CreepTales

I'm glad that at least one other person (so far) in this user comments section has seen this movie as the disaster it is. I can't believe that anyone would like this movie. Watching it, it doesn't take long to imagine what the makers of this movie said at their first meeting: "Hey, let's make a horror anthology movie, even though we are either too cheap to spend serious money or have no money at all@ Instead of coming up with our own stories, we'll just buy some shorts made by struggling filmmakers - since there is almost no market for short films, we can buy them cheap! Then we'll spend our bottle return money on a wraparound segment, and presto, we'll have a movie!"

That wraparound segment is the worst segment of the movie, appallingly cheap, murky, and dark to the eye. But how are the other stories? Well, the first segment concerning the family reunion has plot twists that you'll see a long way coming. The second segment, about a purse snatcher, is just dumb, and thankfully is very short. The next segment, "The Closet", is even shorter, but is totally bankrupt of imagination and surprise. The next segment, about the werewolf, has some not bad makeup effects, but has no surprises whatsoever. The last segment, "Sucker", is the most ambitious of all the segments. It tries to have a "Twilight Zone" feel (though more comic), and it's clear some time and money was invested in making it. However, the stuff at the end falls flat.

It seems this movie spent some time on the shelf after completion. No wonder.

If this wasn't attached to another movie I bought, you could not have paid me to see this waste of time. A more stupid, uninteresting movie has never been made. The short stories are such that 7 year olds tell around a campfire - and they tell them better. Not only that but the felt they had to film most of it with a blue filter to give it a sort of "blue" look, don't know what else to call it. The saddest part was I felt the cast and crew were really trying to accomplish something. Hopefully they all have day jobs at a WalMart somewhere. I am really trying to think of something good to say, and the best I can think of is "at least that fat guy got his acting job before the coronary hit" Don't torture another brain cell with this - there are much more entertaining was to knock them off.

As horror compilations go, this one is one of the better ones. Of course, there aren't many out there. But there should be.

If you ever liked Creepshow or Tales from the Crypt, you'll like this one. In some respects it's better. All the stories are classic horror/gore mix with some ghoulish humor thrown in. My personal favorite is the one called "Sucker." The "Wrap-around" -- the segments between the segments -- is a bit cheesy, but deliberately so. Too bad all the drive-ins are gone. This one would be fun to see at midnight in the open air.

Watch this one with your favorite date and snuggle close. You're in for a good time!

CREEPTALES is a horror anthology film consisting of six short segments. They are:

WARPED- A woman seeks revenge for an incestual rape she suffered as a child. This one has some very nice, unexpected twists.

SNATCHER- A purse-snatching punk picks on the wrong old lady and her handbag from hell.

THE CLOSET- A boy who's afraid that there's a monster in his closet finds out that some nightmares are real.

GROOVY GHOULIE GARAGE- Two young men get stranded in a small town that seems to be frozen in time.

HOWLING NIGHTMARE- A weak, blessedly short film about werewolf hunters. It's gory, but lame.

SUCKER- The best of the bunch. A traveling vacuum cleaner salesman sells a strange and sinister product. This one is lots of fun!

All of these little movies are watched by a group of popcorn-munching monsters in their living room on Halloween night...

When people mix horror and comedy, or cobble together a bunch of smaller films, the results are not usually pleasant. This is why I was pleasantly surprised by this goofy little collection of stories, loosely knit together in the manner of Creepshow, Tales from the Crypt, etc.

It appears to me that the enterprising filmmakers took several short (or perhaps unfinished) scary flicks and put them together with a funny story to bind them together. This surrounding story is played with cheesy delight: hunchbacked ghouls want to watch a scary movie, so they have a party and steal a video tape from their uncle's tomb. The uncle then comes after them, with predictably gleeful results!

Some of the segments are very weird and eerie, ala Warped and Howling Nightmare (a segment that feels unfinished to me). On the other hand, most of the tales are very silly. Some, such as the Closet, Snatcher and Sucker (the only one where they really go for the gross-out) were very wacky, Tales From the Crypt fare. The segment entitled Groovy Ghoulie Garage, despite the exceptionally goofy title (and ending), is played very gamely and a great treat for those of us who loved the old horror comics (Eerie, House of Mystery) with the 'shock endings' (that you could see coming a mile away) to every story.

Overall, a really high-spirited little collection of B-grade horror. Perfect for a party of your own or viewing when you need a chuckle!