George Romero and Stephen King put their talents together to make a genuine EC comic come to life on screen. This movie consists of five jolting tales of horror and they even had a comic book with art by original EC artist Jack Kamen as a tie in with the film.
The first story concerns a murdered man who comes back from the dead for his father's day cake in a story entitled "Father's Day" and it stars Carrie Nye and Viveca Lindfors. The next story has Stephen King himself playing a backwoods hick who gets some "meteor shit" on him and turns into a giant weed in a story called "The Lonesome Death Of Jordy Verrill". The third tale is entitled "Something To Tide You Over" and stars Leslie Nielsen as a jealous man who has quite a surprise for his wife, Gaylen Ross and her lover Ted Danson. The fourth segment is called "The Crate" as has one of the scariest monsters ever to appear in a horror film up to that time. Hal Holbrook stars as a henpecked husband to Adrienne Barbeau who fins a perfect way to kill her thanks to a discovery by his friend played by Fritz Weaver. The final segment is the stuff of nightmares as E.G. Marshall stars as Upson Pratt a multi billionaire living in a germ proof apartment who is suddenly overrun by millions of cockroaches in the episode entitled "They're Creeping Up On You". The wrap aroun story concerns a man who throws his sons copy of "Creepshow" in the trash and the revenge the child seeks from an ad in the comic. The wrap around stars Stephen King's son Joe as the boy and Tom Atkins as the father.
This is a great film and one that influenced me so much I was it about 50 times at the theater and hundreds on video cassette. It also inspired me to make my film "Tales of the Damned" as a comic book.
The use of colored lights and comic book panels make this film a real blast. Romero knows how to scare an audience andd King knows how to write exactly what a director needs. This was Romero's dance with the big time as Warner Brothers put up the money. I remember reading about this for months in Fangoria before it came out and I never wanted to see a film more than this.
One of the best ever and NOT to be missed by any self respecting horror fan.
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