CREEPSHOW: It’s Father’s Day and I Got My Cake!

Creepshow (1982) – Directed by George A. Romero – Starring Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Leslie Nielsen, Ted Danson, E. G. Marshall, Stephen King, Ed Harris, and Tom Atkins.

Movie anthologies are a tough sell; you’ve got a trapped audience that you’ve got to keep entertained for two hours or so, and because you’ve chosen to tell a bunch of little stories instead of one big one, you’ve got to constantly keep winning them over. It’s a much safer strategy to pull the Robert Altman or Paul Thomas Anderson card and let your small stories intertwine, so they spread out over the course of the film, weaving in and out. CREEPSHOW doesn’t do this, but it does have a clever linking strategy of presenting the movie as one issue of a 1950′s-styled horror comic book.

George A. Romero serves up five rather tasty short stories over his two hours, with a framing device involving a little kid having the comic we’re watching taken away from his by his dick of a dad (Tom Atkins).

While technically a horror movie, there’s not a whole lot of scary in CREEPSHOW. There is a good amount of creepiness, though, which the title promises, so it’s all good.

The first story, “Father’s Day,” sees a mean, dead old bastard (Jon Lormer) come back from the dead to enact revenge on his crappy family. His daughter Bedelia killed him because he was a loud-mouthed ass who kept yammering for his cake. Sounds reasonable. But now, poor Bedelia feels moderately bad about it, and returns to the family estate every year on Father’s Day to sit on daddy’s grave and suck down some Jim Beam. Everyone else in the family thinks it was a good turn to kill the old bastard because now they get to live in his house. Ed Harris shows up playing the new husband of one of his grandkids or great-grandkids and he’s the only halfway decent member of the family.

This year turns out to be special because Daddy Dead Guy comes back from the grave to enact his revenge – which means to kill everyone. It’s all sort of blah, but Romero paces it quickly so the story never stalls out. When the walking corpse shows up with a head on a plate blathering that he finally got his cake, though, I was glad this story was done.

“The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” is next and it stars Stephen King, who wrote the movie. It’s … an uneventful piece. Jordy finds a crashed meteor in his backyard, touches it, dreams of riches, and then starts growing grass all over his body. Again, it’s not a very good story, but it’s quick and interesting enough. There’s something nice about how King plays Verrill like a total idiot whose dream of wealth consists of getting $200 out of the local university, but the best part of the story is the end, which first sees Jordy blowing his own head off, and then a shot of the highway hints that the grass will extend out away from Verrill’s farm and towards the city.

While the two stories haven’t been all that great, so far, the change-up that CREEPSHOW throws at you – these are not nice people and these are not people who survive – gives the movie both an old-timey feel and a fresh approach. Maybe because the stories are so short we’re allowed to simply watch the carnage and suffering and not feel too bad about it.

The next two stories are the reason to watch CREEPSHOW, however.

First up is “Something to Tide You Over,” which stars an incredibly bad-ass Leslie Nielsen burying Ted Danson up to his neck in beach sand. Ol’ Leslie is p*ssed off because Danson was screwing his wife, so he comes up with this plan to bury both of them in the surf, then let Ted watch the woman drown as the tide comes rolling in before dying himself. It’s a really dark story and I’m not lying when I say Leslie Nielsen has never been better. Even the ending, where the drowned victims come back to life to bury Nielsen in the sand works. As the story comes to an end, we can still hear Nielsen defiantly yelling, “I can hold my breath a long time!” Great story, which is matched by the fantastic story that follows.

