Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Horror Thoughts ‘12—Creepshow 2 (1987) *



R, 92 min.
Director: Michael Gornick

Writers: George A. Romero, Stephen King (stories)
Starring: George Kennedy, Dorothy Lamour, Frank Salsedo, Holt McCallany, David Holbrook, Don Harvey, Paul Satterfield, Jeremy Green, Daniel Beer, Page Hannah, Lois Chiles, Tom Wright, Stephen King

When I was a kid, my brother was a Stephen King fanatic. He consumed anything and everything King. He read all the books as they were released. He saw all the movie adaptations in the theaters. I was really too young for the King train when he was riding it high.


For some reason, “Creepshow” had been huge success in my brother’s eyes, perhaps because it contained mostly original stories that were written by King just for the movie. But then, the two best segments were based on previous King stories. Whatever the case, I think my brother enjoyed King’s short stories the most. He was a huge fan of King’s anthology “Skeleton Crew”. At the time of the release of “Creepshow 2”, the short story “The Raft” from that collection was one of his favorite King stories to make it to the silver screen.  

I remember the night my brother went to see the movie. He came home with a look on his face as if to say, “Why would you steal my puppy?” He hated the movie. He said it was awful. I asked him about “The Raft”, because that was one of the few King stories I had read at that time. “It was terrible,” he said, “the creature looked like a big trash bag sitting in the lake.”

From that point forward, it seemed my brother lost some of his enthusiasm for King—the movies at least, if not the work of the man as a whole. I’m not sure the movie called for a defection from King all together, but his opinion did keep me away from the movie for all these years.

So, now I’ve seen it and I can confirm that my brother was right about it. It is terrible. “The Raft” is not only the best segment, but also the best story idea of all the segments, and it is terrible. My brother described the creature perfectly. It looks like a trash bag floating in a lake. I don’t think the other two segments are even worth discussing. Just trust my brother. He was once Stephen King’s biggest fan.




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