Creepshow

CREEPSHOW (George A. Romero, 1982)

In sports it’s said that you play the game because having the best team on paper doesn’t guarantee wins.  Adapting the truism for movies, you watch a film because there’s no certainty the end product will be artistically successful no matter how good the assembled talent is.  CREEPSHOW boasts the director of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAWN OF THE DEAD and a screenplay by one of the most popular contemporary horror writers.  George A. Romero and Stephen King’s key roles seemingly assure spooky fun, but the anthology film turns out to be a mediocre effort short on scares and laughs.

CREEPSHOW plays up its 1950s horror comic book inspiration by occasionally setting action within printed frames, including captions, and utilizing page turn and panel wipe transitions.  In the prologue an angry father throws away his son’s horror comic, an action which he suffers for in the epilogue. The film’s five scary and comedic tales ostensibly come from the pages of this disreputable book.

In “Father’s Day” a family awaits the annual arrival of a relative who always visits her dad’s grave on the holiday when she murdered him.  “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” features the titular hillbilly (King) discovering that he shouldn’t have touched the meteor that landed on his property.  In “Something To Tide You Over” a vengeful husband (Leslie Nielsen) buries his wife (Gaylen Ross) and her lover (Ted Danson) up to their heads on the shore.  Unleashing the terrifying contents of a hidden box from an 1834 Arctic expedition has benefits and drawbacks for two college professors (Hal Holbrook and Fritz Weaver) in “The Crate”.  A ruthless businessman (E.G. Marshall) tries to eradicate the roaches invading his futuristic, supposedly germ-free penthouse in “They’re Creeping Up On You!”

Inevitably some segments will be better than others in omnibus films, but CREEPSHOW stacks the worst entries at the beginning. “Father’s Day” is essentially a long set-up for a gory punchline.  “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” has a couple amusing touches, like the character’s belief that the local college has a Department of Meteors to purchase his find and a suitably sick conclusion, yet King’s hammy performance obstructs any semblance of terror in the scenario.  Although “Something To Tide You Over” marks a shift toward striking the right balance between fear and dark humor, especially with shots that convey the drowning sensation, it’s padded with unmenacing scenes.

It’s not until “The Crate” that CREEPSHOW finally begins to deliver on the promise of its primary creative forces.  One professor’s fantasies of killing his vulgar wife (Adrienne Barbeau) lack comedic or horrific surprise, but there is a satisfyingly grisly death when a graduate student gets a chunk bitten out of his neck by the hideous monster.  Romero also sustains tension from the simple act of slowly trying to lock a crate.  The segment dallies in the beginning but works overall as a thematic exploration of the darkness that lurks in the hearts of men.  

CREEPSHOW largely avoids the broader social concerns in Romero’s other films until “They’re Creeping Up On You!”  The story is built around a cutthroat executive whose wealth allows him to be literally sealed off from society, which isn’t exactly subtle but makes the point effectively nonetheless.  More than the other entries, it taps into consistent creepiness by virtue of those nasty bugs, especially in the punctuating gross-out images.  

Although the humor in CREEPSHOW often falls flat, the film’s light touch with horror offsets some of the narrative tedium and predictability.  Two good stories out of five produces the kind of success rate acceptable for baseball batting averages, not movies.  A Romero and King collaboration had potential, but CREEPSHOW is about as frightening as a Halloween sound effects record.

Grade: C

Big Miracle

BIG MIRACLE (Ken Kwapis, 2012)

In BIG MIRACLE a family of three gray whales gets trapped in the ice off the Arctic coast of Point, Barrow, Alaska.  TV news reporter Adam Carlson (John Krasinski) is shooting another story when he spots the father, mother, and baby whales poking through a hole in the ice.

A frozen column of ice is blocking the whales from swimming south.  To survive the whales keep a hole open by regularly bringing their beaks and heads above the water’s surface so this small patch doesn’t freeze.  While this method helps them for the time being, it can’t be sustained indefinitely, whether because of the injuries they may incur or colder temperatures that may freeze the hole shut.

Adam sends his report to his home affiliate in Anchorage and then watches as it ignites a media circus and an international effort to save the creatures.  Adam’s Greenpeace activist ex-girlfriend Rachel Kramer (Drew Barrymore) rushes north to see what she can do.  Reporters flock to the small, isolated town, including the ambitious Jill Jerard (Kristen Bell), who views the story as a chance to do more serious work.

With the sly encouragement of his wife, who hints at the public relations benefits from providing assistance, oil company executive J.W. McGraw (Ted Danson) offers the use of his barge to break the ice.  Two Minnesota inventors (James LeGros and Rob Riggle) see an opportunity to showcase their water-warming product and jumpstart sales for their company.  The Inuit community initially favors killing the whales for their people to use but recognizes how their custom will play to a worldwide audience and throws in their support.  The Reagan administration also gets involved, in part to counter its negative environmental record and help current Vice-President George Bush in a Presidential election year.

The big miracle of BIG MIRACLE is that it turns out to be a heartwarming, serious-minded, all-ages film.  Based on a real 1988 operation to save three whales, it’s predictable and plays out like a large scale TV movie, but BIG MIRACLE is invested with solid craftsmanship and a nuanced view of how idealism, pragmatism, and politics intersect.

Although no one will mistake this for the family version of Billy Wilder’s cynical media satire ACE IN THE HOLE, director Ken Kwapis and screenwriters Jack Amiel and Michael Begler examine the self-serving motivations of all involved with the rescue.  The irony is that with everyone acting in their own vested interests, something great is achieved that would otherwise have been too expensive and inefficient to pull off.

The characters are drawn in surprising and atypical ways.  Barrymore’s activist is driven by the purest intentions and possesses the moral upper hand, but she’s consistently the most unpleasant person on the scene. Rachel means well, perhaps more than anyone else.  She also contains the potential to create the most problems.  Conversely, most films would fall back on TV reporters standing in as the convenient villains.  While Adam and Jill hope to exploit their coverage of the story for career advancement, the fact that they’re giving the whales airtime helps push the effort along.  Without the journalists and photographers, public interest would likely be too low for all of the parties to make the commitment.

If a movie is referred to as being for the whole family, it’s usually shorthand for computer animation, like the Pixar films; sensory overloading but bloodless action, like the SPY KIDS films; or puerile comedy, like Eddie Murphy’s string of PG-rated films.  BIG MIRACLE lives up to the classical definition of a family film.  It’s thoughtful, moving, funny for kids and adults, and provides discussion fodder for the car ride home.

Grade: B