sort of revenge being taken on a very wealthy person.... hmmmmm. And even Jordy is ultimately done in by his desire for money.
The horror elements deliver though. It's mostly all done with a sort of campy feel, but the design/effects (by Tom Savini) are well done and are in line with what Creepshow is trying to do. It's more the type of film that wants you to be scared but still be able to laugh it off, you know? You don't get anything as nasty as Savini's work in The Prowler from a year earlier. There are a bunch of real cockroaches in the last segment, and I'm sure many of them are for real killed. Even though "they're just bugs" I'm not a fan of killing any animal on film...
Anyways, Creepshow is still pretty fun, and it's relatively even in terms of quality (ie there aren't any total stinkers). I would say of the five stories, one is really, really good ("The Crate"), two are good, and two are just okay. But it feels like the less good ones are the shortest, so that helps.
I would recommend this film.
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