Creepshow 2

 Year of Release:  1987

Director:  Michael Gornick

Screenplay:  George A. Romero, based on stories by Stephen King

Starring:  Lois Chiles, George Kennedy, Dorothy Lamour, Tom Savini

Running Time:  92 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Young Billy (Domenick John) cannot wait to get his hands on the latest issue of his favourite comic book Creepshow.  The comic's mysterious host, The Creep (Savini, voiced by Joe Silver), introduces three stories:  The murderers of two beloved elderly people are pursued by a vengeful "cigar store Indian" statue; Four pot-smoking, partying teens swim out to a raft in the middle of a large lake for some fun but find themselves preyed upon by a carnivorous oil slick; A hit and run driver (Chiles) is pursued by the vengeful spirit of the hitchhiker she killed.

The original Creepshow (1982) was written by Stephen King and directed by George A. Romero.  Here Romero takes on scripting duties, with King providing the source material.  One of the stories, "The Raft", had previously been published, and can be found in King's 1985 Skeleton Crew collection, the other were original to the film.  As with the previous film this serves as a tribute to the EC horror comics of the 1950s such as Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror.  However this lacks the style of the first film.  The whole thing looks very low-budget and ropey, despite some good make up effects in the first segment.  The man-eating oil slick in the second segment basically looks like a plastic sheet with some gunk on top of it.  The best of the bunch is the third story, mainly thanks to a very strong performance from Lois Chiles.  The three tales are linked by an animated framing story, that really looks like a very cheap children's cartoon.  The film's director, Michael Gornick, worked as Director of Photography on the first film and gets some interesting visuals.  There are some problematic elements with it's depiction of native Americans.  In keeping with it's inspiration,  the film has a strongly old-fashioned morality, where if you don't follow the rules exactly very bad things will happen to you.  This is not as good as the original film, but it's brainless old-fashioned nonsense and is fun if your in the right mood for it.  Stephen King appears in a cameo as a truck driver.

The Creep (Tom Savini) makes a delivery in Creepshow 2

     

Three... Extremes

Year of Release:  2005
Director:  Fruit Chan, Park Chan-wook, Takashi Miike
Screenplay:  Lilian Lee, Park Chan-wook, Bun Saiko, Haruko Fukushima 
Starring:  Bai Ling, Tony Leung Kai-fai, Lee Byung-hun, Im Won-hee, Kyoko Hasegawa, Atsuro Watabe
Running Time:  125 minutes
Genre:  Horror

Three short horror films from three directors from three different countries:
"Dumplings", from Hong Kong and director Fruit Chan:  Ageing actress Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung) buys special dumplings from the mysterious Aunt Mei (Ling).  These dumplings have the power to restore youth, beauty and vitality, but contain a shocking secret ingredient.
"Cut", from South Korea and Park Chan-wook:  A successful movie director (Lee Byung-hun) and his glamorous pianist wife (Kang Hye-jung) are kidnapped by a homicidal extra (Im Won-hee) and forced to play a sadistic game to survive.
"Box", from Japan and Takashi Miike:  Kyoko (Hasegawa) is a successful 25 year old novelist, tormented by recurring nightmares of her childhood as a circus performer.  She believes that she is being haunted by the vengeful spirit of her sister (Yuu Suzuki), who died in childhood, and is struck by the physical resemblance between her literary agent and the owner of the circus who was her childhood tormenter (both Watabe).

This was made as a sequel to a previous international omnibus film called Three (2002), but was released in the US and the UK first.  After this film became successful Three was released as Three... Extremes 2.  This is a visually striking film, where each segment feels completely distinct.
"Dumplings", which Fruit Chan later remade as a standalone feature film, is a mostly low-key but creepy tale, which almost feels like a social drama at some points, dealing with ageing, particularly in regards to women, and women's place in Hong Kong society.  Mrs. Li is desperate to restore her youth when she realises that her sleazebag husband is having an affair with a much younger woman, which he barely bothers trying to conceal from her.  Aunt Mei, who claims to be much older than she appears, makes a living carrying out secret abortions and making these sinister dumplings.  The film manages to make diced meat and slurping little, crunchy dumplings very creepy.
"Cut" is the most full-blooded, in every sense, entry.  Playing as a macabre gruesome black comedy this is funny, suspenseful and shocking.  The extra traps the director and his wife (none of the characters are named) in a set made to look like their house, and chains the director to the wall while stringing up his gagged wife at a piano like a living marionette, forcing him to confess his worst sins, and threatening to cut off his wife's fingers one by one unless the director kills a young girl.  Again the female characters are merely the instruments for the male characters to either discover themselves or take revenge on another man.  Although it becomes less simplistic as it goes along.  The segment is visually stylish and has some effective surprises.
"Box" is visually stunning, but is so strange.  More disturbing and disquieting than full on scary, it's very atmospheric and it really does feel like you are watching a nightmare.  It touches on some very disturbing themes.
This is an effective anthology, and there are segments that will work better than others.  My personal favourite was "Cut", which managed to make even this jaded horror fan wince.  It does have thje problem that a lot of anthology films have, of being uneven.  I found "Dumplings" quite slow, and "Box" just baffling, however for fans of Asian horror, or anyone interested in learning about it, then this is well worth checking out.  However I would warn that it is very gruesome in places, and it touches on some quite difficult subjects.

Let the games begin:  Three... Extremes

Cat's Eye

Year of Release: 1985
Director:  Lewis Teague
Screenplay:  Stephen King, based on the short stories "Quitters, Inc." and "The Ledge" by Stephen King
Starring:  Drew Barrymore, James Woods, Alan King, Kenneth McMillan, Robert Hays, Candy Clark 
Running Time:  94 minutes
Genre:  Horror, anthology

Personally I am a huge fan of anthology films.  It's a fun idea having a selection of short stories instead of one long narrative, almost like a cinematic buffet.  However, like a buffet, the results can be wildly uneven, although if one segment is bad then you don't have to wait too long for something else to appear. 

Cat's Eye has the unique, as far as I know, framing device of following the adventures of a plucky cat who is haunted by visions of a girl (Barrymore) begging for help. On his way, however he is captured by an organisation that will go extreme lengths to stop an annoying yuppie (Woods) from smoking, and by an Atlantic City mobster (McMillan) who forces his wife's lover (Hays) to accept a deadly wager: to walk all the way around the narrow ledge outside the mobster's penthouse apartment at the top of a skyscraper.  Eventually the cat makes it to the girl and finds himself forced into nightly combat to defend the girl form a tiny monster living in her wall.

This is a fun, lighthearted movie.  The first two segments are based on short stories published in King's Night Shift collection (which also supplied the source material for such deathless cinema classics as Children of the Corn (1984), Maximum Overdrive (1986), Graveyard Shift (1990), The Lawnmower Man (1992) and The Mangler (1995)), the third segment was written specifically for the film.  "Quitters, Inc." is kind of like a weird dark comedy, which has some fun bits, such as a weird nightmare sequence set to the Police song "Every Breath You Take", and James Woods is pretty good as the jittery would-be ex-smoker.  "The Ledge" is a pretty fun, short thriller in the style of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  The third story is the only one that features any supernatural elements, and is probably the most typically Stephen King.  The monster effects are good, and Drew Barrymore is very good as the little girl.

Cat's Eye is kind of underrated, I think because it doesn't really feature much of the horror that Stephen King is best known for, but there is something here for pretty much anyone.  It's suspenseful, creepy at times and at times very funny.

Drew Barrymore and friend in Cat's Eye