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Monday, December 11, 2017

Creepshow 2 (1987)

... aka: Creepshow II

Directed by:
Michael Gornick

The EC Comics-inspired anthology Creepshow (1982) was a modest hit in theaters and did good business on home video and TV, so it was inevitable much of the same team would return for a sequel. This was once again produced by Richard P. Rubinstein and Laurel Entertainment. Tom Savini again helped work on the effects and appears in a cameo, though primary makeup fx duties were assigned to Howard Berger, Greg Nicotero and Ed French (Savini was merely a consultant). Original Creepshow director George A. Romero is back, but this time only as a writer and, again, adapting Stephen King short stories, two of which had not yet been published. Unlike the original, which contained five tales plus linking segments and ran two hours, this one only contains three stories and links and runs an hour-and-a-half, though five tales were originally planned. One of the discarded stories (“The Cat from Hell”) was later used for TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE (1990) instead. Tapped to direct this time was longtime Romero collaborator Gornick, who had shot earlier GAR hits like DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) and the original Creepshow. This would be Gornick's feature directorial debut, though he'd directed four episodes of Laurel's Tales from the Darkside TV series earlier.


First up is “Old Chief Wood'nhead.” After thirty years running a general store in Dead River near an Indian reservation, elderly Ray Spruce's (George Kennedy) wife Martha (Dorothy Lamour) thinks it's time to finally close up shop. For starters, paying customers are few and far between in the dying desert town. But mostly, the poor locals are purchasing things on credit and have yet to pay them back. Indian chief Ben Whitemoon (Frank Salsedo) shows up with a collection of valuables from his people for them to hold as collateral, but that glimmer of hope is extinguished when Ben's arrogant grandson Sam (Holt McCallany) and a couple of his buddies (Don Harvey, David Holbrook) break in to rob them so they can run off to Hollywood. Both Ray and Martha are needlessly killed in the process. What the robbers don't count on is the wooden storefront Indian chief miraculously springing to life and enacting revenge with arrows, a tomahawk and scalping.






Tale #2 is “The Raft.” Four pot-smoking college kids (Daniel Beer, Jeremy Green, Paul Satterfield and Page Hannah, sister of Daryl) take a trip out to a scenic country lake, which has a grounded raft in the middle. They decide to brave the cold and swim out there to, uh, smoke more weed, I guess, and then find themselves trapped by a flat black creature they describe as looking like a giant oil slick but I describe as looking like a giant garbage bag. Properties of the creature are comparable to The Blob in that it can ooze between cracks and such and then quickly dissolve victims with an acidic substance. One-by-one the “teens” manage to get themselves killed. What this leaves out of the story that would have helped some in the plausibility department (especially with the first kill) is that the creature possesses a mesmeric quality using kaleidoscopic light that it uses to entrance victims.






Finally, we get “The Hitch-Hiker.” Wealthy, adulterous housewife Annie Lansing (Lois Chiles) oversleeps at her lover's place and must rush home late one night so her controlling lawyer husband doesn't get suspicious. On the way there, she loses control of her car after dropping a lit cigarette and accidentally runs over a man (Tom Wright) on the side of the road wearing a raincoat. Instead of helping or going to the cops, she decides to speed on home and pretend like nothing happened. But, much to her horror, the hideously bloodied victim doesn't leave her with that option when he returns from the grave to settle the score.






None of these three tales are really standouts. The first is entirely predictable and basically just zips through three kills (two of which are off-screen) in a non-suspenseful fashion after the initial premise is set up. The second is burdened by a silly / cheap-looking monster, bad acting and unlikable characters. The third gets repetitious and monotonous before it ends. But each story does at least have some merit, especially the Indian design in the first, some good gory / gooey kills in the second and plenty of blood (the undead hitcher gets shot repeatedly, run over and backed over countless times and even has his head smashed against a tree) and Chiles' performance in the third.






Romero's script somehow manages to represent both the best and worst of his screen-writing abilities. The goons in the first story – just like the military men in his DAY OF THE DEAD – are insufferably obnoxious and irritatingly over-the-top. There are better ways to make us hate people than have them maniacally cackle, scream all of their dialogue and overact. On the flip side, this has some instances of unexpectedly witty banter, like the conversation between Annie and her paid gigolo lover (David Beecroft) that opens the third segment. The last story also features King in a cameo as a dimwitted truck driver.






