The spooky host known as "The Creep" presents three more chilling tales from Stephen King and George Romero. First, a Native American statue comes to life in order to exact revenge on some hoodlums. Second, four people find themselves stranded on a raft in the middle of a lake, with a strange, black blob surrounding them. Third, the victim of a hit and run will not rest, and continuously harasses his murderer...
Controversial statement time: I think Creepshow is the best horror anthology film ever made. Every segment is distinctive, the acting is fine, and overall, it's just a blast to watch. Given the surprise success of the film, I can't say I was surprised when many years ago I was told of this film's existence. Unfortunately, what we get isn't up to par with its predecessor. For starters, I was bummed out to discover that there are only three stories in Creepshow 2, as opposed to the original's five. I'm not saying that more is better, but it would have offered more substance.
The first segment, "Old Chief Wood'nhead," was probably my favorite, even if it was the most predictable of the bunch. It feels closer to a supernatural tale of revenge than a horror film, but it does have some wonderfully silly performances from everyone involved. I thought we could have saved the potential twist of the statue coming to life for a little later, as we see it on a couple of occasions before the bloodshed where it is clearly alive. There's a hell of a lot of exposition towards the middle, but we are dealing with a short after all, so there isn't much time to spend on filming an entire backstory. Fun.
"The Raft" is arguably the most memorable of these tales, and it isn't hard to see why. The deaths are fairly cool, and the monster itself reminded me of a mixture of Hedorah's vomit and the title creature from The Blob. The makeup work here excels too, with some great work from the usually reliable Greg Nicotero. If the acting would've been stronger, and the characters a tad bit more relatable, I think this would've been my favorite. As it turns out, it just ends up being decent.
My biggest complaints lie with the final segment, "The Hitchhiker." The concept is amusing, and there is an always fun cameo from Stephen King himself, but it is brought down by some one of the worst choices for a segment that I've ever seen: having the main character speak in "thought bubbles." As it was evidenced in 2009's Watchmen, this idea doesn't always work, and some lines of dialogue are best left printed and not read. Like the first segment, this is also entirely too predictable, but it does have breasts, so there you go.
In the end, Creepshow 2 is just kind of...there. I didn't find anything offensively terrible, but there was nothing terribly great to enjoy. If you're curious about wanting to watch this, I can't fault you for wanting to do so.
Now if it's Creepshow 3 you're interested in watching, then we may have to talk.
Tomorrow, we're taking a trip back to the 70s (and away from Sequelville) with THE SENTINEL.
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