In 1982 film director George Romero of NIGHT OF THE LIVING
DEAD fame, writer Stephen King who brought us IT, SALEMS LOT, PET SEMETARY and
more and special effects master Tom Savini who did the gore effects in DAWN and
DAY OF THE DEAD came together with a new creation. This was CREEPSHOW, their
homage to those classic gore filled comics from the days of pre-comic book code
goodies like TALES FROM THE CRYPT and THE VAULT OF HORROR. It was this film
that kicked off so many anthology shows that followed. King wrote the stories,
Romero directed and Savini did the effects for the movie. It used garish
lighting at times, animated comic book panels that came alive into the short
sequences and gruesome horror for the time. In short it was magnificent.
The movie did solid box office at the time and fans loved
it. But for some reason it never spawned a franchise of films. Why? Who knows?
What it did do was influence a number of young people who saw the movie. They
went on to move into the horror scene as writers, directors and producers.
Among them was Greg Nicotero.
Nicotero got his earliest jobs in the film business working
for Savini and learning his craft from him. He was a co-founder of KNB Effects,
one of the biggest effects companies in film to this day. That took him to
working hand in hand with a little thing called THE WALKING DEAD. And from
there that led directly into CREEPSHOW THE SERIES.
Made for the Shudder streaming service, Nicotero has
lovingly crafted this series to follow in the footsteps of the original. No one
story per episodes instead we get two stories flying off of the pages of
Creepshow comics, animated sequences of the Creep laughing and pointing us in
the right direction to view each tale. What he has achieved here is not just a
homage to those classic comics but to Romero and King’s vision of a new comic,
a new movie based on stories filled with horror. He’s done them proud.
The series features 6 episodes, 12 stories, that range from
a Halloween tale to melting people turned to grey goo intent on overrunning the
Earth. There are tales of corporate greed that results in murder to soldiers
becoming werewolves. Maybe you’ll enjoy the scarecrow that becomes a murderous
companion or a loch ness type monster that no one believes in but is found. All
of these and more are found in season one.
Each and every director of this series has obviously watched
the original film made almost 40 years ago. The twisted camera angles, the
glaring neon back lighting, the overflowing buckets of gore and creatures are
all found here just as they were in the original. There is humor in horror on
hand. And just like the original there are moments of tenderness among those
gore filled stories, moments of sadness when talking about the creatures of the
night.
Not only that there are top notch actors from the horror
field on display here. Bruce Davison, the original Willard, is on hand. Jeffrey
Combs who brought us Herbert West the Re-Animator plays a Nazi. Tobin Bell,
known to everyone as Saw, is here as a police chief. David Arquette, everyone’s
favorite deputy from the SCREAM franchise, is on hand too. Plus the best tie in
to the original, actress Adrienne Barbeau who was in the original film is in
the first episode.
All of this would be for naught if the series didn’t provide
laughs and scares, if there wasn’t enough blood and gore on hand to satisfy
fans of the genre and if there wasn’t some nice twist to most of the stories.
Thankfully it offers all of that and more. With such names as Stephen King, Joe
Lansdale and Joe Hill writing various stories used here the series is one to be
treasured. In addition to that there is plenty of extras on hand discussing the
episodes and the creation of the series.
When the final episode, the final extra finished and I
turned off the disc player I found I only had one complaint. That was that it
was over. That it would be some time before another season was available, be
that on disc or on the streaming service Shudder. It was good enough getting
the service might be worth it. If you loved the original film you will love
this series. The language may be a little rougher but the same love of horror
and horror comics remains. This one is worth adding to your collection.
No comments:
Post a Comment