“The Crate” is the longest story in CREEPSHOW and also its best. Professor Dexter Stanley (Fritz Weaver) comes into possession of a crate that’s been stashed in a hidden alcove beneath a stairwell. The only reason the janitor finds the crate is that he’s dropped his last quarter and he’s jonesing for a soda pop. Dexter and the janitor open the crate and some weird kind of abominable midget yeti comes out and tears the f*ck out of the janitor. Dexter panics and runs to his pal Henry’s place. Henry (Hal Holbrook) is married to a younger harpy (Adrienne Barbeau) and has a passive, schlubby approach to life. Wilma totally dominates and emasculates him, but while he fantasizes about taking revenge, he always ends up shrugging his shoulders and saying, “Yes, dear.” When Dexter tells Henry about the abominable midget yeti, Henry devises a plan to solve his problem, getting Wilma to come to the university where he sacrifices her to the crate monster.

It’s a really fantastic story, put over the top by the great Hal Holbrook as a passive man turning into an active man.

Last up is “They’re Creeping Up on You!” which sees E.G. Marshall playing a rich, bug-phobic assh*le who gets eaten by bugs. It’s gross and sort of awesome.

The film ends with our little kid taking a voodoo doll to his dad as revenge for throwing away his comics.

And really, who hasn’t been there with their parents?

What’s most impressive about CREEPSHOW is how well paced everything is – the stories that work take up the most screen time and the ones that don’t help fill out the two hours. Leslie Nielsen and Hal Holbrook give fantastic performances, Romero’s directing is totally solid and professional, and the overall idea that we’re watching a comic book come to life makes CREEPSHOW a solid, somewhat unique film, and well worth a watch.

THE FOG: We’re Honoring Murderers

The Fog (1980) – Directed by John Carpenter – Starring Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Houseman, Janet Leigh, and Hal Holbrook.

When you watch a lot of movies (as you might have noticed, I do), you can sometimes run the risk of seeing too much of one film in another. That said, when watching John Carpenter’s THE FOG, it’s pretty easy to see his influence people like Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarrantino, specifically as it relates to the way they construct a movie like FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, which is one-half set up as we simply get to know the characters, and then one-half action conclusion.

THE FOG is constructed in a similar (though not identical) manner; Carpenter spends nearly an hour of his film setting up the last half-hour of action. There’s a few hints of horror early on but the main characters are kept largely out of harm’s way. Windows shatter, mysterious shadows knock at doors, and a brick in the wall jumps off the wall, but these things more to create a mystery for the characters to solve rather than to provide some massive fright. For the most part THE FOG is content to take its time to build up its characters and set up its mystery so when the supernatural fog starts to roll in, people understand that it’s a very bad thing and appropriately freak out.

Watching THE FOG now, it’s sort of amazing how anachronistic it’s structured compared to contemporary horror and action films. THE FOG is not a roller coaster; it’s a section of roller coaster perhaps, as we spend lots and lots of time making that slow climb to the top and then have one big drop to the bottom after we’ve crested. Personally, I love THE FOG because Carpenter does such a great job introducing and developing his characters. By the time the fog starts rolling in to Antonio Bay, I actually cared enough about these characters to understand why they were reacting the way they did; this is critically important, because as much as everyone is afraid of the supernatural fog and the 100-year old ghosts, they all have individual fears and quirks, too. These aren’t just random people getting whacked for our enjoyment; they have real lives and fears and dreams that are interrupted by a supernatural fog and a band of ghost lepers.

Out-of-towner Elizabeth Solley (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a young girl on the road to nowhere. She’s a talented artist but she’s drifting – she’s old enough to know that where she was isn’t where she wants to be, but young enough to think hitching to get somewhere is a good idea. When Nick Castle (Tom Atkins) picks her up, she tries to play experienced, but Nick quickly catches her in a mini-lie that reveals her to be far less world-smart than she claims. They hook up, but Carpenter doesn’t sensationalize the sex or draw out the seduction. In their first scene together Nick picks her up, they start to chat (which feels more functional than seductive), and then the windows shatter in Nick’s truck. The next time we see them is later on in bed, post-coital, and there’s a knock on the door, which causes Nick to have to get out of bed because 1. it’s his house, and 2. because he’s the kind of guy who lets the woman stay in the bed while he puts his pants on and deals with the interruption. We know what’s waiting for him on the other side of the door is a creepy ghost man in the fog, but he doesn’t, so there’s little tension generated for the characters, but a good amount for us.

