CreepTales (1989)

Directed by: 

Tim Boxell 

Stephen Hegyes

Ken Mandel

Greg Middleton

Roger Nygard

James Salisbury

Rod Slane 

Here's a horror anthology you may have missed. The title, of course, is clearly meant to allude to another anthology hit directed by some guy you may have heard of named George A. Romero. While all five tales contained within Mr. Romero's CREEPSHOW (1982) were lensed specifically for that film, here the director (Mandel) has gathered together six short films from other filmmakers and shot a silly framing device to tie them all together. In the linking scenes, a couple of retarded-acting hunchbacks (played by writer / producers Michael Minton and Jess Sherman) stop by a video store on Halloween night to pick up a copy of a horror movie called "CreepTales," but the owner has just closed shop. They go to a graveyard, dig up the corpse of their undead Uncle Munger (Tim Choate) and steal his copy of "CreepTales" (which he was buried with) instead. They then go to a party full of mutants and monsters, scarf down popcorn and chips, scare off some pizza delivery guys and watch the movie, while Uncle Munger rises from the grave and heads toward the party.

"Warped" (by Nygard) is one of the longest segments and begins with a flash-forward of a woman driving after another woman and chasing her with a pitchfork. Pretty blonde Elizabeth (Jennifer Barlow) has just spent a few months at an insane asylum after suffering from an emotional breakdown. To recover, she goes to stay at a farmhouse with her homely spinster cousin Viola (Frances Marshall-Labyorteaux) and senile, elderly old Aunt Grace (Kay Bonner Nee). Elizabeth finds Viola's diary, which details her getting pregnant as a teenager and her father forcing her to wear a corset, which resulted in her baby being stillborn. Elizabeth goes to explore the locked attic, gets into a fight with Viola, is knocked out with a vase and is tied up in bed. A sheriff who weighs at least 500 pounds eventually stops by. Viola stabs him but it takes a half dozen shots to put him out. There are flashbacks and family secrets involving rape, incest and suicide come forth. This short was also released as part of the 1990 anthology TALES OF THE UNKNOWN.

"Snatcher" (by Boxell) is about a purse snatcher (Tom Kenny, who'd go on to become a stand up comedian and is best known as the voice of Spongebob Squarepants) who picks the wrong purse to steal (it's some kind of monster). It runs about ten minutes, half of which is a purse stealing montage set to some punk song called The House of Skulls. With J. Renee Gilbert (THE DEVIL'S GIFT). "The Closet" (by Hegyel and Middleton) runs just a couple of minutes and is pretty useless. It's the old kid thinks there's a monster in his closet chestnut, which has been filmed numerous other times and all probably better than this one. Salisbury's "Groovy Ghoulie Garage" is up next and it's a pretty fun story. On Halloween night, friends Marvin (Peter Ortell) and Ed (Christopher Prestia) decide to go pick up his sister after she's kicked out of school. They stop by a diner where everyone warns them to stay away from a small town called Tower Springs. Unfortunately, their car breaks down and they're picked up by a truck driver dressed like a clown who ends up taking them to, you guessed it, Tower Springs. While ghoulish garage mechanic Rob Ghoulie (Todd Toon, an award-winning sound editor) works on their car, the guys borrow Fred Flintstone and Popeye the Sailor Man masks and go to a neighborhood party. There, a 60s style garage rock band plays and people seem a little on the dated side. The twist was swiped from TWO-THOUSAND MANIACS! (1964).

 

The basically worthless "Howling Nightmare" (from "Steve Hegyi," who I'm assuming is the same guy who did "The Closet" segment) is up next. This one involves a posse of hunters headed out into the woods at night to hunt down a man in a rubber werewolf mask. There's a ripped out throat, a cheesy wolf costume and the acting is terrible. Thankfully, things end on a high note with Slane's amusing, imaginative "Sucker" (easily the best of the stories). Frumpy housewife Dora Duffy (Melanie Fry) lives in a pig sty of a home with who she claims to be a terrible and abusive husband named Roy (Greg Roach). At midnight, there's a knock on her door. Thinking it's her husband, she goes downstairs to find bespectacled, fast-talking vacuum salesman Feldon Broom (Bill Orton) at her doorstep. He offers to leave her a powerful "Dirt Demon" mini-vac that she can use for 24 hours to clean up her life. The vacuum has the miraculous ability to clean everything. Just point and shoot and trash disappears, drapes are cleaned, blankets are folded, dishes are washed, etc. He tells her he'll be back the next evening to pick it up, but warns her to not use the vacuum for longer than 30 seconds at a time and to never, ever point it at another person. So what'll happen when Roy finally comes home? This segment has a great performance from Orton, as well as a good twist at the end.

