Sunday 10 December 2017

Review: Creepshow 2 (1987)

Stars: Lois Chiles, Tom Savini

Budget: $3.5 Million

Directed By: Micheal Gornick

The second film of one of my favourite anthology series's Based off Stephen King stories this one was directed by Micheal Gornick instead of Romero.

This one is almost exactly the same in tone, comedy horror with the first segment 'old chief wooden head' probably being the most serious of the three.
Notice i say three there, this offering only gives us 3 complete stories. There is like the first one a prologue and epilogue, though also in between each segment we have a an interlude too continue the prologue but mostly to introduce the next story.

There was supposed to be two other segments though they were cut for both budgetary and time restraints. Though Billed as a star Tom Savini plays the Creep but for only a few brief minutes before the segment turns into cartoons and is then voiced by a different actor.

-Prologue-
A young boy with the same name as the kid from the first, though it is not stated he is the same kid at all, travels on his bike to the back of a truck where the shutter flies up and reveals the creep. He is dressed as a delivery guy and throws out a brown paper parcel. It starts to unwrap itself as the live action dissolves into cartoon instead where the delivery guy reveals his identity. He then proceeds to introduce the first proper segment as Billy reads.

Old Chief Wooden Head:
In a town thats still kind of back water with old tensions still between native americans and whites are still tense two old people own an old store. The town is dying out slowly and the owners of the general store are thinking of retiring themselves.
The store is decorated by an old wooden indian used for advertising many years ago. The couple are called Ray and Martha, they are pleasantly surprised to get a visit from an old Indian friend Elder Benjamin. He comes bearing a gift for them, turquoise jewelry as his tribe are indebted to Ray for help he has given them in hard times. Given the valuables until his tribe can pay back the debt they owe the two Benjamin leaves but not before nodding farewell to the wooden statue.
Not long after Sam, Benjamins nephew along with two of his friends, fatstuff and Andy bust into the shop and subject the two to a robbery. However once he demands the jewelry that his uncle left with them the two decline to hand it over. Sam is very vain and says he wants it to make money so he can get to Hollywood and become famous.
In a scuffle both Ray and Martha are fatally wounded by Sams shotgun, the three of them after taking the jewelry and money leave the crime scene. Chief Woodenhead comes to life and then starts to kill the thugs one by one. I won't spoil any further just to say this is the most serious out of the three stories with little to no comedic elements, rightly so as the two old folk are brutally murdered by the three thugs, a good story though.

-Interlude 1-
Billy finishes reading old Chief Woodenhead and then grabs a package addressed to him from the local post office, despite the protestations of the clerk. He replies the package contains a Venus flytrap to which he rolls his eyes at.

The Raft:
Randy and his three friends Deke, Lavern and Rachel all college students find themselves a lake that just so happens to have one of those white floating rafts out from shore. They all decide to swim out there and party it up a little. Rachel is however grabbed and consumed by the 'blob like' floating black good that looks like an oil slick (which she pokes repeatedly)
Terrified the teens argue for a while upon the raft before Deke the more athletic and stronger of him and Randy decides to try for a swim ashore. Before he can however the mass seeps up through the crack in the boards of the raft and pull him through the planks consuming him too.
Then in one of the most stupidest moves ever (after dodging the blob by not standing on the cracks) both Lavern and Randy fall asleep on the deck. Yeah fall asleep with the cracks and a giant blob tar monster that's clever etc!
Well anyway Randy wakes up suddenly realising they fell asleep and for some unknown reason starts to fondle the sleeping Lavern. We see it may have been a ploy for the creature to attack Lavern to give Randy time to escape as Lavern wakes up screaming with the blob attached to her face.
Randy leaps from the raft and begins his swim back to shore, does he make it?
Well you'll have to watch the film to find out!

-Interlude 2-
Billy is seen and chased by the local bully who grabs his box and rips it open seeing the bulb for the plant inside he throws it to the ground and crushes it underfoot. Billy having thrown to the ground manages to get a swift kick into Rhino's nuts and escapes from the gang.

The Hitcher-hiker:
An older business woman awakes next to man, Mrs Lansing, who by her speaking to herself we realise has been cheating on her husband with a gigolo. Seeing it is late she quickly leaves so she can be home before her husband gets back.
Flying down the road at high speed she fails to see a hitch-hiker thumbing for a lift as shes pruning herself in the rear-view mirror. The unlucky man is knocked over and killed instantly, in fear and also the want to get home she just leaves his corpse by the roadside.
Pulling over a little while away from the accident Mrs Lansing thinks she may have gotten away with it, not worrying about the consequences. Suddenly the hiker pops up by her window claiming "thanks for the ride lady!" He keeps repeating this throughout the segment, no matter how mashed he gets.
No matter where she drives though the hitcher keeps reappearing eve when she continuously keeps running him over. He keeps coming back more and more mutilated each time. Does Mrs Lansing make it home before her husband notices or the hitcher kills her?
You'll have to watch it and see!

-Epilogue-
Billy makes the gang follow him for a while until they reach an abandoned junk yard where Billy has a surprise waiting for them!

Overall and considering this was the first one of the trilogy i watched so that make me biased somewhat I like the second creepshow just a tiny bit more than the first one but still it has some flaws like i explained in the raft one, so THN awards Creepshow 2, 4 out of 5 stars


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