what the film does
five stories, each introduced as a comic-book panel: father’s day (a dead patriarch rises from the grave for his cake), the lonesome death of jordy verrill (stephen king himself, melting into alien weed), something to tide you over (leslie nielsen and ted danson in a buried-alive revenge tale), the crate (a creature under a basement stairs at a university), and they’re creeping up on you (e.g. marshall in a sterile apartment overrun by cockroaches). the segments are bridged by animated comic panels drawn by bernie wrightson.
why this one
three reasons. first, the collaboration. romero and king had been friends since the filming ofKNIGHTRIDERS and wanted to make a film that captured what they loved about horror as kids: the EC comics (tales from the crypt, vault of horror, the haunt of fear) that were nearly banned by the senate in 1954. the film is a time capsule of what horror meant to two men who shaped the genre’s modern form.
second, tom savini. the practical effects in the crate segment, where the fluffball creature tears apart its victims, are savini at his most playful. the cockroaches in the finale are partly real (15,000 live roaches) and partly mechanical. when the roaches burst from upson pratt’s body, the effect was achieved by gluing rubber roaches to a prosthetic chest and inflating air bladders underneath.
third, the visual language. romero used comic-book transitions (dutch angles, panel wipes, saturated color shifts) to create a film that looks like a comic reads. michael gornick’s cinematography uses bold reds, yellows, and blues that do not appear in naturalistic horror. the film is the only romero film shot by gornick, who had been his DP on dawn of the dead and would go on to direct creepshow 2.
what stays with me
the crate. a wooden crate nailed shut in 1834 sits under a basement stairwell at horlicks university. a professor opens it. what comes out is never fully shown, but the sound it makes, wet and hungry, is enough.
on hand
the dvd is the warner home video release in the canon.
image: tmdb poster (id 16281); genuine film poster. baked at factor 0.45, 1200x675