It’s a really well developed sequence by Carpenter – from pick-up to knock-at-the-door, we see that Elizabeth is a young woman physically, but still making that transition from girlhood to womanhood on an emotional level. In Nick, she finds a solid, older man who’s looking to be important to someone. Both of them have emotional holes that the other can fill, and the exploding truck windows simply bring this into clearer focus for them. Carpenter gives us all of this information but he doesn’t bludgeon us with it; in the 2011 cinematic landscape, THE FOG almost comes off as high literature.

The other center of the film is Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau), who runs the town’s radio station from the lighthouse. Stevie is a fantastically conceived character; from her position high above town she has the best view of the fog’s actions and in her position as the one and only DJ, she’s the Voice of Authority for the townspeople. In that last positioning, she’s both of the town and apart from it. She has a voice-only relationship with the local weatherman, and relies on an older woman to watch her son, Andy, while she’s at work.

Andy likes to play down at the beach and he finds a gold doubloon that turns into a piece of wood with the word “DANE” carved into its surface. The Elizabeth Dane is the heart of the mystery and I like how Carpenter doles out the mystery in disconnected pieces – we get a feel for the whole story but the townsfolk do not. Andy finds the “DANE” driftwood, but to him and his mother, it’s just driftwood. It’s Father Malone (Hal Holbrook) who learns the full story when finds a journal his grandfather wrote 100 years ago and then stuck in the church’s wall, but he doesn’t tell this to Andy or Stevie. Andy’s head is already filled with ghost stories from the previous night, when Mr. Machen (John Houseman) told him the tale of the Elizabeth Dane, but to Andy it’s just a story. Nick and Elizabeth find the first dead body out on the missing boat when a water-logged man falls on top of Elizabeth. It’s only when they get to the church at the end of the film that the players are able to piece everything together.

Stevie takes that block of wood to work with her, and it first leaks saltwater and then explodes into flame. A ghostly voice comes across the radio that promises revenge, and the “DANE” etching on the driftwood becomes “6 MUST DIE” before changing back. Antonio Bay survived a 100 years earlier because the town murdered members of a leper colony that had come seeking refuge. The lepers had asked for permission to build a colony a mile away and the town’s leaders agreed, but then betrayed the lepers by building a false fire on the night of a heavy fog, which caused the leper ship to crash into the rocks and sink. The six town founders kept the lepers’ gold and founded their town.

The current day is the 100th anniversary of the town’s founding, so the ghosts of the leper ship have come back to kill six townsfolk as revenge. Stevie sees the fog coming in and pleads with someone to go save her son because she can’t get through the fog to get him before the fog envelops her house. Nick and Elizabeth rescue him and then Stevie’s radio voice implores everyone to get to the roads the fog hasn’t taken. The fog is herding them all to the church, however, for the final showdown. Father Malone, Nick, Elizabeth, and Andy are joined by Kathy Williams (Janet Leigh) and her assistant. Kathy has been the big organizing force for the anniversary celebration, and her husband is missing (he was on the boat that endured the fog’s initial attack), so she’s caught between what she knows of the town’s history (as Father Malone told her, “We’re honoring murderers”), her love of the town’s present, and her missing husband.

Father Malone bears the largest guilt over the actions, and takes the church’s gold cross (made from the lepers’ gold) to offer himself up as a sacrifice so the six, century-old murders can be properly avenged. Nick interferes and saves him, pulling him away from the gold cross and the ghost lepers. The ghosts takes the cross and disappear and the fog recedes back out onto the water.

Everybody wins.

Except the ghosts’ presence was more about revenge of life than recuperating stolen gold, so after everyone thinks everything is swell, the film’s last beat has a small patch of fog return to the church, where the lepers’ leader beheads Father Malone with a sword.

