Director George A Romero will always be known by the public as the king of the Zombie film with classics such as Dawn Of The Dead, but in 1982 in collaboration with author Stephen King made a movie based on the old E.C. Horror comics, Creepshow.
Creepshow is an anthology of five stories and stars Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver, Leslie Nielsen, and E.G. Marshall.
The first tale, “Father’s Day,” features a murdered father returning as a zombie to claim his Father’s Day cake; “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” stars King himself as a country yokel whose discovery of a radioactive meteorite turns him into a walking plant; “Something to Tide You Over” presents Leslie Nielsen as a unhappy husband who plans an elaborate seaside revenge; “The Crate” unleashes its ferocious man-eating contents on the enemies of a college professor, and finally “They’re Creeping Up On You” pits obsessively-clean billionaire E.G. Marshall fighting against a swarm of cockroaches in his sterile penthouse.
Most of the stories work really well, the direction gives a superb comic book feel, the horror is shown, but not in a nasty way, its all part of the fun. The only negative is the Stephen King story where he gets to overact terribly and his story is pretty pointless too. All the other cast members are very good in their roles and overall the film captures beautifully the spirit of classic EC Comics.
The Blu ray released by Second Sight is excellent. Picture quality is provided by a solid 1080P transfer, you can see DNR has been applied, sometimes too generously, but overall its a vast improvement over the DVD. The sound has a choice of 5.1 DTS HDMA or LPCM 2.o. Both do a good job, the DTS mix is especially enveloping.
Extras are superb and are far superior to the USA release of the film. JUST DESSERTS: THE MAKING OF CREEPSHOW (90 mins HD) is a comprehensive look at the making of the film with interviews and comments from people such as George A Romero, Tom Savini, Ed Harris and many more.
There are two interesting audio commentaries, the first with Director George Romero and Tom Savini with moderation provided by Michael Felsher. The second is Michael Felsher again who moderates the new commentary but it’s not so much a straightforward commentary than four interviews Felsher conducted. He states up front that these four people were participants he couldn’t get for the doc, Just Desserts. He interviews Director Of Photography Michael Gornick, Actor John Amples, Property Master Bruce Alan Green and Make-Up Effects Assistant Darryl Ferrucci.
Also to round it up there is Behind the Screams with Tom Savini’ (26:29) which has lots of footage taken during production of Savini working on the various FX set pieces and make-up. Deleted scenes: interesting look and some of the footage cut out before release and Trailers and a stills gallery.
A fantastic release for fans of the film and another class Blu ray from Second Sight. Totally recommended.
REGION B LOCKED
FILM: 8 PICTURE: 7.5 AUDIO: 8 EXTRAS: 9
