Creepshow (R)
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Caution: potential spoilers.

This came out in 1982, but I didn't see it until 2025. It was written by Stephen King and directed by George A. Romero (of Night of the Living Dead fame). The movie is an homage to horror comics of the 1950s, which I've never read. It consists of five stories plus a framing device. Two of the stories were based on previously published short stories by King, and the rest were original to this movie. I really wanted to like it, but I'm afraid for the most part, I didn't. I didn't find any of it particularly scary or funny. I do like the concept of the film, and I know a lot of people are fans of it, so I feel sorry that it just didn't work for me.

It begins with a father scolding his son, Billy, for reading a horror comic book called "Creepshow", which he throws out in the trash. Then there are opening credits, and then we move into the first actual story.

Father's Day
A woman named Sylvia Grantham hosts her nephew Richard and niece Cass, and Cass's new husband, Hank (Ed Harris) for an annual dinner which is always also attended by Sylvia's aunt, Bedelia, who killed her own father, Nathan, years ago. Before the dinner, Bedelia always spends some time in the family's cemetery by her father's grave. This year, however, Nathan's corpse rises from the grave and kills Bedelia. And he continues killing people. And there's not much else to say about the story. I just found the whole thing rather cheesy.

The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill
Stephen King plays the title character, who is supposed to be a comedically dim-witted hick, but I found the performance mildly offensive, rather than funny. Like, he's more of a caricature of a hick than anything realistic. Anyway, he finds a meteorite, which he hopes to sell to a college the next day. But when he touches it, he is infected, and starts growing alien vegetation all over his body. The vegetation also spreads all over his farm and house. Throughout the story, there are a number of fantasy sequences. And in the end, he kills himself. I didn't care for the story at all.

Something to Tide You Over
A wealthy man named Richard Vickers (Leslie Nielsen) pays a visit to Harry Wentworth (Ted Danson), who is having an affair with Richard's wife, Becky. He drives Harry to the beach, telling him he'll get to see Becky. Then, at gunpoint, he forces Harry to bury himself in the sand up to his neck. Richard then brings out a TV and VCR, and shows Harry a video feed of Becky, who is also buried in the sand, as the tide comes in and slowly drowns her. The same fate awaits Harry. Richard goes back home, but is later visited by the ghost of Harry and Becky. I actually thought this story wasn't too bad.

The Crate
A man named Henry Northup (Hal Holbrook) attends a party with his drunken, obnoxious wife, Billie (Adrienne Barbeau). Also at the party is a Henry's friend Dexter Stanley, who gets a call from a janitor named Mike, who works at the same university as Henry and Dexter, who are professors. Dexter goes to the university so Mike can show him his discovery, a crate that was hidden under a staircase, labeled with a date in 1834, from an Arctic expedition. The two of them open the crate, and find a monster inside. (I'd guess it was a yeti, but who knows?) It kills Mike, and later kills a graduate student named Charlie. Then, Dexter runs away to Henry's home and tells him his story. Henry goes to the university to investigate, and comes up with a plan to do away with his wife (after having previously had fantasies of killing her). I won't say any more about the plot, but I thought this story was kind of okay.

They're Creeping Up on You!
A germaphobic businessman named Upson Pratt lives in a hermetically sealed home, which has somehow become infested with cockroaches. He manages to kill quite a few of them, but ultimately there are too many, and they overcome him. I guess he has a heart attack, but even if he hadn't, I'm sure he would have drowned in cockroaches. There's a bit more to the story than that, as he occasionally has contact with other people over the phone or at his front door (which he doesn't open), but for the most part it's just Pratt and the bugs. I guess I didn't really care about this story one way or the other.

The film then returns to the framing device, with a couple of garbagemen finding the discarded comic book and looking through it at ads for various mail-order items. They find that someone had already sent away for a voodoo doll, which we later see Billy using to hurt his father.

Well, I'm glad I finally watched the movie, but I have no interest in ever seeing it again. It's not that it was bad, I just couldn't really get into it that much. And I have no interest in seeing the sequels, which are not as highly regarded as this movie. Then again, it might be interesting to see if I'd actually like them more or less than this movie. I suppose it's not impossible that I'd like one or both of them more than the people do who like this movie more than I do. But I doubt it. I'm also not really interested in the Creepshow TV series.