 

Some of the directors went on to do other things. Boxell made the entertaining killer gecko flick Aberration (1997), Hegyes became a successful producer (White Noise and its sequel are among his credits), Mandel directed documentaries on blues music, polio and artist Frida Kahlo and Nygard made the successful Star Trek documentary Trekkies and is a prolific filmmaker and editor. Slane had previously done music for a few early shot-on-video hits; BLOOD CULT (1985) and FOREVER EVIL (1987) among them. Forrest J. Ackerman received a creative consultant credit here, as well.

 

CreepTales was not very well distributed on VHS, despite not being too bad overall. That was remedied by a 2004 DVD release through BCI/Eclipse. The film (which was in production from 1986-1989) is erroneously listed as a 2004 title on IMDb. 

★★

Jiang shi jia zu (1986)

... aka: 殭屍家族

... aka: 殭屍先生 2

... aka: 殭屍先生續集殭屍家族

... aka: Geung see ga zuk

... aka: Geung si sin saang juk jaap
... aka: Jiang shi xian sheng xu ji

... aka: Mr. Vampire II
... aka: Return of Mr. Vampire, The

Directed by:
Ricky Lau

An immediate, mostly unrelated and from all indications rushed follow-up to the 1985 horror-comedy hit MR. VAMPIRE, this one moves to a modern day setting and unwisely concentrates on crude adult-oriented comedy, cutesy / cloying kid humor and syrupy sentimentality than it does on the action and horror. Despite being made by the same people (including Sammo Hung on production duties), same production company and featuring much of the same cast, this fails to pull off the impressive balancing act the original film did. Professor Kwok (Fat Chung) and two of his bumbling students (Billy Lau and Lee Fung) stumble upon a bunch of centuries-old remains. They then discover a cave, some jewels and the surprisingly well-preserved corpses of a couple and their young son; all of whom have the yellow spell paper attached to their forehead... at least for the time being. They're taken back to the lab. The professor and one of his flunkies decide to head out to try to sell the little boy's corpse and, on their way to their destination, the paper blows off the kid's head and he manages to escape into the woods. Meanwhile back at the lab, the other guy removes the paper from the adult corpses and they're resurrected as vampires. One bites him before the professor returns to help contain them. They're re-papered, wrapped in aluminum foil and put in shipping crates.

The bitten guy's infected arm gets worse, so he goes to medicine shoppe owner Cheng-ying Lin (Ching-Ying Lam, still rocking an impressive unibrow) to help. Noticing his injuries are in line with a vampire attack, Cheng-ying decides to investigate with help from his soon-to-be son-in-law Jen (Biao Yuen), a reporter and annoying camera fetishist who can't stop taking pictures of everything. Jen stupidly decides to break into the lab, removes the corpses from their crates to take a picture with them and removes the yellow papers. The vampires return to life yet again. Mr. Lin and his daughter Gigi (Moon Lee) show up for a long slow-motion fight scene when a jar of "retarder" is busted and sedates everyone.

Meanwhile, the little boy vampire ends up hiding out near the home of Mr. Hu (Fung Woo), a widower with two cherubic (read: chubby) kids. His young daughter Chia-Chia discovers the vampire boy hiding out in their greenhouse and, after watching a TV news program about illegal immigrant children, decides to sneak him into her bedroom. He hides out in her closet and makes her toys float. Chia-Chia introduces the docile undead boy (who they nickname "OK Kid") to her brother and then to her other friends (who the subtitles tell us have names like "Glutinous Rice Chicken" and "Trussed Duck Feet" [??]). The next day, they slap a pair of sunglasses on the vampi-kid, wrap his head in a scarf and take him to a playground where he does funky things on the slide and teeter totter, protects them from bullies and sneaks over to a blood bank for a little afternoon snack. By the way, these scenes are clearly meant to parody E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982).

The film then devolves into a lame fight over the vampire couple; with Mr. Lin and Jen wanting to kill them before things get out of hand and Professor Kwok and his assistants wanting to capture and sell them. One thing leads to another and the vampire couple manage to burst out of a burning truck and wreak a little havoc on some motorists and police officers on their way down the road. Watching a live news broadcast of the vampire couples rampage, their boy begins to wail because he misses them. His vamparents hear his call and head toward Mr. Hu's house to get him back. Touching it is not.

All of this seems more geared toward children than adults, but the occasional off-color joke about necrophilia, virginity or AIDS (plus a scene where a snake gets in a guy's pants and looks like a hard-on) should really keep this out of the reach of the wee ones. There's still some decent fight choreography and good stunt work here (including a great scene of the vampires hopping from car roof to car roof and then over a wall), but the humor is extremely juvenile and misses the mark for the most part, the characters are more annoying than endearing and it's not near as smoothly directed or imaginative as Lau's first entry.