THE FOG is a quietly strong movie that emphasizes strength of story and character over shocks and monsters. Everyone gives a solid performance, but Hal Holbrook’s haunted, guilt-driven Father Malone is the character that will stick with me.

SWAMP THING: You Will Believe A Man in A Rubber Suit Will … Um … I Give Up

Swamp Thing (1982) – Directed by Wes Craven – Starring Louis Jourdan, Adrienne Barbeau, Ray Wise, David Hess, Mimi Craven, Dick Durock, Reggie Batts, and Nicholas Worth.

SWAMP THING is the most unbelievable movie of Wes Craven’s career, and no, I’m not forgetting about the music movie he made with Merryl Streep. I know lots of people like this movie, but it just does’t work for me – it’s not scary, it’s not funny, it’s not compelling. It’s just an inconsequential B-movie with limp action in a dreary location.

The movie opens with U.S. agent Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau) arriving to the swamps of South Carolina, where Dr. Alec Holland (Ray Wise) is working on some super secret aminal/plant hybrid. Barbeau and Wise have some decent chemistry but since Holland is fated to become Swamp Thing (and Wise is fated to step out of the movie so Dick Durock can play Swampy), it just reinforces the dreariness to come.

Dr. Arcane (Louis Jourdan) shows up, blows up the lab, and Alec catches fire, runs into the swamp, and gets turned into Swamp Thing. He then proceeds to spend the rest of the film protecting Alice, who’s a government agent but can’t find her way out of the swamp. Oh, she can find her way to a small convenience shop run by Jude (Reggie Batts) and she can figure out how to use a phone to call her superior, but the call gets routed back to Arcane’s car because he’s super smart and Uncle Sam is a dipsh*t.

Also, because cell phones haven’t been invented, yet.

Yep, we can possibly put SWAMP THING into the category of movies that couldn’t happen in cell phones had been invented, but then, it takes place in a remote swamp in South Carolina, so maybe not.

These are the kinds of things I think about when watching SWAMP THING because once Ray Wise’s unstable Alec Holland goes away and Dick Durock’s cumbersome Swamp Thing arrives, the movie becomes a bit dull. I do like the relationship between Jade and Alice, but there’s not enough of it, and every time Arcane’s men show up, SWAMP THING goes right into the B-movie toilet. For some reason, Craven just uses them over and over again; they’re not a threat, they’re just goofy.

The action sequences are largely interminable. When the bad guys (who dress like they’re weekend paintball warriors for some reason) are fighting Swamp Thing, it’s unbelievable and boring. I don’t mind that Swamp Thing is a dude in a rubber suit, but when the dude in a rubber suit is supposed to do things that a dude in a rubber suit couldn’t possibly do, like play hide and seek with Arcane’s paintball soldiers … it gets a bit lame.

The film’s biggest problem is that it turns Alice from a competent, tough-as-nails special agent into a damsel in distress who constantly needs saving by Swamp Thing. Arcane even uses her to trap Swamp Thing and then they get stuck in a makeshift prison at his swamp-side mansion. Arcane holds a fancy dinner where gives some of Holland’s solution to one of his henchmen, who then turns into a midget pig person.

You did not read that wrong.

Arcane takes it himself and gets turned into god knows what the f*ck he’s supposed to be … big and ugly and all rubber-suitery so he and Swamp Thing can throw down for the big finish. Swamp Thing wins because it’s his movie, but then he turns Alice away at the end, sending her back to the city as he disappears into the swamp for a private pity party.

There’s a lot of talent involved in the film but it just doesn’t work for me. Barbeau manages to get some good chemistry going with both Holland and Jade, but neither of those relationships last, and her chemistry with Swamp Thing never gains any traction. Maybe it’s because Swamp Thing totally checks her out while she’s getting naked.

Or maybe it’s because it is hard god d*mn work to develop a relationship with a mopey dude inside a rubber suit.