CREEPSHOW 2 (1987)

Remember that scene in SILVER BULLET where the drunk dad was watching wrasslin’ on TV and the one wrestler kicked the other one in the nuts and the drunk dad yelled out “Ow!  That's it.  Oh, that hurt my parts!”? Well, that’s how I felt watching this dick-kickin' collection of short stories.

Old Chief Wood’nhead

Why not start out the movie with easily the worst story?  That's always a good idea. An older couple live in an small desert town that has dried up and blown away. They run a dilapidated general store with an old wooden Indian standing outside. One evening, three local low-life’s come in and rob the place. Killing the couple in the process. This pisses off the wooden Indian (not enough to stop the crime obviously) and he says “Two tears in a bucket, motherfuck it.” and kills the criminals in boring ways.  Skip it.

The Raft

The highlight of this turd fest.  Four boring, twenty-something year-old teenagers drive out to a remote watering hole to smoke weed and swim. Once there, they swim out to a stationary raft in the middle of the lake and before you can say "They should make a sequel to THE HORSE WHISPERER called THE HORSE WHISPERER 2: THE SHIT-TALKER where all the horse whisperer does is saunter up to the horse and talk hella shit right in its ear 'Listen here, you carrot-chewing motherfucker...' and '...you know that glue factory down the road?'  Stuff like that." they discover the lake is also home to a floating garbage bag.  It swims around the raft at about the speed on a one-legged duck (0.5 duck knots) and somehow manages to pick off these idiots one at a time.  Yawn.  THE BLOB it's not.

The Hitch-hiker

A cheating wife is rushing home from the filming of Boner Jams 87' in order to beat her husband who’s been away at work, when she runs over a hitchhiker. She ain’t got time for that shit and leaves him to bleed out on the side of the road. Next thing you know, the hitchhiker (or his ghost or whatever) is hanging all over her car yelling out "Thanks for the ride, lady!" over and over and over. His body getting more and more mutilated as she smashes him into a tree and even shoots him a few times. I remember thinking this was extremely funny when I was teenager, but I must have been drinking mushroom Kool-Aid or high because I didn’t find it funny at all now as a handsome adult. Then again, I’m grumpy as fuck. Grrr!

In conclusion, CREEPSHOW 2 is underwhelming and boring. I’m sure the filmmakers intentions were in the right place and they didn’t mean to relentlessly turbo shit mad dookie diarrhea poo-poo (with just a squirt of pee-pee) all over the audiences eyeballs, but they did and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Skip it. Unless you're drinking mushroom Kool-Aid, because then apparently it's hilarious. "Thanks for the ride, lady!"

Part 1 - Creepshow (1982)
Part 3 - Creepshow 3 (2006)

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1990)

Back in the late 1980's the makers of the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD decided, because of some ongoing copyright issues, to remake their 1968 classic.  I use the term "classic" loosely because while it was hugely influential (and scary when I saw it for the first time as a child...late night on PBS of all things) it hasn't aged well at all.

Anyway, this remake is kinda weak.  It's not bad.  It's definitively watchable, but compared to so many other superior zombie movies out there (1978's DAWN OF THE DEAD and THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) it's underwhelming.  The story is practically a straightforward retelling of the original: zombie outbreak, woman attacked at a remote graveyard runs through the woods until she and some other survivors hole up in an isolated farmhouse and fight off the attacking zombies while at the same time bitching at each other nonstop.  As far as improvements go, most thing are actually better on this film than the original...special effects, acting, violence...but since we've already seen the original a million times you already know everything that's going to happen.

NOTLD (1990) was a great opportunity to make an improved and exciting update of the original, but instead, it brings nothing new to the table.  As it is, it's a mildly entertaining look at early 90's horror but nothing to get excited over.  Still it's worth watching.