What scares
Andrew Goodridge?
He’s giving us a month to find out.
Follow along with Andrew as he plans to get into the spirit of his favorite holiday by watching a different horror movie every day in the month of October.
October 8
Homage is great when you’re referencing something original
“Creepshow” (1982)
Directed by: George A. Romero
Screenplay by: Stephen King
I don’t know what’s going to inspire the filmmakers of tomorrow.
It’s easy to spot some director’s influences: Quentin Tarantino’s love for 70s exploitation; Scorsese’s homages to 30s gangster movies; Spielberg and 30s and 40s serials; Tim Burton and German Expressionism; George Lucas and the films of Akira Kurosawa.
But what about the directors in the making? What are the kids in high school watching today that’s going to shape who they are as filmmakers in 30 years?
It’s hard to conceptualize the present in a nostalgic way. But I don’t see anything in the last decade that we’ll look back on with an appreciation for its “2000s-ness.” The Internet has probably jaded us too much, and all examples of contemporary campiness or irony are too constructed, self-referrential and forced to be lasting or meaningful.
Will filmmakers revive the “Saw” or “Hostel” series in 20 years with a fondness for their nostalgic value? I hope not. I hope filmmakers in 20 years hate “Saw” and “Hostel.” I won’t see any “Grindhouse” love-letters to the work of Rob Zombie or Eli Roth, and I doubt anyone else will either. Contemporary horror is too prepackaged and ephemeral. We’re not going to remember these movies in 10 years because there’s nothing worth remembering.
Maybe that’s because everything today is such a simulacrum — a copy of a copy of a copy. All media today — music, TV, film, video games — are heavily influenced by something that was heavily influenced by something that was heavily influenced by something else. Nothing is original anymore.
So if today’s kids want something truly original, where do they look? I don’t know. It’s a shame we don’t have anything like the E.C. Comics of the 1950s, which include the famous “The Vault of Horror,” “The Haunt of Fear,” and “Tales from the Crypt.” These three suspense and horror series — tame by today’s standards — led to a cultural panic over what children were reading, a Congressional investigation, and the eventual Comics Code Authority that regulates content in comic books. They also influenced some of the biggest horror names of the 80s.
George A. Romero’s “Creepshow,” adapted from Stephen King’s screenplay, is more than an homage — it’s as close of a carbon copy as a filmmaker can get to the comics these two grew up reading. Romero packs each of the anthology’s five short stories with comic book imagery as he can. Shots are matted like comic book panels, the composition looks flat and comic-like, and scenes are lit with completely unnatural primary colors, which was about all you could hope for from the books at that time.
Some of the five stories work better than others (the first story, about a murdered father seeking revenge, and the last story, about killer cockroaches, are weaker than the middle three), but it’s apparent that the filmmakers have not just respect but deep admiration for the tropes that make these stories what they are. They’re funny, dark, and full of colorful bad guys and even more colorful badder guys. In these stories, the villains get what they have coming to them. But they’ll be back to take care of the worse villains who killed them in the first place.
This column has been filled almost entirely with horror from the 80s. That’s probably because the filmmakers were drawing from such interesting and original influences from their youths. Like the parents of the 50s, I’m worried about what our kid are watching. Not because it’s too scary or too controversial or too graphic, but because it’s too unoriginal and too derivative and it’s all been focus-grouped to death. And that, to me, is scary.
Andrew Goodridge likes movies so much that he married one. He teaches Audio/Video production, Filmmaking, and Film & Television History in Fort Worth, Texas. He would one day like to have a Pug, or maybe a Bulldog.
Andrew Goodridge can be reached at goodridge@everythingnac.com
You have just inspired me to dust off my VHS copy of this movie and watch it again. Probably haven’t watched it since I was a kid (yes, I typically buy movies and sometimes don’t watch them for several years, but at least I have it on hand). I remember loving the “meteor shit” story!