Cult Camp Meets Comic Book Carnage

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MOVIE REVIEW
Creepshow 2 [Limited Edition]
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Genre: Horror, Anthology
Year Released: 1987, Arrow Video 4K 2025
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director(s): Michael Gornick
Writer(s): George A. Romero, Stephen King
Cast: George Kennedy, Dorothy Lamour, Lois Chiles, Tom Savini, Holt McCallany, Daniel Beer, Tom Wright
Where to Watch: available September 30, 2025, pre-order your copy here: www.arrowvideo.com, www.mvdshop.com, or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: CREEPSHOW 2 carries the weight of a sequel to one of horror’s most beloved anthologies. With George A. Romero and Stephen King returning as creative forces, and Michael Gornick stepping up from cinematographer to director, expectations were high. What audiences got wasn’t quite the same—three tales instead of the five that filled the original—but not without its charms. It’s a film that splits horror fans: some embrace its grim humor and grotesque energy, others find it a pale shadow of its predecessor. I fall somewhere in between; the film has its moments, but it never hits the same level as the original.

The anthology opens with “Old Chief Wood’nhead,” a straightforward revenge tale that feels like a classic morality play. An elderly couple’s kindness is rewarded only after tragedy, and the wooden statue outside their store comes to life to exact justice. George Kennedy and Dorothy Lamour bring grandeur, but the antagonists are cartoonish in their cruelty, pulling the story into pulpy territory. While the payoff works, the setup overstays its welcome, and the wooden monster never quite inspires fear beyond its novelty.

Then comes the standout segment, “The Raft.” Stranded teens on a lake, a raft, and a creeping, amorphous sludge beneath the water—that’s all it takes for suspense to settle in. The premise is simple, but the tension escalates in ways that stick. Critics and fans alike often call this the best of the three stories, and it’s easy to see why. It’s primal, it’s nasty, and despite some dated effects (the “oil slick” monster sometimes looks more like a garbage bag), the terror of being trapped resonates. This is King and Romero at their most stripped-down, showing how little it takes to craft dread.

Finally, “The Hitchhiker” closes the anthology, with Lois Chiles as a businesswoman haunted by the man she kills in a hit-and-run. The segment stretches thin—its repetition of the hitchhiker’s refrain “Thanks for the ride, lady!” crosses from creepy into absurd—but it has an undeniable camp appeal. Tom Wright’s performance makes the character both distorted and darkly funny. It’s not subtle, but it’s the type of midnight-movie material that sticks in cult memory.

Compared to the first CREEPSHOW, this sequel doesn’t strike as hard. Gone is the playful mix of tones; in its place is something darker, meaner, and less consistent. The animation framing device helps tie things together, but it can’t disguise the unevenness. That said, Gornick captures enough of the original’s flavor to keep it from feeling disposable. And while Romero didn’t direct this time, his scripting fingerprints remain in the moral comeuppances and comic-book structure.

Arrow Video’s new 4K release helps highlight the film’s legacy. Packed with extras—interviews, commentary, archival footage, and even a comic adaptation of the unfilmed segment “Pinfall”—the set acknowledges the cult devotion CREEPSHOW 2 has gathered over the decades. The film may not have been critically adored on release, but the home video era has kept it alive, embraced by horror fans who find comfort in its mixture of camp, gore, and nostalgia.

At its best, CREEPSHOW 2 delivers raw, genre-thrilling moments. At its weakest, it feels like a sketch that could have been fleshed out further. That unevenness is why it never hits the iconic status of its predecessor, but it’s also why it endures: it’s messy, it’s unpredictable, and it wears its heart on its sleeve. It’s good enough to revisit, not essential enough to recommend unconditionally, and a reminder that even imperfect horror anthologies have a way of lingering.

For all my quibbles about consistency, CREEPSHOW 2 still feels like a small but meaningful line in the genre’s history book. It isn’t just riding the coattails of its predecessor; it’s pushing the aesthetic further, testing how far practical effects, grim punchlines, and this structure can go in a mainstream sequel. The segments teeter, sure, yet together they keep alive a style of horror that helped define an era and shape a generation of fans. In that sense, it’s quietly groundbreaking: a bridge that carries the Romero/King collaboration forward while preserving the pop-macabre energy that gave us one of the most recognizable horror legacies on screen. Even when it stumbles, it adds to the mythology—proof that legacy isn’t only built by perfection, but by the weird, scrappy entries that keep the lights on and the stories moving.

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[photo courtesy of ARROW VIDEO, MVD ENTERTAINMENT]

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