After being pleasantly surprised by the thoroughly enjoyable original, I was really stoked about watching the rest of this series. All Part 2 managed to do was send me crashing back down to Earth and to the reality that most sequels fail miserably at recapturing the magic of their predecessor... even when they're filmed immediately after by the exact same people.

★★

Geung si sin sang (1985)

... aka: 殭屍先生

... aka: 暫時停止呼吸

... aka: Jiang shi xian sheng
... aka: Mr. Stiff Corpse
... aka: Mr. Vampire
... aka: Taoist of Spiritual Illusions, The

... aka: Zhan shi ting zhi hu xi (Hold Your Breath for a Moment)

Directed by:
Ricky Lau

Almost completely eschewing European and American vampire mythology, this Hong Kong horror-comedy (which was a huge hit in Asia) is a fresh and entertaining take on the subgenre. Set primarily in and around a mortuary, wise Taoist priest Master Kau (Ching-Ying Lam, also the film's action director) and his associates keep busy trying to make sure the dead stay dead. His young apprentices; handsome but immature Chou (Siu-hou Chin) and the entirely goofy Man Choi (Ricky Hui), are still novices when it comes to battling the undead and are constantly getting themselves into sticky situations. They seem to be doing a good job keeping the peace in their village until wealthy Mr. Yam (Ha Huang) decides he wants to move the corpse of his father after a fortune teller predicts it will bring him prosperity to do so. The old corpse ends up coming to life, kills Mr. Yam (who will return to life himself) and then hides out in a cave getting stronger by feeding on rats. If that's not enough to deal with, Man ends up getting infected by vampire toxin and Chou ends up attracting the attention of a beautiful female ghost / succubus named Jade (Pauline Wong), who seduces him and threatens to suck out his life force.

Instead of attractive, seductive, cultured bloodsuckers, the ones here are entirely monstrous and have about as much in common with zombies as they do vampires. They have a rotting corpse-like appearance, have been resurrected from the dead and can transform others into the undead with as much as a scratch. They can also fly, hop and fight, have long blue fingernails and hate seeing their own reflections. 

Forget about stakes through the heart, sunlight, garlic and crucifixes, because you'll find none of that here. The arsenal of vampire fighting methods includes chicken blood (which - when dotted on their forehead - can freeze a vampire in its tracks), black ink (which - when applied to caskets - can keep the dead inside, and also can be applied to strings to electrocute them), incense (for appeasing the dead), yellow paper (which is attached to a vampire's head to keep them standing in place), snake venom sacks (which - when mixed with other ingredients - helps heal vampire wounds) and uncooked sticky rice (which removes vampire toxins from one's body after infection and also decreases a vampire's power upon contact). You can also hold your own breath to keep them from attacking you.

In addition, the film also introduces some new techniques in dealing with ghosts, such as rubbing eucalyptus leaves on your eyes to acquire the ability to see a ghost's true face and using a special dagger powered up with moonlight to fight them off. During one outrageous scene where Master Kau is fighting the succubus Jade, she uses her ponytail to strangle him and then detaches her own head while he headless body continues to fight. There's also a compass-like gadget that helps determine where invisible ghosts might be lurking.

Sometimes the comedy (which relies heavily on slapstick) is a bit strained, but a surprising amount of it actually does works and there are several hilarious moments and many more infectuously silly ones. The cast acquits itself well and the main characters are either likable of funny, with Lam's composed portrayal as the smart, vampire-fighting Master the perfect counterbalance to some of the more aloof characters. The film also delivers in a big way on action. There are brilliantly-choreographed fight sequences spread throughout the film. Hell, almost every stick of furniture is destroyed inside the mortuary during the final ten-minute confrontation with the main vampire! The make-up work and special effects are solid, the period setting is vividly captures, the cinematography is bold and colorful and the stunt work is excellent.




This was produced by Sammo Hung and made for his production company Bo Ho Films Company Ltd., and was distributed theatrically by Golden Harvest. The cast also includes Moon Lee (under the name Choi-fung Li) as Mr. Yam's make-up obsessed daughter Ting-Ting (who sparks the romantic interest of both of Master Kau's assistants and even her own cousin; a police officer played by Billy Lau), Wah Yuen as the main vampire menace and Anthony Chan as another Taoist priest who controls a mini-army of obedient vampires. Many of the actors returned in other films in this series (though playing entirely different roles). Sammo Hung was the producer and this was made for his production company Bo 


Because of its popularity in the East (it was nominated for eleven Hong Kong Film Awards), Mr. Vampire was followed by many sequels (each directed by Lau); the highly disappointing MR. VAMPIRE II (1986), MR. VAMPIRE 3 (1987), MR. VAMPIRE 4 (1988 aka Mr. Vampire Saga) and MR. VAMPIRE 5 (1992; which was released under the titles Chinese Vampire Story and Mr. Vampire 1992). In addition, there was MAGIC COP (1990), which was the unofficial Part 5 in the series, as well as another unofficial series consisting of New Mr. Vampire (1987 aka Kung Fu Vampire Buster) and New Mr. Vampire 2 (1987; aka VAMPIRE VS. VAMPIRE).

