When Anthologies Go on Sale
The first Creepshow (1982) was a giddy tribute to EC horror comics: bright colors, lurid tales, and George A. Romero’s eye for ghoulish humor. It was lightning in a bottle. Creepshow 2 is what happens when someone drops that bottle on the floor and decides to scoop up the shards anyway. Romero is still around, but this time only writing; Michael Gornick, Romero’s former cinematographer, takes the directorial wheel—and drives straight into a pothole.
This sequel has just three stories (down from five in the original), and somehow still feels padded. It’s like being handed leftovers from a feast: edible, but sad, limp, and missing the spice.
Old Chief Wood’nhead: Attack of the Wooden Expression
The first segment, Old Chief Wood’nhead, features George Kennedy and Dorothy Lamour as kindly old store owners who are promptly murdered by cartoonishly evil thugs. The problem is, you already know the plot the moment you see the titular cigar-store Indian sitting outside their shop. Of course the wooden statue comes to life and avenges them. Of course it shoots arrows, throws tomahawks, and scalps a punk rocker with better hair than acting chops.
On paper, it sounds fun. On screen, it’s a slog. Old Chief moves with the stiff awkwardness of a theme park animatronic left out in the rain. The kills are bloodless, clumsy, and slow. By the time the statue places a bloody scalp back on its porch like a trophy, you’re wishing the thieves had robbed you of the 30 minutes you just lost.
The Raft: Oil Slick With Anger Issues
Next up is The Raft, which is often cited as the best of the three. Translation: it’s the least embarrassing. Four college students swim out to a wooden raft in the middle of a lake, only to discover a blob monster—basically an angry oil slick with the consistency of garbage bags and maple syrup.
It picks them off one by one: girl touches blob, blob eats girl; dude plans escape, blob yanks him through a crack; surviving couple decide to get cozy, blob interrupts the foreplay by slathering one’s face. Finally, our hero swims to shore, screams “I beat you!”, and is immediately engulfed anyway. The blob wins, the audience loses.
The segment has potential—it’s based on a Stephen King short story—but the execution is laughable. The monster looks like a floating garbage bag that swallowed a lava lamp. The characters are walking stereotypes (the jock, the virgin, the sleaze, the doomed pretty one). And Randy, our “final boy,” tries to grope a sleeping girl while a blob monster lurks ten feet away. Sexual assault plus poor survival instincts: a true Eighties hero.
The Hitchhiker: Thanks for the Ride, Lady… Again, and Again, and Again
The third and final tale, The Hitchhiker, stars Lois Chiles as an adulterous wife racing home to beat her husband. Along the way, she hits a hitchhiker and flees. Unfortunately for her (and us), the hitchhiker comes back. Over, and over, and over again.
“Thanks for the ride, lady!” he repeats like a catchphrase from a toy line nobody wanted. She runs him over. He comes back. She shoots him. He comes back. She drives through the woods, slams him into trees, even pancakes him under her car. He still comes back. By the fifteenth round, you’re rooting for him out of sheer boredom.
The makeup effects are gooey, but the repetition kills the tension. What starts as a creepy premise degenerates into slapstick. Chiles, meanwhile, delivers a performance of pure panic that veers into parody—half the time she looks less terrified of the hitchhiker and more horrified by the dialogue she has to say.
The Wraparound Story: Tom Savini in Latex Purgatory
Between the tales, there’s a half-baked animated wraparound featuring Billy, a kid reading the Creepshow comic while being harassed by bullies. The Creep, played by Tom Savini in makeup so rubbery it looks like a Halloween mask from a clearance bin, narrates the tales.
Eventually, Billy lures his bullies into a lot where giant Venus flytraps devour them. It’s meant to echo the ghoulish fun of the first film’s wraparound. Instead, it feels like a rejected Scooby-Doo episode. Worse, it drags—every interlude feels longer than the actual stories.
Stephen King and George Romero: Phone It In, Boys
The pedigree is here: stories by Stephen King, screenplay by George A. Romero. But both seem checked out. King’s cameo as a redneck truck driver in The Hitchhiker is more embarrassing than amusing. Romero’s script lacks the bite, camp, and comic-book verve of the first film. Instead of bold, stylized visuals, Gornick shoots the stories flat and drab. The comic panels that made the first film pop are gone, replaced by generic lighting and halfhearted gore.
Horror Without Horror
The fatal flaw of Creepshow 2 is that it’s not scary. Old Chief Wood’nhead is predictable. The Raft has a cool setup but zero atmosphere. The Hitchhiker is repetitive to the point of absurdity. Even the gore, supposedly the selling point, is tame. When your anthology horror film can’t deliver chills, laughs, or even memorable deaths, you’re in trouble.
Comedy Without Comedy
The first film had morbid humor—comic-book villains getting their comeuppance, with campy gusto. Here, the jokes fall flat. The wooden Indian? Too stiff. The blob? Too silly. The hitchhiker? Too repetitive. The only real laughter comes unintentionally—like when Randy tries to cop a feel during a monster siege, or when Lois Chiles crashes her car for the tenth time while shrieking, “Oh God, oh God!”
A Bad Sequel Is Still a Sequel
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Creep show 2* limps along, failing to justify its existence but surviving on brand recognition. It played theaters, got a VHS life, and eventually landed in midnight movie rotations. Fans kept watching not because it was good, but because it was there. It’s the cinematic equivalent of leftovers reheated in a microwave: edible nostalgia, but soupy and disappointing.
Final Verdict: Not Worth the Ride
Anthology horror should be sharp, quick, and punchy. Instead, Creepshow 2 is flabby, predictable, and dull. Three stories, none of them great. A wraparound that overstays its welcome. Performances that range from wooden to hysterical. Effects that don’t hold up. And a nagging sense that everyone involved knew it wasn’t working but just went with it anyway.
If Creepshow (1982) was a comic book you couldn’t put down, Creepshow 2 is the coloring book you left in the dentist’s office. Sure, it’ll keep you busy for an hour, but you’ll regret it afterward.
Thanks for the ride, lady? No thanks.
