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Creepshow 2 (1987)

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Overall Rating 62%
Overall Rating
Ranked #3,165
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Connections: Creepshow

EC Comics-inspired weirdness returns with three tales. In the first, a wooden statue of a Native American comes to life...to exact vengeance on the murderer of his elderly owners. In the second, four teens are stranded on a raft on a lake with a blob that is hungry. And in the third, a hit and run woman is terrorized by the hitchhiker she accidentally killed...or did she really kill him? --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: July 26, 2004
Three short stories taken from one of Stephen King's collection of short horror stories, told in the same style as the old Tales From The Crypt comics. Following the goodness that was the first movie in the series, I had some high hopes here... though those hopes were soon shattered. As with my review for the first, since none of these stories are related to each other, each will be reviewed separately.

First up, there's an intro with little Billy snagging a copy of Creepshow magazine and having a small chat with the Crypt-Keeper or whatever he's known as in this world. It starts off as live-action, with Tom Savini in a cameo role as the Crypt-Keeper himself, but soon turns into a cartoon bit... at which point, it completely goes to shit. Now, just having an intro and an outro as in the first film wouldn't have been too bad, so of course, these cartoon spots are also thrown in between each segment of the film. Still, this wouldn't have been a huge problem had they actually been decent, but we're treated to something that looks like one of those crappy cartoons that come on your local stations on Saturday mornings. Take out one use of the word "ass", and these segments would be fit for broadcast during that time slot. There's just something wrong with watching a horror film with plenty of violence, tit-shots and gore, and having all of that interrupted with a cheesy, made-for-six-year-olds segment. Onwards to the main segments of the show.

1. Old Chief Wood'nhead - An elderly couple run a small grocery store in the town of Dead River, and the town is starting to live up to its name. Business is down and the old lady wants to call it quits, but the man in the relationship wants to stick it out due to the fact that the store has been his whole life. Husband is in the process of touching up the paint on his decorative, life-sized Indian statue outside the place, when Indian chief Benjamin shows up. Apparently, the local Indians owe this couple a good chunk of cash, and being the proud people that they are, the chief offers them a large sized collection of jewels and stones valued at ten thousand dollars. If the Indians can't pay off their debt within two autumns, the jewels are his to keep. Things are definitely looking up for this couple, until a gang of local kids rob the place and kill the old folks. This doesn't sit too well with the Indian statue, which comes to life and seeks out revenge on the people that killed his owners / caretakers.

This one had all of the requirements to be a good one: a decent storyline perfectly fitting of the Tales From The Crypt comic, some nice death scenes, and a nice take on the revenge from beyond the grave theme. However, things just didn't work out once it all got put together. For starters, there's the acting; while the elderly couple are decent enough (though not spectacular), the kids who robbed them are horrid in their roles. It shouldn't have been too hard to round up three actors to play your run-of-the-mill eighties gang, but the final choices made for this cast were beyond bad. There's "Fat Stuff", who was the best of the bunch, if you can call it that... and the only reason he was the best was because of his limited amount of lines and parts. Then there's "Richie", who suffered from the just-here-for-a-check illness that seems to plague far too many movies. Call me crazy, but if my car had been demolished and I saw a wooden Indian coming after me with a knife, I'd look a bit more concerned than if I were standing in line at the supermarket. Rounding out the gang is the leader, Sam Whitemoon... the nephew of the chief who handed over the jewels. Being the leader of the gang, he obviously had the most lines and the most on-screen time, and of course, he was the absolute worst actor I've seen in recent times. While he was supposed to come off as an egotistical punk with dreams of hitting Hollywood, he came off looking like a reject from "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy", which wasn't exactly helpful in what was supposed to be a horror segment. After all this, tack on the fact that except for the elderly folks talking about their money, the entire segment was extremely rushed, and you have a pretty bad half hour of cinema. 3/10 for this particular one.

2. The Raft - A bunch of pot-smoking teens drive out to a deserted lake for some partying and some good old-fashioned fucking. They swim out to a raft that's floating in the middle of the lake, and commence with the weed-smoking and foreplay... until a black blob floats up towards the raft. Some discussion is had about what it is, and the kids figure it's just an oil-slick. While three out of the four in the group are quick to forget about it, one of the guys is a bit worried... seems he's a bookworm and has never seen anything like this. His girlfriend leans down to touch it, and the blob grabs her hand and pulls her into the water, burning her flesh off before devouring her. This doesn't sit too well with the rest of the gang, who find themselves trapped in the middle of the lake with nobody around for miles...