As far as the direction is concerned, Gornick is certainly no match for Romero. The original had a real comic book flair to it thanks to colorful presentation, vibrant lighting and clever use of comic book frames throughout. In between the stories here we mostly get some cheap animation featuring a Crypt Keeper-like “Creep” (voiced by Joe Silver) making macabre comments and a little boy named Billy who religiously reads Creepshow and lures some bullies into a trap where they get eaten by giant, carnivorous plants. Though these bits are OK they're simply not as stylish or memorable as the visual presentation used by Romero in the original. However, to be fair, the original also had twice the budget this film had.



While this didn't completely bomb in theaters (making 14 million on a 3.5 million budget), it didn't come close to matching the success of the first and thus did not prompt other Creepshow theatrical features. In 2006, Ana Clavell and James Glenn Dudelson made the much cheaper and much hated Creepshow 3 after making another unofficial, even more hated Romero “sequel:” Day of the Dead 2: Contagium (2005). You're better off pretending those two don't even exist. There's been talk of a “reboot” for years now but nothing has happened.


A soundtrack album of Les Reed and Rick Wakeman's score is available through Waxwork Records. Also available on the Divimax Special Edition DVD is the 32-minute documentary Nightmares in Foam Rubber, which features lots of behind-the-scenes footage plus interviews with Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger about their fx work on the film. They also discuss Ed French either quitting or being fired (they're a bit vague about it) and how Nicotero should have received his fx credit as he did more of the actual work. It's also revealed that Patricia Tallman (soon to star in Savini's remake of Night of the Living Dead) played Hannah's role during her entire death scene as the lake water was so frigid they needed a stunt woman.

★★

15 comments:

Joseph Fragosa said...

Loved this movie as a kid in the 80s. Now I have to see it again!

The Bloody Pit of Horror said...

Same here about loving this (and the original) as a kid. I used to watch them all the time.

Unknown said...

One of the most memorable movies of my childhood. Thanks for these reviews. Sadly, Creepshow 3 was pretty bad in comparison.

spookyx3 said...

was so disappointed by this one. if, per savini, TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE is the real CREEPSHOW 3, what's the real CREEPSHOW 2?!

spookyx3 said...

though CHIEF WOOD'NHEAD is kinda low-energy for the lead-off, it at least has more story craft than the others. THE RAFT could've easily been reframed as carefree teens indifferent to environmental issues made to care about the effects of industrial pollution... instead, they swim out, they're attacked, the end -- simple straight-line nightmare scenario, same as the closer. unlike the raft kids, chiles' hit-and-runner deserves her fate, but we're soon so sick of thanksfortheridelady that we might want to see her succeed in shutting the guy up for good.

The Bloody Pit of Horror said...

I think The Raft story was trying to moralize about smoking weed. Otherwise they wouldn't have made that it a big part of the story. Goes along with typical 80s conservative slasher flick thinking where sex / drugs / booze = death. And then you have the main guy trying to sexually assault the one girl while she was sleeping. Didn't find much to root for (or care about) with any of those characters. As you said, the first story is better crafted in that regard. At least George Kennedy and Dorothy Lamour's characters were sympathetic and there was an attempt to give the main bad guy motivation.

spookyx3 said...

> conservative slasher flick thinking ... sex / drugs / booze = death

ugh. totally missed it here. never crossed my mind that the hitcher is chiles' punishment for her infidelity.

[only one of gornick's four DARKSIDEs comes close to great: THE CIRCUS, a romero-penned FU to the anti-horror brigade.]

The Bloody Pit of Horror said...