The DVD was released in 2001 on the Hong Kong Legends label.

★★★1/2

Survival Earth (1985) (TV)

... aka: Survival 1990

Directed by:
Peter McCubbin

Hamilton/Ontario-based Emmeritus Productions was founded by former TV host Lionel Shenken in the early 80s and spit out film after film during a five-year reign of terror lasting from about 1984 until 1989. In that time, the studio put out an impressive 30+ films. Well, impressive until you actually sit through one of these things. Based on what I've watched thus far (the pallid horror anthology GREEDY TERROR, the serial killer psycho-drama BODY COUNT and this one), I'd say most people are going to be rightfully appalled suffering through these cheap, talky, poorly acted and anemically produced efforts, each of which have public access TV production values (i.e. were shot with camcorders). Amazingly, Shenken managed to get his home grown Z movies out to an international audience via pre-package sales to both video and television. Some of these titles even popped up on American cable TV, and quite a few were released here on video. SURVIVAL EARTH (also released as Survival 1990, despite the fact the film is actually set in 1996) is one of those films.

The Earth is in trouble, judging by the opening stock footage flurry of rioters, pesky politicians, nuclear power plants, grumbling skies and finally, an atomic blast which we assume kills off much of Canada's population. But, rejoice. There are survivors. John (Jeff Holec), a bearded former high school history teacher decked out in a blood-spattered shirt and cut-off blue jean dukes a little too short for comfort, and Miranda (Nancy Cser), his blonde, loincloth-clad, amnesiac "mutant" girlfriend. In this film, a "mutant" is simply someone whose memory was wiped clean after "the fall;" not something that would require the filmmakers to provide any sort of special make-up application. During the course of their five-year courtship, John has taught Miranda how to talk and read, has caught her up on the times and has somehow transformed his hot blonde clean slate into a sassy, defiant feminist in the process. The two live in a house, which is actually just the crumbling remains of a house... that has no roof. Yes, no roof. What they do in the Canadian winter in anybody's guess. Every once in awhile, the duo have to whip out their firearms to protect their territory from crazed, marauding "vandals" who roam in the woods.

The comfy living situation is threatened by the arrival of Simon (Craig Williams), a disciplined, clean-cut former army cadet who shows up at their home with rifle in hand. Simon doesn't make a good first impression by cooking and serving them their pet dog Corridge for dinner, but he does turn out to be an OK guy after all and everyone becomes fast friends. The men sit around discussing their former lives before the apocalypse. Miranda bitches because Jeff's always reading passages from his W.G. Yates poetry book and pining for a past she can't even remember (he even wears the key to his "brand new 1986 Honda Civic" around his neck). Meanwhile, someone is lurking in the woods, watches Miranda bathe in a stream and seems to be ready to strike at any moment. Did I mention that John's father was a research scientist working on the duplication of cellular structure (i.e. cloning)? Yeah, whoever wrote the script (the director, star Williams and Gina Mandelli) decided to throw that out there about an hour into the film.

Even though we were shown an atomic blast at the beginning of the film, we learn that the apocalypse was actually caused by a financial meltdown, which led to a disbanding of the army, government and military, which led to chaos, anarchy and eventually armageddon. The film makes mention of things that sound cool in theory (such as cannibalistic mutants taking over the cities), but we never actually get to see any of these things. In fact, this movie is little more than three mediocre actors sitting around in a "house" or walking around in the woods talking, talking and talking some more for about 80 minutes. All of the talk is punctuated by a badly choreographed fist fight, a few grenade explosions, some very brief nudity during Miranda's skinny dip and an axing, plus two clumsy action scenes with our heroes shooting at the vandals.

I happen to love post apocalytpic films, even slower, more contemplative ones... but this near-plotless camcorder cheapie won't be cutting anyone's mustard. I don't believe any of the Emmeritus films have been issued on DVD and I doubt they ever will be. The three I've seen are all more than welcome to disappear off the face of the Earth.

The VHS copy I slogged through was from the British label Visual Entertainment.

★1/2