I remember seeing Creepshow and Creepshow 2 on Fox 5/45 on a Sunday at my grandmother's house. Back then, Fox was the upstart new network, and would run a lot of movies (must have been cheap) late at night and back-to-back-to-back on Sundays.
Creepshow is an anthology of three horror stories. The first is about a wooden figure of an American Indian that animates when a store owner is senselessly murdered; the figure takes bloody revenge (and it's very satisfying). The second is truly terrifying, four teens go swimming in a lake that has a giant black jellyfish monster in it... a very very hungry jellyfish blob monster. Ugh, shudder.
The third is, in my opinion, the weakest, and features a woman who runs over a hitchhiker... but he won't stay dead. There is too little punchline or reward in that one's ending, I think. In between the stories are nice little animated sequences about a boy reading the Creepshow comic. This is pretty well known horror, and worth checking out to get a general feel for upmarket '80s horror fare. Based on Stephen King!
I really wanted to like this... but couldn't. The killer's identity was painfully obvious early on, and the movie just closes up and becomes less and less interesting. What's interesting here is a relatively early performance by Bill Paxton, who seems to be having a lot of fun as a [SPOILER] psycho.
What's not interesting is everything else. The plot is a huge mess, the acting is all over the place, and there is little payoff of any kind. This had potential but it kept derailing. Avoid unless you're a big Bill Paxton completionist.
Great title! As the opening somberly intones: "When the world is ruled by violence, and the soul of mankind fades, the children's path shall be darkened by the shadows... of the NEON MANIACS." Groovy stuff.
The a jaunty jazz tune starts up and everything falls apart immediately. What did I expect? Weird noises in San Francisco... surprise, surprise, it's the neon maniacs. The makeup on them is abysmal. Everything is shot in shadow, probably to conceal the low budget. I was supremely unimpressed by this generic horror tale of monsters attack, humans rally and fight back. Avoid avoid avoid.
Here's one I had never heard of, but enjoyed. The film opens with two greasers playing chicken at a cliffside. One jumps out, the other... dies in a fiery wreck. And becomes a ghost. And is tasked with salvaging a super nerd. Who may be his son.
The movie is quite fun, and benefits from great acting performances throughout. It's a little predictable, but that's sort of par for the course for films like this. It's well worth seeing.
Another weird entry brought to you by Amazon Prime, this takes place in the early 80s New Wave movement. What a WEIRD movie. This is all about drugs, really. The drug scene in New York in the New Wave movement of the early 80s when everybody looks like Bowie. This movie is... OK. At best. The movie is not really checking out unless this specific scene is your specialty.
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