Released in cinemas in 1982, CREEPSHOW is typically regarded as a minor entry both in the film output of George A. Romero and the adaptations of the works of Stephen King. Yet this lack of critical attention hides the fact that CREEPSHOW is the only full collaboration between America’s bestselling horror author and one of the masters of American horror cinema.
Long considered too mainstream for the director of DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978), too comic for the author that gave audiences the film versions of CARRIE (1976) and THE SHINING (1980), and too violent for a cinemagoing public turning away from gore cinema in the autumn of 1982, CREEPSHOW is here reassessed by Simon Brown, who examines the making and release of the film and its legacy through a comic book adaptation and two sequels. His analysis focuses upon the key influences on the film, not just Romero and King, but also the portmanteau horror sub-genre, body horror cinema and the special make-up effects of Tom Savini, the relationship between horror and humour, and the tradition of EC horror comics of the 1950s, from which the film draws both its thematic preoccupations and its visual style.
Author Simon Brown is Associate Professor of Film and Television at Kingston University. He has published numerous articles on Stephen King adaptations, including, most recently, the monograph Screening Stephen King: Adaptation and Horror Genre in Film and Television (University of Texas Press, 2018).