what the film does
three segments bridged by animated interstitials featuring the creepshow creep (tom savini in practical makeup). old chief wood’nhead: george kennedy as a general-store owner in a dying desert town. local punks rob and kill him and his wife. the wooden indian outside the store comes to life and hunts them. the raft: four college students swim to a raft on a remote lake. a black blob on the water surrounds them, dissolving anyone it touches. the hitchhiker: lois chiles as a woman who hits a hitchhiker with her car, drives away, and keeps encountering him on the road, each time more mangled.
why this one
the raft. it is 20 minutes of four people on a piece of plywood being consumed by a thing they cannot identify and cannot escape. the tension is in the waiting. king’s original story (“the raft” from skeleton crew) is one of his most claustrophobic, and gornick translated it almost exactly. the blob effect was achieved with a large black plastic sheet pulled by divers underneath the surface, which is why it moves like something alive.
the rest of the film does not match the raft, but it does not need to. the old chief wood’nhead segment has a warmth that the original creepshow’s segments did not aim for. george kennedy’s performance as the shopkeeper is the most sincere acting in any creepshow film.
what stays with me
the moment on the raft when they realize the blob is not going to leave. there is nowhere to swim. the shore is too far. the only option is to wait, and they know what they are waiting for.
on hand
the dvd is the new world pictures release in the canon.
image: tmdb poster (id 16288); genuine film poster. baked at factor 0.45, 1200x675