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Creepshow 2
[Blu-ray 4K]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Arrow Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (26th August 2025). |
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The Film
 Based upon stories by Stephen King and scripted by George Romero, Romero cinematographer Michael Gornick''s sequel Creepshow 2 would seem to have the right ingredients for a follow-up to Romero's anthology hit, but it all falls flat very quickly due to mostly uninspired stories and pacing that is simultaneously abrupt and drawn out. With only three out of the projected five stories filmed – the others being the unused "Pinfall" and "Cat from Hell" (which appeared in Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, also produced by Dawn of the Dead's Richard P. Rubinstein and directed by Day of the Dead composer John Harrison) – less-stylish interstitial animation, and generally uninteresting casting choices. Indeed, the film feels direct-to-video long before it was a thing and fits comfortably with some of the lesser New World Pictures entries of the period that managed to score theatrical play along with those that did not and more so the 2006 direct-to-video Creepshow 3 and the more recent uneven Shudder series. "Old Chief Wood'nhead" is the cigar store Indian mascot of Dead River's general store run by the kindly Spruces (Death Ship's George Kennedy and The Hurricane's Dorothy Lamour). Tribal elder Benjamin Whitemoon (Frank Salsedo's The Ghost Dance) has gifted the couple turquoise jewelry towards the tribe's debts, but his nephew Sam (Jade's Holt McCallany) and two local white troublemakers Fatso (Girls Nite Out's David Holbrook) and Andy (The Relic's Don Harvey) decide to rob the store to fund their getaway to Hollywood. When the trio brutally murder the elderly couple, Old Chief Wood'nhead steps off his tree stump pedestal and administers revenge with his bow-and-arrow and tomahawk. An ideal scenario EC Comic-type supernatural revenge scenario spends an inordinate amount of time introducing the two innocent victims before rushing through the comeuppances of the three killers with no stalking or other attempts at suspense. A step up but lacking the characterization of King's original source story, "The Raft" – published in his anthology Skeleton Crew – finds Deke (Arena's Paul Satterfield), Laverne (Jeremy Green), Randy (Point Break's Daniel Beer), and Rachel (Shag's Page Hannah) celebrating high school graduation at a remote lake in a raft soon surrounded by a flesh-eating oil slick. While the effects are suitably grisly, the character dynamics of the King source story are barely explored, with more time spent on the attempted escapes than the characters turning against each other due to the claustrophobic situation and past resentments (on the other hand, Larry Fessendent tried it in the feature-length Raft-esque film Beneath and just wound up saddling the audience with a bunch of unlikable douchebags). The best of the tales is "The Hitchhiker" in which unfaithful wife Anne Lansing (Moonraker's Lois Chiles) oversleeps after a tryst with an escort (Shadowzone's David Beecroft) and rushes home to avoid suspicion from her husband. She accidentally runs down a hitcher (Barbershop's Tom Wright) but speeds off when she realizes there are no witnesses, only to encounter the same hitcher along every turn of the road. No matter how many times she runs him down, he refuses to stay dead ("Thanks for the ride, lady!"). A variation on a couple Twilight Zone episodes, it is a virtual one-woman-show for Chiles' terror who goes from terrified to pissed off, yet we still are left to wonder if it is all a projection of her guilty conscience (King cameos as a truck driver). The half-live action/half-animated framing story finds a young boy tormented by bullies, with effects artist Tom Savini in prosthetic make-up as "The Creep" but voiced by Joe Silver (Shivers).
Video
Released theatrically and on home video by New World, Creepshow 2 has been available pretty much without interruption in the digital world from Anchor Bay – first in a barebones anamorphic DVD and then a special Divimax edition – and then from Image as part of their half-hearted Midnight Madness series on barebones DVD and Blu-ray. 88 Films in the UK released a special edition Blu-ray in 2016 from the same master with new extras. In 2020, Arrow Video put out a dual-territory release in the U.S. and U.K. debuting a new 2K restoration which was revealed more compositional information on the sides (although this was an issue with other New World scans done by Lakeshore and supplied to Arrow pre-matted where the additional information on the sides revealed the edges of sets and crew). Arrow has now released a new 4K UltraHD edition in the U.S. and U.K. from a new 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative. The 2160p24 HEVC 1.85:1 Dolby Vision widescreen transfer appears to be the best of both worlds with the older, tighter framing and light levels – the Arrow 2K scan was brighter but perhaps too bright when it came to moodier shots of the latex body suit of Old Chief Wood'nhead and the recurring apparition of the hitchhiker – and saturation levels in between the two older HD masters. Opticals are grainier but there are few instances like the title card and the footage around it that look even softer and dupier which may be an effect of adding the title optical animation on top of animated footage compared to the rest of the title sequence where the credits opticals are optically printed on top of rostrum footage of the comic book panel close-ups (a few other softer shots also involve the combination of optical transitions on top of animated footage). One of the more subtle details more apparent this time around is that the television broadcast of an episode of Convict Story seen on the television in all three of the households in "Old Chief Wood'nhead" is in black and white on the sets of white trash Fatso and Native American Sam's family set while it plays in color on the large console television in Andy's parents' living room.
Audio
Audio options replicate the earlier Arrow edition with original mono in LPCM 1.0, an LPCM 2.0 stereo track, as well as a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that highlight the synth score of Les Reed (Girl on a Motorcyle) with additional music by Rick Wakeman (The Burning) and some "pointed" sound effects during "Old Chief Wood'nhead" and the driving scenes of "The Hitchhiker". Optional English SDH subtitles are also included.
