Creepshow

(1982)

"Just call me Billie! Everyone does!"

Director George Romero ("Night of the Living Dead", 1968) and author/screenwriter Stephen King teamed up for this collection of 5 gruesomely funny horror tales. Combining comic-book panels, melodramatic lighting/coloring and camera angles, with the linking sequences in between the tales animated in the style of 1950's E.C. comics, the results will also remind many of classic comic books such as "Eerie" and "Creepy".

Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver, Ted Danson, Leslie Nielsen, Ed Harris, Carrie Nye, Viveca Lindfors, E.G. Marshall, and even Stephen King are in the great cast. The tales are titled: "Father's Day", "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill", "Something to Tide You Over", "The Crate", and "They're Creeping Up on You". They are all top-notch (with the exception of the just plain silly "The Lonesome Death Of Jordy Verrill", which stars King in the lead role).

"The Crate" is this reviewer's personal favorite, not because the name of Adrienne Barbeau's vulgar, coarse character is Billie (in her case, Billie is short for Wilma), although Barbeau raucously blaring "Oh, just call me Billie! Everyone does!" several times does induce outright laughter in this reviewer's home. Hal Holbrook, a very accomplished actor, gives a wry and subtle performance as Billie's beleagured, henpecked husband, and Adrienne Barbeau is spot-on as the trashy, trampy, loudly drunken Billie. And while this segment has the same morbid humor of the rest of the tales, it is also pretty scary at times, with a very satisfying ending.

Personal second favorite is "Father's Day", with the bastard of a father yelling "Bedelia! It's Father's Day! Where's my cake? I want my cake, you bitch!" and there's nothing quite like seeing Ed Harris doing what this reviewer likes to call his little "chicken dance", which is rivaled in hilarity only by Jessica Harper's onstage jig in Brian DePalma's underappreciated cult classic "Phantom of the Paradise" (1974).

"Something To Tide You Over" is third personal favorite ("I can hold my breath a long, long time!"), and "They're Creeping Up on You" is for those who are scared by insects, with the great E.G. Marshall as a mean and reclusive germ-phobic millionaire.

Great campy horror fare from Romero and King, worth re-watching several times a year (especially around Halloween - the beginning shots and music are reminiscent of John Carpenter's classic "Halloween").