Let’s all go to the movies…
I told you before, I didn’t want you to read this crap! I never saw such rotten crap in my life.
Tom Atkins as Stan Hopkins (written by Stephen King), Creepshow
Director: George A. Romero
Writer: Stephen King
Producer: Richard P. Rubenstein
Starring: Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver, Leslie Nielsen, Carrie Nye, E.G. Marshall, Viveca Lindfors and Stephen King
Released: 16th May 1982 (Cannes Film Festival), July 1982 (limited release), November 10th 1982 (wide American release)
Trailer
First of all, I want to talk about just how enjoyable this is as a film. Every actor turns in a great performance, totally understanding the assignment given by the script and direction from George A. Romero (who I discuss in more detail in my other project). The performances from Ed Harris, Bingo O’Malley, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver, E.G. Marshall and especially Leslie Nielsen and Stephen King perfectly fulfil the larger-than-life comic caricature that populated EC comics stories. Nielsen turns a genuinely depraved, scary performance yet never slipping an iota from the tone, and only King could say the words ‘meteor shit,’ and make them work.
There are some interesting things to note in a literary sense, so I’m going to briefly cover each of the main segments:
Father’s Day – probably the weakest, but still great fun if only for Ed Harris’s dancing. It’s a true blue EC Comic story. Great zombie design, worthy of Return of the Living Dead with its skeletal appearance.
The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verill – A plant reworking of Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space, but adapted from a King story. Has similarities to King’s Gray Matter from Night Shift, and speaks to the fears of poverty like that story. Also, super goofy.
Something to Tide You Over – probably my favourite, with Police Squad! era Leslie Nielsen turning in a terrifyingly mad and deranged performance. Very similar to King’s short story The Ledge, also from Night Shift.
The Crate – Standard EC horror, a fun mini creature feature with a dog-like abominable snowmonster, though also adapted from a King short. I’d be pissed off if I was locked in there for 150 years too.
They Creep Up On You – the only genuinely creepy one, with creeping, crawling cockroaches and a gross out ending. Very easy to give this one a Marxist reading, if the mood took you. Great one-hander too, and a strong finish to the whole film.
The other thing is that this film really exemplifies my frustration with Danse Macabre‘s lack of coverage of EC Comics. EC was the lead publisher in horror comics until the Comics Code Authority neutered the genre (in America at least), and to see that clear fondness for it be so clearly expressed here and not there is annoying to say the least. Horror comics are a rich vein for discussion, and the impact on King exemplified by the existence of this movie should be looked at. So it goes.
What I think is most interesting in watching Creepshow however is the disconnect of horror between what King writes and what he films (especially compared to how others film his books), and considering that disconnect I think says a lot about the kind of horror King writes as well.
In Danse Macabre, King spends a lot of time talking about horror in cinema, and makes no bones about the fact of how much crap he has seen in his life. He practically revels in it, and I don’t blame him. Finding that weird little movie no one else has heard of and discovering a gem is practically a hobby for genre fans, and King’s indulgences in crap horror makes him a true nerd. Compared to his chapters on literature, which discuss and explore horror writing almost a defence (of the genre and himself) as well as celebration, we get a real sense of King’s taste in horror overall, and gives him an idea of how it can work.
I think what Creepshow shows us is that King’s type of horror does not exist in a broad scale, from sublime terror to gaudy revulsion, but all exists as one type. Frankly, I think King likes horror like haunted houses at the funfair, and is often mistaken for literature because of how bloody good he is as a writer. Take for example something like ‘Salem’s Lot. The scene where a character falls through the stairs to their slow death, impaled by knives is horrifying. but if you were to see it on film, it verges on comedy. He so often has over the top characters that wouldn’t be out of place in an issue of Tales from the Crypt, that put on screen are more like Dickensian comic fools. I should add I don’t think that’s a bad thing!
Another example. The short story Survivor Type is one of King’s grossest but also most disturbing stories to read. Yet, the idea of it tickled King for days before he finally wrote the story. It had a recent animated adaptation on the Creepshow TV series, which also highlighted, to an extent, how ridiculous it is. You can see why King found it so funny.
Horror and comedy are not strange bedfellows, but in King there is a constant tension between the two, and that tension allows him to walk, even skip, a tightrope between the two.
Horror can so easily become ridiculous. There’s old adage about horror that what you don’t see is scarier than what you do. A classic example is the horror classic Night of the Demon, which tells the eerie horror of a man haunted by a demon, only to be let down by the final reveal of the demon in the closing moments. The visual reveal robs us of all that fine tension beforehand. But a book has no real visual element. You can have the monster appear before your main character, and all that exists is a description in your mind far more horrifying than what even the great Tom Savini could summon from his make-up trailer.
I think King recognises that dichotomy. Seen Horror is scarier in literature, because, to an extent, it is still unseen. But Seen Horror in film is so much harder to pull off. The number of successful monsters on film, where the reveal matches the tension beforehand, is far outnumbered by the times it doesn’t work. See the Xenomorph from Alien versus the original design for how easily even the great ones could have gone wrong. One is sleek, unearthly, worrying – the other, crap. I think King recognises that and rather than set himself up for failure, at least regarding film, leans just slightly the other way into the goofy nature of horror. The core concept of each story is scary (losing yourself to a plant as living fertiliser is one that gets under my skin), but on screen turns ridiculous. Which is fine, because horror is inherently ridiculous at times. It’s why every long-running slasher series eventually goes into space.
When given the choice, I think King’s horror when shown tends towards goofy and when written tends towards genuine scary horror. Creepshow gave him an opportunity to indulge in the kind of horror he likes to see as opposed to read for once, and though there are elements of scares in there, it tends to be the kind of horror film you could take your date to and have a good time.
Observations and Connections and Notes
Allow me a moment to justify the placement of this essay in this King chronology, as it took me a while to decide where to place it. It’s initial release date was 16th May 1982, pre-Gunslinger, but at Cannes Film Festival. I decided it should be a general release date instead, so that came after Gunslinger. Doing some research, it seems like Warner Bros. released it for a limited time in July to the general public, allowing it to build a strong word of mouth. As such, when Halloween III: Season of the Witch came and went, leaving the Box Office relatively unbothered, a wider rerelease of Creepshow in October gave it the push to make it a success. But the October release is after Different Seasons, our next book. So, in order to keep the idea I had about my essays regarding that book, I decided to take the July release as the first one, and anyway this is my essay list and I’ll do what I like.
As a couple of the stories were adapted from early King short stories, much of what would become well-known references to other characters and locations aren’t present here so much. This is especially true considering the stories have yet to be reprinted in a story collection, and seem unlikely to at this point barring some rarities collection after King passes.
Having said that, there are a couple notable reference. In The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill where the plant life is growing in the direction of popular King town, Castle Rock. Also, Fluffy from The Crate was supposed to be delivered on 19th June 1834, eerily the same date King would have his accident years later. Whilst on the subject of The Crate, there is a reference to this story in the Creepshow series episode The Things in Oakwood’s Past.
I briefly considered doing a bonus essay on the Creepshow TV series on Shudder, but decided against due to its anthology nature not allowing each story a chance in the light. However, if you enjoyed the film, I’d recommend the series. Like any anthology, it can be uneven, but it is in general great fun.
UP NEXT (Stephen King Reading List): For every season, there is a story in Different Seasons.
OR
NEXT (‘of the Dead’ film list): George Romero’s Day of the Dead
Deeper Thoughts for the Horror Inclined 