I should have a Tales from the Darkside marathon someday. I watched that religiously as a kid but remember next to nothing about it now.

spookyx3 said...

my top picks (broadcast order):

THE ODDS (maybe my favorite ep of the entire run.)
INSIDE THE CLOSET
PARLOUR FLOOR FRONT
THE LAST CAR (really brings the horror, but don't expect a conclusion.)
THE CIRCUS
MISS MAY DUSA
THE ENORMOUS RADIO
SORRY, RIGHT NUMBER
THE CUTTY BLACK SOW (photography, [art] direction, acting.)
GOING NATIVE

also worth seeing: THE MADNESS ROOM, LEVITATION, IT ALL COMES OUT IN THE WASH, BIGALOW'S LAST SMOKE, HALLOWEEN CANDY, THE GEEZENSTACKS, BAKER'S DOZEN (i liked it!), MARY MARY, FAMILY REUNION... actually, around two thirds of the entire series is pretty good to great, if a lot of it is predictable. and some of the average/bad eps will have interesting ideas, good performances or fun moments.

think i'll start now on MONSTERS. _that_ show i don't remember, other than the title sequence.

The Bloody Pit of Horror said...

Thanks. I now have a good place to start. As a kid I used to cover my ears so I wouldn't have to hear the opening title sequence. lol. Monsters also had a great title sequence.

spookyx3 said...

the original DARKSIDE intro/outro music is retained on the DVD sets, but most other (library?) music tracks have been replaced. luckily it's not a modern job -- probably done close to the original airings -- and everything is period appropriate (apart from one instance of a radio song in PRINTER'S DEVIL from season 2).

my main memory of the show, other than how distinctively cheap it looked, was of a specific episode, THE TEAR COLLECTOR, with jessica harper. seeing it again, i know why it stuck with me and what i responded to then, but i can't call it a very good ep.

The Bloody Pit of Horror said...

You're right. It DID look very cheap but for some reason I always preferred it to the more polished Tales from the Crypt. The one episode I distinctly remember from childhood is "Love Hungry" with the talking food!

spookyx3 said...

that lack of polish was a far better fit. definitely an asset. the look reminded me a little of laurel's gloomy DAY OF THE DEAD, which started filming the day after THE ODDS (ep #4) aired. i liked the limitations. 20 minutes, usually two or three main actors, very often in a single location. joe dante said something to the effect of in terms of budgets the '80s TWILIGHT ZONE revival was bottom of the barrel. he also worked on AMAZING STORIES at the time.

LOVE HUNGRY was a good one. i think the guy who submitted the story idea (his first credit) got to keep those cool food puppets they used.

the ones i remembered most all came from the first year, partly because they drew from season one for the video tape compilations.

zmbdog said...

I like the stories tbh. I think part of the reason for their rather lackluster rep is there only being 3 of them. It kinda makes them feel less substantial. As much as I like the first there is no combination of 3 stories from it that wouldn't leave about as underwhelmed. Well, you'd also to replace its wraparound segment with one as bad as what we get here. Unfortunately, that is what I most associate with part 2. That animated crap that even as a ten year old I thought looked like shit.

I never saw The Raft, or really any 80s horror film, as a morality tale. Not intentionally anyway. They could function as one, something that should've been mentioned more often back when horror was coming under fire, but I don't think it was ever on purpose. In fact, the 1980s horror filmmakers strike me as guys who were probably more interested in partaking in the activities themselves than messaging about them.

I think it's just a matter of horror catering to its largest demographic...teens, with primarily teen casts, most of whom have to die. Sex and drugs were likely a common theme either due to writers wanting the teens to be as accurate and believable as possible (remembering how my brother and his friends were, I'd say they were mostly successful at that.) or were simply included as standard, time-tested exploitation elements. Personally I think anything deeper was a happy accident. Although if I had to defend horror on Geraldo or something, I wouldn't see anything wrong with playing up the "morality tale" angle (eye of the beholder, right?) while leaving out my doubts of their authenticity in that regard.

The Bloody Pit of Horror said...

From what I recall, the original was also half an hour longer so it was not only more varied in content but also felt more substantive despite two additional stories. Add in Romero's superior visual presentation of the material, and I found this one seriously lacking in comparison. Neither movie has a GREAT script, but I think the original does a much better job camouflaging its flaws.

The EC Comics these films tried to pattern themselves after were all morality tales so I do think that was a conscious decision in THESE particular films. As far as most of the 80s slasher films are concerned, whether intentionally, accidentally or subconsciously, many do come off as vaguely moralistic / conservative (standard cliché being the virginal heroine while the sexually active ones / substance abusers are the victims). However, I've also seen it noted that these movies were set up this way simply because using sex and drugs was an easy way to ensure victims were distracted so that they COULD be killed.

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