Creepshow 2 - Kleine Horrorgeschichten

You have to be in the mood to watch this sort of thing late at night and I was definitely in the mood although I was about to turn the film off after the first story about the wooden Indian. I just wanted to watch that to see what DOROTHY LAMOUR was doing in a horror film. I notice she won a Saturn award for the role but I was underwhelmed by her performance.

However, if you stay with it, CREEPSHOW 2 improves with each story. There are no real touches of originality in any of them except for the clever use of animation used quite extensively and very effectively to bridge the gap between stories.

CHIEF WOODEN HEAD gets the film off to a start about a couple running a store in the middle of the desert without paying customers who are left some valuables by an Indian who owes them a debt. What they don't know is that their store is about to be invaded by a trio of ruthless thugs led by an Indian lad who is willing to kill in order to grab whatever loot he can. Their death is avenged by--well, guess who? Some clever touches here, but nothing that really stands out. Nice performance by GEORGE KENNEDY gives the whole tale some much needed class.

THE RAFT is compulsively watchable once you see the set-up wherein four attractive young couples decide to swim out to a raft where they are all about to meet their grisly deaths. PAUL SATTERFIELD in his yellow speedos is the standout among these and his demise is particularly chilling. It's got all the requisite suspense and horror you'd expect from King and the special effects are particularly gruesome. DANIEL BEER as Satterfield's worried pal does a nice job, especially in the scene where he almost takes advantage of the sleeping gal.

THE HITCHHIKER could easily have been the one that steals the show, but it becomes a little too repetitious and fond of its own dark sense of humor to be taken seriously. Howevere, LOIS CHILES is very convincing as the distraught woman at the wheel who does everything she can to get rid of a dead man who keeps coming back for more.

Summing up: Give it a chance and it becomes compulsively watchable in the old tradition of horror king Stephen.

"Creepshow 2" is divided in three stories, conducted by a leading segment where a boy that loves the horror comic book Creepshow buys seeds of carnivorous plant and is bullied by four teenagers. Meanwhile the Creep tells the tales of Creepshow:

(1) "Old Chief Wood'nhead" - The elders Ray (George Kennedy) and Martha Spruce (Dorothy Lamour) have lived their whole life and raised their family with their small store in an Arizona town. Now the town is economically decadent and Ray gives credit to his costumers including the Indians of Ben Whitemoon's tribe. When Ray is repairing the wooden statue of an old chief in the front door, Ben (Frank Salsedo) arrives and asks him to keep the jewels of his tribe as a guarantee for their debts. However, Ben's nephew Sam (Holt McCallany) unexpectedly arrives with two other punks to steal Ray, and he kills the elders. They expect to travel to Hollywood, but the Old Chief Wood'nhead will not let them go.

This segment is the best one, with a heartbreaking and gore tale of justice and revenge. My vote is eight.

(2) "The Raft" - The teenagers Deke (Paul Satterfield) and Randy (Daniel Beer) travel with Laverne (Jeremy Green) and Rachel (Page Hannah) to a lake expecting to smoke weed, swim and get laid. They swim to a raft that is floating in the middle of the lake, but they discover a carnivorous blob in the lake that is hungry.

This segment is silly but the conclusion is very funny. Daryl Hannah's red haired sister is gorgeous but has a minor participation in the story. My vote is six.

(3) "The Hitchhiker" - In Maine, the unfaithful Annie Lansing (Lois Chiles) stays too long having sex with her escort and is late to meet her husband at home. She drives her Mercedes Bens in a hurry and loses control on the road. Annie runs over a hitchhiker, but she does not help the man and hit-and-run, questioning whether she can live with the situation. She discovers that the hitchhiker will not leave her.

This is the creepiest segment, with a cameo of Stephen King in the role of a truck driver. Would Annie's conscience or the hitchhiker be haunting Annie? My vote is seven.

I regret that only three films have been released for this entertaining series. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Creepshow 2"

Note: On 28 Aug 2020, I saw this film again.

Creepshow 2 has Steven King and George Romero returning for this sequel but only in the writing. The budget is substantially lower and so is the overall quality of the production. With that said, it is still fairly entertaining anthology horror based of the EC comics. In the original film there were 5 short stories, in this there are 3(because they ran out of money). Had there been a bigger budget and with George Romero directing this could have been closer in quality to the original Creepshow. Having said that this is still a good time passer and a basically a bridge between Creepshow and the excellent Tales From The Crypt series, which was awesome and would be on HBD for a long time.

Hate to say it guys, but I liked this one better. One was good, but this one is so silly, so comical at times, that I just loved it. If you're unfamiliar with the format, there are 3 short stories featured here. Up first is a wooden indian that adorns the front of a general store, coming to life to kill the goons who gunned down his owners. Holt McCallany is very strong as the foul mouthed leader of the gang. And the way he gets his...hoo boy. Number two has a man-eating oil slick(?) snacking on teens on a wooden raft. And most people are right when they say it looks like a big hefty bag. And a moment that will have you rolling, and that will give teenage boys ideas and have men remembering fondly when they may have done it, is where the surviving guy takes a peek under the surviving girls sweater. Good to see where this dudes priorities are; two of his friends are dead, he's nearly been killed, and he decides its a good time to look at boobies. I loved it. But my absolute favorite of both Creepshow films is the hitchhiker story. It's so hysterically unrealistic that it still makes me laugh all these years later. With Lois Chiles mind-losing dialogue, and the dead guys constant "thanks for the ride, lady!" I can't imagine a funnier, more exciting short story than that. In a perfect world Tom Wright, who played the hitchhiker, wouldda been nominated for an Oscar. Also a high five to the campy look of the film, with all three films set in the middle of nowhere, one at sea, one (mostly) in the woods. A lot of fun I say, though most hated this one.

Where Creepshow 2 suffers is that it is not as good as the first movie. You would think that with three stories instead of five this time it would be less condensed. Unfortunately, that's not the case out of the three stories only the second one is all that interesting The first story Old chief wooden head tells the tale of a ma and pa couple who own a store with a cigar Indian who end up getting killed by robbers and the statue comes alive to avenge their deaths. It's a decent way to start a movie although you kind of question the hokey acting from the murderers. In the second storyline, the raft involves a bunch of friends going out in the middle of a lake. They are then pursued by a blob monster. This is the best out of the three stories. Most time spent on it is full of suspense, and Tension invested in wondering how these people are going to get away from this oil monster. In the third and final story, the hitchhiker has a businesswoman who is having an affair while rushing home to beat her husband's suspicions she runs someone over and is pursued by them unable to get away. This one is honestly the slowest & worst of the three it just goes on and on and gets to predict where the outcome is going to lead.