• Release Date: 2009-09-08
• Genre: Horror
• Artist Name: Tom Atkins, Adrienne Barbeau, Ted Danson, Ed Harris, Hal Holbrook, Jon Lormer, E.G. Marshall, Leslie Nielsen, Carrie Nye, Fritz Weaver, Stephen King, Viveca Lindfors, Robert Harper
• Director: George A. Romero
• AMG Rating:
• MPAA Rating: R
• Category: Feature Films
• Cautions: Not For Children, Violence, Adult Situations, Gore, Adult Language, Profanity
• Year: 1982
• Running Time: 129
• Movie Country of Origin: USA
• Available Language: English
• Subtitles: Eng/Fre
  

Two of the most venerable names in the horror field, author Stephen King and director George A. Romero, present this anthology of original twisted tales inspired by the E.C. horror comics of the 50's and 60's (themselves a more direct basis for the popular Tales from the Crypt TV series). The five stories are framed within the pages of a comic book which a boy's insensitive father has thrown in the garbage. The first tale, "Father's Day," features a zombie patriarch returning to claim his Father's Day cake; "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" stars King himself as a slack-jawed yokel whose discovery of a radioactive meteorite turns him into a walking weed; "Something to Tide You Over" presents a deadly-serious Leslie Nielsen as a cuckolded husband who plans an elaborate seaside revenge; "The Crate" unleashes its ferocious man-eating contents on the enemies of a meek college professor; and "They're Creeping Up On You" pits obsessively-clean billionaire E.G. Marshall against a swarm of cockroaches in his sterile penthouse. The chapters are uniformly creative, filmed in garish comic-book colors, and Tom Savini's makeup effects are quite memorable (particularly the monster from "The Crate"), though the campy treatment does become exhausting after two hours' runtime. The final segment is the most impressive, thanks to Marshall's over-the-top performance, though the planned scope of the cockroach invasion was drastically reduced (no doubt due to budget constraints). ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

Horror

Voodoo, Treacherous Spouses, Mad Scientists

Disturbing, Creepy, Tense, Ominous, Gruesome, Macabre, Campy, Lurid

DVD Features

• Theatrical Trailer

DVD Chapters

• None SpecifiedNone Specified

Review

This is a very entertaining tribute to the EC horror comics of the 1950s from the director of Night of the Living Dead. The five stories, written by Stephen King, are bookended with some nice comic-book art by Bernie Wrightson and a cute framing story involving a boy whose father objects to his "Creepshow" magazines. The stories themselves feature an all-star cast and great special effects by makeup wizard Tom Savini. "Father's Day" and "Something to Tide You Over" deal with vengeful zombies, "The Lonely Death of Jordy Verrill" is a Blob-derived tale with King taken over by an alien plant; "The Crate" has a henpecked professor feeding his shrewish wife to a toothsome monster; and "They're Creeping Up on You" features a finicky landlord plagued by cockroaches. "The Crate" is probably the best of the lot, but the last story is the most memorable. There's nothing more disgusting than thousands of squirming cockroaches, and the final shot is one of the horror cinema's classic gross-outs. Witty, grotesque, and visually engaging, Creepshow is a treat. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi