Creepshow 1982

I popped in some "comfort food" last night, a film I've watched maybe 100 times. Creepshow doesn't hold up too well by 2017 standards but its still an easy watch. I got the impression George Romero just scraped this together to pay some bills and try out ideas for Day of the Dead. He and Stephen King deserve credit for being the first filmmakers to translate the campy EC comics style to screen, inspiring TV shows like Monsters & Tales from the Crypt (and Tales from the Darkside: The Movie started as Creepshow 3). But Romero & King are merely serviceable and half-inspired here. The best features are John Harrison's beautifully creepy score, Tom Savini's FX and great Tobe Hooper/Dario Argento-esque cinematography from Michael Gornick. Creepshow would inspire so much of the look & tone of 2nd wave slashers like the NOES sequels and Return of the Living Dead. I have to say Creepshow retains more style & wit than most of the 80s horror in its wake. I think its importance is overshadowed by the much better films these guys made, but this was the "Grindhouse" of its day: a dream collaboration for genre fans that educated a new generation on pulpy horror.

One of the big knocks Creepshow has had is the standard knock on anthology films - Some stories are better than others, so viewers might not sit through those again to see the better sequences. I find this logic so dumb. Every film ever made has reels that are better than others. At least anthology films end the weak stories quickly and these films were a godsend to indie filmmakers like Romero who probably only had enough money to shoot so often. He could switch cast and locations at leisure and when he could borrow top talent. And the film has a spectacular cast. Adrienne Barbeau, Carrie Nye & Leslie Nielsen are excellent.

So the fashions and ideas are dated, the FX are far from cutting edge and the scares probably won't work on children today, but in context, this was a game-changer and very radical in some ways. Compare it to earlier horror films and you will appreciate it. And, without seeing 2017's version of IT, I already know that it is a pastiche of classic Stephen King films. They borrow the aesthetics of The Shining, Carrie, Creepshow, Stand By Me and slap them into a nostalgia ride for 80s horror fans and look like geniuses to the uninformed. Can't knock it because thats pretty much what Creepshow is. But its disparate inspirations are much cooler. M.R. James meets Lovecraft meets Vault of Horror meets Hammer, etc. I think it would be a much better film if King actually deconstructed these tropes more instead of just updating and crossbreeding them and Romero's directing is always a bit too uniform and commercial for my tastes, but he is a great example of a director who knew when to get out the way of his D.P., FX department and editor. So its a great education in low budget filmmaking, pop genre history & a cute nostalgic time-waster. A typical horror movie.