It had been awhile since I'd seen this 1982 horror flick, so I cued it up recently -- and laughed till I had tears in my eyes.
I had forgotten how funny this movie anthology of five tales really is. Yes, it was directed by George A. Romero, who achieved his greatest fame with truly chilling films such as "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead." But "Creepshow" is played mostly for grins. Stephen King wrote the screenplay, inspired by the horror comics he read as a kid in the 1950s.
My favorite of the five segments is "The Crate." In this one, Hal Holbrook is a henpecked university professor who is by turns embarrassed and humiliated by the drunken, verbally abusive behavior of his wife, Billie, played with deliciously wicked wit by the talented Adrienne Barbeau. "Just call me Billie," she says repeatedly at a faculty function, slurring her words and infuriating her long-suffering husband.
After an old crate is discovered under a stairwell at the college, all ... well, all H-E-double-hockey-sticks breaks loose when it's found that a horrible creature has been lurking in the box for decades. Holbrook's Henry sees an opportunity: Get the thing to attack his sotted spouse. "Just tell it to call you Billie," he says as he lures her into its presence.
Sick humor is the order of the day in the other segments as well. From a corpse who comes back from the grave to claim his birthday cake to a cranky codger with an insect phobia who learns what a real problem bugs can be, "Creepshow" is a (twisted) barrel of laughs.
Also noteworthy: Stephen King himself acts in one of the episodes, "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" -- and does a pretty darned credible job of it, too.