This segment of the movie wasn't too bad, but was really nothing too great. The storyline moves along nicely and never lingers on one part long enough to get boring, and some decent effects are shown for the most part... but when I say effects, I mean the death-scenes... not the blob itself. It comes off looking more like a bunch of trash bags floating in the water than the oil-slick that I'm assuming it was supposed to look like, which made the tense moments that were built up seem quite laughable while watching this collection of plastic slowly floating towards them. While that storyline does move along nicely for the most part, there is one scene that just baffled me as to why it was thrown in. If two of my friends had just been killed off by some blob floating in the water, and I was stuck there whilst watching it floating a few feet from me, I don't think that fondling a sleeping chick would be one of my highest priorities. It seemed like this whole scene was just thrown in to get one more pair of tits into the film, and while they were definitely some nice tits, it didn't make a whole lot of sense in the flow of the storyline. Overall rating for this one would be a 5/10; above-average storyline, below-average handling of it.

3. The Hitchhiker - After paying a male prostitute for sex, Annie Lansing is headed back to her town in order to meet up with her husband for some sort of thing they had planned... what it is she's going to be doing with him isn't dwelled on, and it isn't important to the storyline either. On the way home, she drops her cigarette and is distracted whilst trying to grab it, and swerves all over the road. While trying to regain control of the wheel, she runs over a hitchhiker that was standing unseen on the side of the road. As Annie is about to get out and check on him, a car starts to come around the corner. Not wanting to be responsible for this, she jumps into her car and takes off, leaving the man for dead. The problem here is the fact that this now-supernatural hitchhiker follows her and drives her insane with his repeated "thanks for the ride, lady" lines.

By far the best part of this movie. Things just work out so great here, but in the overall view of the movie, it was too little too late. Lois Chiles plays Annie, and comes off great as the typical yuppie business woman, always worried more about her money than anything else and being a snotty bitch to those around her. When her payback finally comes, it just seems that much more deserved and welcome. She was definitely the highlight of this segment, and the storyline just helped things that much more. It made the best of its time allotment, not feeling too rushed nor stretched-out, but given just the right amount of time. Finally, it didn't hurt too much that the effects on the hitchhiker were beyond goodness, and with all that in mind, this was one damned fine segment. 9/10 on this one.

My ratings for each segment rounds out to be a 6/10 for the movie itself, which still seems a bit too high for the overall entertainment of the film. Knock off a point for those lame cartoon segments, and that leaves us with a 5/10, which seems about right. Might be worth a rental on two-for-one-night at your local video store for the third segment alone, but don't go out of your way for that one thirty-minute piece.
Clarence Bodicker #1: Clarence Bodicker - added July 30, 2004 at 2:09am
In my opinion, just as good as the first Creepshow.
bluemeanie #2: bluemeanie - added November 4, 2005 at 10:35pm
Much better than the original. "The Raft" was one of the best shorts I have seen in a while, and I loved the one with the Indian even more I think. More imagination than horror, this is still a favorite of mine. 7/10.
Dametria #3: Dametria - added April 24, 2007 at 12:36pm
This was the first horror movie ever to scare me. My parents let me watch anything I wanted movie wise (except any nudity lol) and so I had seen most of the elm street, jason, halloween, ghoulies etc. films that had been released at this point but for some reason THIS was the movie that made me stop wtching horror movies for 2 years out of sheer fear! Granted I was 8 at the time.....
Ginose #4: Ginose - added May 6, 2007 at 7:17pm
Enjoyable... more-so than the first one, anyway... I loved the final scene of "The Raft" wow... I did NOT see that one coming.
Shakes #5: Shakes - added January 22, 2009 at 12:03pm
Excellent sequel. The Hitchhiker...oh my god, that was some of the funniest shit I've ever seen in my life. "THANKS FOR DA RIIDE LAYDAY!!!" PRICELESS.... 8/10
Shakes #6: Shakes - added January 23, 2009 at 6:39am
again: avoid creepshow 3 unless you are planning a slow and painful suicide.
sameep007 #7: sameep007 - added July 11, 2009 at 8:42am
the raft is the best in this creepshow 2 series.
Crispy #8: Crispy - added January 8, 2012 at 9:07am
Definitely a large step down from last time. The Raft is the only one worth rewatching. 5/10
Tobes #9: Tobes - added January 8, 2012 at 10:41am
I saw The Raft when I was a little kid, and it made me scared of dark water (rivers/oceans/etc).

I watched it again when I was 27 and thought to myself "Why the fuck was I afraid of garbage bags".

8/10
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