SUMMER OF 87 #9: Creepshow 2

 The cover of my VHS copy of Creepshow 2

2pm, Day 2:

Creepshow 2
Director: Michael Gornick
Starring: George Kennedy, Lois Chiles, Dorothy Lamour
Format: VHS (Cinema Club)

Plot: Three more bone-chilling tales that include a vengeful wooden Native American, a monstrous blob in a lake, and a hitchhiker who wants revenge and will not die.

- I know a lot of people like the first Creepshow movie better than this one, which gets some bad reviews, but I've always loved this movie. It might be because it was one of the first horror movies I ever saw (soon after it came out on VHS here in NZ), so it's got nostalgic value. I should also add that I'm a Stephen King geek - I have every book he's ever written and a few rare pieces of memorabilia. Heck, I even visited his house in Bangor Maine back in 2000.
- So yes, I've seen this movie before, several times in fact. It's one of only two "cheats" I'm allowing myself during this marathon.
- This anthology (like the first Creepshow movie) is Stephen King and George Romero's homage to the EC comics of his youth (Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror etc). King wrote the stories and Romero adapted them for the screen.
- Director Gornick was cinematographer on the first Creepshow movie.
- The first tale, Old Chief Wood'nhead, is a simple story of revenge that is pretty schmaltzy, but good performances by veterans George Kennedy (THE DIRTY DOZEN) and Dorothy Lamour (who starred with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in a string of their Road To movies in the 30s) have the viewer rooting for the bad guys to get what's coming to them.
- I dig that Cisco Kid is playing on the TV in the houses of each of the bad guys. I love that TV series.
- Old Chief Wood'nhead's makeup is great. Creepy too.
- The second tale, The Raft, is the one that really stuck with me after I first watched it all those years ago. It creeped the hell out of me, pun intended.
- Nice segue I never noticed before: The two guys in The Raft refer to themselves by the nicknames Cisco and Pancho.
- I remember thinking a lot about how I would try to survive the "killer" in The Raft. Like I obsessed with thinking up survival scenarios after watching The Swarm on TV as a kid.
- Even when his life's in danger, a teenage boy's gotta get laid. Especially if his name is Randy.
- I still love that ending. Awesome.
- The final tale, The Hitchhiker, is my least favourite of the three, but did provide me and my friends with a line we would use all the time: "Thaks for the ride lady!"
- Cameo by Stephen King as a truck driver. He had more of a starring role in the first Creepshow, as unfortunate bumpkin Jordy Verrill.
- The third tale is definitely the bloodiest of the three. Some nice gore right at the end.
- The wraparound animation is good fun, as it should be on an anthology like this.

Overall thoughts: As I said at the start of this review, I enjoy this movie for nostalgic reasons, so I can't review it objectively. But if you're a fan of EC Comics-style horror anthology like Tales from the Crypt, Tales from the Darkside and Monsters, you should enjoy this movie. And because it's a movie, it has T&A and gore that you won't find on those TV series.