Word: romero
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...COULD HAVE been a fascinating combination of sleazy artistry. George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead), the Pittsburgh poet of zombie cannibalism, and Stephen King (Carrie, The Shining), the man who took horror out of the subconscious and put it back on America's supermarket shelves; one of the last of the true B movie filmmakers directing a screenplay by the foremost purveyor of mass paperback horror. Unfortunately, a potentially interesting juxtaposition fails. Romero's shock tactics end up being overwhelmed by King's schlock tactics, and the result, Creepshow, is certainly not worthy...
...shame that Creepshow fails so miserably, even as crude entertainment, because the initial premise is a good one. In the horror genre, King and Romero represent the opposite poles of safe commercialism and bizarre individuality, but here they both go back to their common root--the pulp comic book. The short vignette, already used to great effect in such classics as Tales from the Crypt and the marvelous Dead of Night, is the perfect medium to evoke the atmosphere of horror comics--those brief blurry flashes of primary-colored terror framed by win-great-prizes-selling-junk-door-to-door...
King, and Romero begin by using this format in a cleverly literal way. The film opens with a burst of dialogue breaking the stolid silence of some suburban Elm St. "I told you not to read this crap! Where did you get this shit?" an irate dad yells at his son cowering among toy monsters in the bedroom. The father snatches the latest issue of "Creepshow" from the boy's hands. The camera then focuses on the comic book as it lies in the front lawn garbage can, letting the wind-ruffled pages tell each story by segueing from animated...
Aside from the fact of their collaboration, Creepshow represents another first for both Romero and King. This is Romero's first film released by a major studio, and the constraints of commercial moviemaking seem to have dulled his atmospheric B movie sensibility. And it's the first time King has ever directly written a screenplay; up to now, his books have always been adapted by others, sometimes quite successfully, as in the case of Carrie. Perhaps if both men each return to their previous status they will once again be at the vanguard of horror entertainment, but here they have...
...Stephen King. He expects to earn about $2 million this year, mostly as a result of making people's flesh crawl. The number of his books in print (predominantly paperbacks) climbs toward 40 million. Indeed, his pot currently boileth over. Creepshow, an original King screenplay directed by George Romero (Night of the Living Dead), will be released in October; a $6.95 comicbook version of the script has just been published by New American Library as part of the promotional hoopla. An adaptation of Firestarter, the sixth of King's seven novels, is being filmed in Michigan, where local...