Creepshow

This collaboration between director George Romero and horror novelist Stephen King is a loving tribute to the E.C. comic books of the 1950s. Unfortunately, it never quite gels. The film starts off on a stormy night with an angry father's discovery that his son has been reading an E.C.

comic book, He throws the book into the street, where the wind opens it to the first of five vignettes, a tale about a long-buried corpse that returns on his birthday to wreak havoc.

Each vignette features a cast full of recognizable actors who play the material in an appropriately broad manner. Stylistically, Romero attempts to duplicate the look of an E.C. comic book and relies heavily on exaggerated lighting schemes and angles; however, the trick simply doesn't work, and

the film looks ham-handed and juvenile. Moreover, King's stories are nothing special, and with the exception of the final entry, nothing in the film is particulary scary.

Romero is capable of much better, but ironically, CREEPSHOW was his biggest box-office hit The sequel, CREEPSHOW 2, in which Romero adapted more King stories with the directorial chores handed over to CREEPSHOW cinematographer Michael Gornick, is even worse.