Creepshow: My favorite Movie to watch on Halloween

I’ve watched Creepshow twice, and I never watch movies twice. My Halloween tradition used to be to watch an obscure episode of R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour, but after watching Creepshow that has changed. This film is a mix of everything you loved about children’s Halloween specials but for mature audiences. The perfect Halloween movie, it’s a mix of both creepy and campy, with direction choices you’ll see nowhere else. 

Unlike in most horror-comedies, where there are separate terror-inducing and laughter-inducing scenes, Creepshow is able to keep a consistent, continuous blend of horror and comedy. Sometimes you can’t tell if you’re supposed to laugh or be scared, and feeling a mix of both leads to a very entertaining 2 hours. 

It helps that the concept for each vignette is horrifying. The antagonist of Richard Vickers in “Something to Tide you Over” commits spine chilling crimes. And, the affliction of Jordy Verril in “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” is nauseating. The film, after all, was written by horror master Steven King.  

Director George Romero created terrifying monsters for this film. While you could oftentimes tell they were fake, and that there was no life behind their eyes, their ghoulish appearances are nevertheless creepy. They’ll make you want to keep strange crates closed, and led to me keeping all my drawers closed as well, in case one of Romero’s creatures were to pop out. 

The acting in this film is perfect. The actors were able to transform themselves into these comic book people, which is no small feat. Yes, it’s overacting, but it’s overacting in the best possible way. (This includes Steven King, who played Jordy Verril perfectly, albeit probably on cocaine) 

I haven’t talked about the prologue and the epilogue. These sections try and tie the vignettes together by suggesting they’re a comic book come to life that a child, Billy, was yelled at for reading. As a fan of the horror genre, you are able to relate to Billy’s struggles and are happy in the epilogue when his situation is resolved in his favor.  

The biggest downside of this film is inherent by its nature. It’s excessively campy, and can be seen as cheap and stupid to some. As I mentioned before, it’s very much a Halloween special for adults, and if that interests you, watch this movie. 

While I love this film, it would be harmful to do a review of it without talking about it’s biggest issue: misogyny. While you don’t see the Madonna, or the whore, this movie has a female character which can be read as a villainized version of a strong woman. Although she ends up not being a good person, the initial portrait of her we receive doesn’t come across, in 2020, as horrendous as it was meant to. Again, she’s a bad person, which is why I’ve saved this comment for the very end, but do proceed with caution.