ll the kids read ’em.” After berating and slapping around his child over discovering a “Creepshow” comic, full of horror-related stories (an homage to material like “Tales from the Crypt” and “The Vault of Horror”), Stan (Tom Atkins) is pleased with himself for the episode of proper discipline. But young Billy (Joe Hill) isn’t deterred; he is, in fact, inspired to be defiant by the very monstrosities in the publication, which lurk outside his bedroom window, egging him on. Amusingly, as this prologue condemns the comic, it also celebrates it, setting up its despicableness as a selling point for the coming chapters.

Presented as an anthology of shorts, the first, “Father’s Day,” deals with the arrival of Aunt Bedelia (Viveca Lindfors), who was rumored to be responsible for the death of her father. Her relatives however, are certain of her guilt. Recognizable actors (including Ed Harris) inhabit this rather straightforward revenge story from beyond the grave, which boasts a flimsily-costumed corpse wreaking havoc on a reunion gathering. The cheesy music, the rough lighting effects, and the characters wandering off alone into shadowy areas don’t help the scares, but the over-the-top deaths are nevertheless engaging. As with many of these types of scenarios in which roles die off one by one, it suffers from having zero sympathetic personas; audiences will surely root for the reanimated cadaver.

In “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill,” Stephen King portrays the lead, who discovers a meteorite that has crashed onto his farmland. As he dreams of the high price the university will pay for his find, he realizes too late that the encounter is quite the curse. This segment is sillier than the others, as King plays the part considerably over the top, while many of the dream sequences are conducted as slapstick-like comedy. Even the horrifying revelation that the meteor’s powers will slowly transform him into something inhuman are handled with a certain insincerity; Verrill is apparently too imbecilic to handle the situation with genuine fear – though the conclusion is appropriately bleak.

“Something to Tide You Over” features Ted Danson and Leslie Nielsen as two men feuding over the same woman, much in the vein of “Sleuth,” but without the clever deception. Instead, it’s a trap, which plays out rather interestingly like something from “The Vanishing,” though the original “Spoorloos” wouldn’t premiere for another six years. It also has the rare distinction of putting Nielsen in the role of the villain. Strangely, however, it carries on long enough that it starts to resemble the first short, with elements of supernatural vengeance (and much better screeching-violin accompaniment). “No need to get jumpy.”

In “The Crate,” a janitor working at Amberson Hall of Horlicks University uncovers an old wooden box, which interrupts an informal gathering among the faculty – though it’s already being ruined by the loud, crass wife (Adrienne Barbeau) of Professor Northrup (Hal Holbrook). “What would you do without me?” It takes an impressively weird turn when the contents of the crate prove to be carnivorous, though this feels something like foreshadowing for an ultimate solution to Northrup’s marital woes. At least it’s a change of pace, a gruesome creature-feature to supplement the previous chapters, which were more focused on preternatural hauntings.

The final part is “They’re Creeping Up On You,” centered on a clean-freak business mogul (E.G. Marshall) shut away in his hi-tech, germ-free penthouse, struggling to deal with an infestation of cockroaches. The use of actual critters, including some rather gargantuan roach specimens, is visually chilling, especially with the climax (perhaps the only shot that remains memorable). “I loathe bugs!”

With stylistic scene transitions, ads for novelty products, comic book page reproductions, and split screens to mimic comic formatting, “Creepshow” takes its separated stories and makes them appear as if unrelated parts of an illustrated publication. But without much to tie them together (other than twisty endings), it’s not far removed from a string of brief “Twilight Zone” episodes (something that would come to fruition the next year in a theatrical format), though it would inspire copycats like “Tales from the Darkside: The Movie” and “Tales from the Hood” (an epilogue here attempts to establish an overarching link, but it’s shaky at best). Like other anthologies, the work as a whole is often dragged down by its weakest constituents (of which this has many, since most of the tales are overly familiar and unexceptional), which is exactly what causes this particular endeavor to suffer.

– Mike Massie