Extras
Extras are identical to the previous Arrow edition starting with an audio commentary by director Michael Gornick, moderated by Perry Martin from the Anchor Bay Divimax DVD. Gornick is diplomatic about such matters as his dealings with New World and the film's producers as well as the "shift change" that found Ed French (Breeders) replaced by K.N.B. Efx Group's Howard Berger as supervisor of the effects unit. He discusses his desire to direct and the opportunity to do so while working on episodes of Tales from the Darkside but did not think he would be graduating to features so soon since Creepshow 2 was earmarked for Savini (Romero was never slated to direct since he and King were working on the unrealized adaptation of "Pet Sematery"). On "Old Chief Wood'nhead" and "The Raft" he recalls that the Arizona location was chosen for fair weather since they started shooting in the fall, but a hurricane elsewhere lead to days of cold weather and rain that stopped production although delays during the shooting of "The Raft" did allow him to spend time with Kennedy and Lamour; as such, it was snowing when production moved to King's home of Bangor, Maine to shoot "The Hitchhiker." He also discusses the unfilmed episodes – "The Raft" and "The Hithchiker" were rejected episodes from the first film that he was glad to see in the sequel's script – the replacement of Barbara Eden by Chiles in the final segment, and how the animation of Rick Catizone on the bookending and interstitial segments saved the production the expense of live action opticals. "Screenplay for a Sequel" (10:46) is an interview with screenwriter Romero who discusses his love for comics as a teenager, particularly the gleefully horrible EC Comics, working with King and their unrealized adaptations of "Pet Sematary" and "The Stand", Gornick as a jack-of-all-trades filmmaker who worked with and for him at Latent Image, the unfilmed stories, and the ingredients the sequel lacked behind the camera. "Tales from the Creep" (7:54) is an interview with actor and make-up artist Tom Savini who discusses playing "The Creep", lip-synching Silver's dialogue, and hating to wear prosthetic appliances. He also reveals that his own wife and stuntman Taso Stavrakis both became certified scuba divers to pilot the oil slick in "The Raft", that stuntwoman/actress Patricia Tallman (the Night of the Living Dead remake) doubled for actress Hannah once she was covered in the UltraSlime, and that he prepped King's "Graveyard Shift" for New World on a "pay or play" contract and was paid for the job even though it was never realized at the studio (it would eventually be shot at Paramount under the direction of Ralph S. Singleton). "Poncho's Last Ride" (14:45) is an interview with actor Daniel Beer who recalls the chilly shoot in Arizona and coming down with severe hypothermia that stopped the production for a few days and required that he be accompanied by a paramedic for the remainder of the shoot. He also reveals that Gornick threatened to walk off the film when the producer's wanted to keep working him (Gornick mentions Beer's hypothermia on the commentary but admirably does not boast of his stand). He also discusses his feelings about the episode and the controversial "love scene" and the suggestion that audiences might not have been so gleeful about his fate without it. "The Road to Dover" (13:51) is an interview with actor Tom Wright who recalls that he got his SAG card for stuntwork and that, though he had appeared in more prominent acting roles subsequently, his work as a stuntman lead to his casting in Creepshow 2 (and his role here lead to his casting in Tales from the Hood). He not discusses the stunts he did for the film and the extensive make-up effects work for the various stages of his injuries, but also the story's thematic elements. Ported over from the Anchor Bay DVD is "Nightmares in Foam Rubber" featuring interviews with make-up effects artsits Berger and Greg Nicotero (The Intruder) who discuss their childhood interests in effects, meeting on Day of the Dead and being called back to work on Creepshow 2 by producer Rubenstein while they were finishing up Evil Dead II. Both discuss how the effects chores were delineated, discussing in detail the effects work for each, as well as the tension with French who ended up walking off the film during "The Raft." My Friend Rick" (2:44) is an interview with make-up effects artist Howard Berger discussing working with Rick Baker on Harry and the Hendersons. The disc also includes behind-the-scenes footage (5:51), a stills gallery (3:34), two theatrical trailers (1:39 and 1:14), a TV spot (0:34), and an image gallery (3:34) while the previous Blu-ray BD-ROM extra of a .pdf screenplay is replaced with galleries of two different drafts: the 1984 second draft screenplay (114 pages) and the 1986 final draft screenplay (103 pages).
Packaging
The disc comes in a slipcover with a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Mike Saputo, an illustrated collector's booklet featuring writing on the film by festival programmer Michael Blyth who concedes that the Romero film was a tough act to follow but discusses some of the sequel's merits. Blyth is frank in his assessment of each of the stories, noting that "Old Chief Wood'nhead" is the weakest (and a weak way to start the film structurally) yet is closes to the morality tale aspect of the EC Comics, as well as making parallels between each of the stories and their more successful equivalents in the first film and saving the vitriol for the comic wraparound story. In discussing the two unfilmed stories, Blyth quotes Savini's opinion that Tales from the Darkside: The Movie is the "unofficial Creepshow 3 while dismissing the actual film with that title. Also included is a "Creepshow 2: Pinfall" limited edition booklet featuring the comic adaptation of the unfilmed segment "Pinfall” by artist Jason Mayoh (not provided for review).
Overall
Lightning didn't strick twice with Creepshow 2 but at least two-thirds of it are entertaining enough.
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