Creepshow III Is Not Good

Let me just get this out of the way right off the bat; Creepshow III is not only the equivalent to a deadly malignant cancerous tumor on the Creepshow series, but represents a failure on every level to comprehend the idea of horror or horror comedies as a genre itself, and in fact. To call the writers and directors incompetent to a dangerous extent would be an understatement. I would not be at all surprised to learn that the people responsible for this abomination were in fact attempting to utterly destroy these genres from the pure and unbridled loathing for them on display here. Loathing for horror and a raging contempt for anyone unfortunate enough to be a viewer.

Horror films as a genre have had their fare share of turkeys. Terrible films that are dragged down by acting, writing, directing or simply budgetary constraints. In fact, as a horror fan, you give a bit of leeway allowing for certain restraints and embracing the clever ways some filmmakers have found to get around them. Or even laughing at their failed attempts in turn. But there is one thing that binds them together brilliant horror and humorous turkey alike, a love for the genre on display. Not just making some reference to other films, but a passion for the structure, strengths and fun of the horror movie itself.

The makers of Creepshow III said "Fuck that shit!" and now, here we are. You know how there are some people who have just... utterly and terrible ideas? You know what I'm talking about. Fans of one thing or another who will sit around discussing various ideas they'd have going into producing something and near universally, these are BAD ideas. Not just bad ideas, not just the kind of ideas that make you wonder if the most exposure they had to something was kinda seeing a picture once in passing, but the kind of ideas that make you question their competence and ability to feed themselves. You know what I'm talking about, you see them on the internet all the time. Now... Take a bunch of these people, put them in a room together, and give them the keys to an enjoyable franchise.

It's okay, come on back when you've stopped screaming in horror at the thought and your headache has subsided.

...All better? Good! Now, do yourself a favor a NEVER watch this movie. Don't even consider it. Don't even look at a picture of it. Don't give it a sideways glance at Best Buy or on Amazon. Don't even STEAL this thing off the internet. If you refuse to heed my warnings you will be exposed to the kind of horrors that would leave Lovecraft sobbing under his bed, reduced to a jibbering mess that would make ever the great Cthulhu go "...wow man, that's pretty fucked up."

I've seen some bad movies in my day. And I'm not talking about those "eh, it wasn't really all that great, but it was THE WURST THING EVAR!" movies people like to rag on like Waterworld or Gigli, you know what I mean. The kind of movies people talk about where you cock an eyebrow and wonder just how many movies they've seen to consider THAT the worst movie ever. Maybe with a tinge of jealousy that this poor innocent soul in unburdened by the taint some truly execrable movies leave stained upon your core. I'm not even talking about movies you saw on MST3K and convinced yourself that yes, you've seen the worst the world has to offer. Because you know what? The ones on MST3K are NOT the worst there is. These movies offer a certain giggling joy even without Joel/Mike and the bots there. No. I'm talking movies like Sleepless Nights, Alone in the Dark, or the latter Wishmaster movies. The kind of movies that aren't just bad, but Anti-Good. The kind of movie that you watch and just feel all joy being sucked from your being. This utterly horrible feeling of the sides of your mouth being irrevocably pulled downward into a frown of misery that one can get closest to the feeling of having someone tie you to a chair, duct tape your mouth shut, shit on your head and start screaming in your face "NOW WASN'T THAT FUCKING AWESOME!? YEAH!! LET'S DO IT AGAIN!" That's the kind of feeling I'm talking about. Creepshow III joins this "illustrious" club.

I don't think this movie would have pissed me off as much had they not slapped the Creepshow label on this thing. At least if it was released under its own title, you're just shitting in your own shoes, not the ones worn by the likes of George Romero and Stephen King.

The first two Creepshow movies were fun throwbacks to the EC era of horror comics and more or less directly responsible for the rebirth of Tales from the Crypt later on HBO. They had a few hiccups here or there, but they were exactly as I mentioned earlier, joyfull reveling in the genre with humor, gore and some pretty scary stuff to boot. (Come on, admit that thing in the crate messed you up a little in your younger years) They also had this wry wit and intelligence to them that all good horror movies need. George Romero never made a movie without some sort of message and social commentary in his life, and while Stephen King knows fuckall about concluding stories, he knows how to spin an engrossing yarn. To jump into this series, you need at least some quality of those things and at least a passion for the genre itself. Or AT LEAST have SEEN an episode of ANY horror anthology series in the last 50 years... Apparently even that was too much to ask.

As I sat watching this... movie, I kept getting this truly horrific vision in my head. The thought that there was someone, somewhere, and clearly more than one of them, who sat giggling to themselves as they wrote down these fucking stupid ass ideas. Now, normally, I'm adamant that there's no bad ideas, only the execution of them. This movie does its best to argue against this notion. "...and then she turns into a rabbit!" "And then there was a fucking monster!" "and then HE PULLS OUT THE HOT DOG!" All of these things were either written or spoken aloud just like that. At any point, someone had the ability to smack this person upside the head and go "What the HELL are you thinking?!" and they DIDN'T. And this very notion saddens the hell out of me. Worse, someone gave them MONEY to make the rest of us suffer through this.