Creepshow (1982 franchise)

Scene from Creepshow (1982 franchise)...

Summary

A series of anthology horror film collaborations between George A. Romero and Stephen King; many consider Creepshow 3 (2007) to be a sequel in-name-only, and some of the cast and crew from the first two films consider Tales from the Darkside, the Movie (1990) to be a more faithful spiritual successor to the series.

• Creepshow (1982), AKA Creep Show, Stephen King's Creepshow, Creephsow: Tales of Terror
• Cat's Eye (1985)
• Creepshow 2 (1987)
• Tales from the Darkside (1990)
• Creepshow 3 (2007) (no involvement from George Romero or Stephen King)

Details

• Release Date: 1982-2007
• Country/Language: US, English
• Genres/Technical: Horror, Comedy (black humor), Anthology
• Starring: (various)
• Director: George A. Romero
• Writer: Stephen King
• Producer/Production Co: Creepshow Films Inc., Laurel Entertainment Inc., Laurel-Show Inc.
• View Trailer: (link), (link), (link), (link), (link)
• TVTropes: (link), (link), (link)
• IMDB: (1982), (1987), (2007); (Cat's Eye), (Darkside)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: R (Violence, Profanity, Adult Content, Nudity, Sexual Situations)

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• SS___ (Two Tentacles: Barely Lovecraftian; could be a very loose adaptation)

Written by Stephen King in the style of comic books inspired by classic pulp horror, this anthology does include a couple of King's more "Lovecraftian" tales; "Lovecraftians" may find the stories "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill", "The Crate", and "The Raft" are especially similar in tone to Lovecraft's fiction.

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

• (review needed)

Synopsis

An anthology series of short stories written by Stephen King in imitation of comic books written in the tradition of pulp horror stories...

• CREEPSHOW (1982) -
  • "Creepshow" - A young boy, abused by his father for reading a Creepshow comic; the next day, two garbage collectors find the comic in the trash, with a coupon for a novelty voodoo doll strangely missing, while the father finds himself plagued by mysterious stabbing pains....
  • "Father's Day" - A miserly and abusive gangster, murdered by his family, returns from the grave on Father's Day.
  • "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" - based on the "Lovecraftian" Stephen King short story, "Weeds", a backwoods yokel discovers a meteorite filled with alien life....
  • "Something to Tide You Over" - A wealthy psychopath meets his doom after he buries his wife and her lover up to their necks in the sand at low tide, and watches over closed-circuit TV cameras from the comfort of his mansion as they drown in the incoming high tide....
  • "The Crate" - A "Horlicks University" college custodian release a buried nightmare from a wooden storage crate hidden under a staircase for 147 years....
  • "They're Creeping Up on You" - a ruthless businessman with a fear of germs lives in a hermetically-sealed penthouse apartment, where he finds himself suddenly besieged by a supernatural infestation of cockroaches....
• CAT'S EYE (1985) -
  • "Cat's Eye" - A down-on-its-luck stray cat is chased by a St. Bernard dog and a red 1958 Plymouth Fury (in nods to other Stephen King stories), onto a harrowing cross-country trip, while answering a plea for help from a little girl in mortal danger.
  • "Quitters, Inc." - A smoker joins a quit-smoking scheme operated by ruthless and fanatical mobsters.
  • "The Ledge" - A sadistic gangster forces his wife's lover to creep around a dangerous ledge near the penthouse level of a sky-rise apartment building.
  • "General" - the stray cat from the wrap-around story is adopted into the girl's family, who are unaware that the girl is being menaced at night by a malevolent troll.
• CREEPSHOW 2 (1987) -
  • "Billy" - A deivery truck arrives with the latest issue of Creepshow, while Billy, a boy hounded by bullies, awaits feeding time for the novelty Venus Flytraps he has ordered from the comic.
  • "Old Chief Wood'n'Head" - A wooden cigar stoor Indian comes to life after an elderly couple try to call in collateral for debts incurred by a local tribe.
  • "The Raft" - A group of young adults go skinny-diping in a remote lake where swimming is forbidden.
  • "The Hitch-Hiker" - An adulteress is haunted by the victim of her hit-and-run accident.
• TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE, THE MOVIE (1990) -
  • "Intro" - A suburban witch is about to serve young Timmy to her dinner guests; to stall her, the boy tells her three stories from a book called Tales from the Darkside...
  • "Lot 249" - From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story about an Egyptology student's reanimated mummy...
  • "Cat From Hell" - A Stephen King story about an eccentric old man who hires a hit man to assassinate a cat for $100,000.
  • "Lover's Vow" - Based on a traditional Japanese Yokai story about a man who witnesses a killing committed by a hideous monster, and is then forced to promise it that he will tell nobody the story.
• CREEPHSOW 3 (2007, created without the involvement of George Romero or Stephen King, and poorly-received compared to the earlier films):
  • "Wraparound" - Characters from the stories collide with each other at a hotdog stand.
  • "Alice" - An experimental remote control transforms a troubled family, with references to "Alice in Wonderland".
  • "The Radio" - A troubled security guard recieves orders from a disembodied voice on his radio.
  • "Call Girl" - A serial-killer call girl's latest victim turns out to be much harder to kill than her previous victims....
  • "The Professor's Wife" - A professor's strange fiance is not what she appears to be....
  • "Haunted Dog" - A homeless man dies after eating the hotdog a miserly doctor gave him after dropping it on the ground....

Notes

Comments, Trivia, Dedication

• "The Crate" appears to have been shipped to a Dr. Julian Carpenter at Horlicks University in 1834 from an Arctic Expedition; this seems be a reference to both At the Mountains of Madness (fiction) and John Carpenter's The Thing (1982 film).

Associated Mythos Elements

• TO DO
• fiction: Stephen King's "Weeds", "The Crate", and "The Raft"
• location: Castle Rock, Stephen King's entry in "Lovecraft Country"