CreepShow
September 29th, 2008 by John Wolfe
For today’s entry, I’m once again reaching into my bag of nostalgic memories from Halloween past. It was Halloween 1985, and I had just returned to my grandparents’ house with my loot for the night. On the dining room table sat a plastic VHS cassette case from the local video store. My dad had rented the tape and dropped it off for me. I popped it open and inside found the words CreepShow scrawled across the label in spooky font. At the time, I wasn’t aware of the film, but apparently my dad thought it looked like something I’d enjoy.
Looking back, however, I’m not sure what I liked more, the creepy movie, or my grandfather’s sarcastically, dirty analysis of each and every story in the film! Imagine Mystery Science Theater with Red Foxx guest starring! 
Let’s just say the majority of entertainment that Halloween night may not have been completely age appropriate for me (I was ten), but I loved it!
CreepShow, by Stephen King and George Romero, was my first experience with campy, “cool” horror- probably an inspirational film to a young Rob Zombie as well. It provided my initial introduction to onscreen zombie action and I was hooked. From that point forward, Halloween, undead corpses and Red Foxx all had a strange tie in with one another! Just kidding, but CreepShow definitely awoke my inner-zombie, and it’s yet to be re-buried.
Image sources: Amazon.com
September 29th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I have a similar story about John Carpenter’s Halloween. I too had just come home from a good night’s trick or treating and first watched it when it aired on HBO that night around 1979 or 80. It was my first introduction to the “slasher” genre and neighborhood was similar looking to mine. It set a whole new tone to Halloween night and Micheal Myers became a holiday icon to me. Although I’m Mr. Traditional with my decorating, that’s pretty much why he always makes an appearance in my display.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
…come to think of it, it was also the last night I ever went out for candy. Not related to the movie, just becoming too old to.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I have to admit, Dave, I never even watched one of the Halloween movies until I was an adult. I was completely cool with zombies, the undead and ghosts as a kid, but the whole slasher thing freaked me out!
I think I quit trick or treating around eleven, not because of my age- most kids do it into junior high or high school, but because I wanted to concentrate on setting up home haunts.