Creepshow 3
Encyclopedia
Creepshow III is an unofficial sequel
to the 1982 horror anthology classic, Creepshow
, by Stephen King
and George A. Romero
. The film, like the original, consists of five tales of light-hearted horror
: "Alice", "The Radio", "Call Girl", "The Professor's Wife" and "Haunted Dog", although there is no EC Comics
angle this time around. The film was made in 2006, and it was released to the public in early 2007. No one from the production of either Creepshow or Creepshow 2
(namely King and Romero) was involved in the production of this film. The film Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
, released in 1990, was referred to by Tom Savini
as "The real Creepshow 3".
's Pulp Fiction
, in which characters from each story collide with each other during the film. There is also a hotdog stand as a common element in the movie. Brochures, ads and other things from the hotdog stand are peppered throughout.
. Whenever she presses one of the buttons on the device, the whole family except for Alice changes ethnicity (i.e., the "Color and Hue
Settings" button makes her family turn African-American, and the "Subtitles" button makes her family turn Hispanic
). During this, Alice gradually mutates into what is supposedly her "true form".
Just when Alice thinks everything is back to normal, her father presses another button, revealing Alice's true form. Her family is absolutely horrified at the sight of Alice. The story ends with Professor Dayton, the mad scientist from down the street, using another remote control to turn Alice into a white rabbit
. Notable in this story is the obvious link to Lewis Carroll
's Alice in Wonderland. Victor, the vampire, makes an appearance in this story.
) is a part-time security guard who buys a radio
from a homeless street vendor to replace his old one which has stopped working; however, this mysterious new radio is far from ordinary as it can have a conversation
with Jerry. Very soon Jerry is stealing money
and murdering people, all at the whim of his new radio. After escaping with a hooker who lives in his building, Jerry is told by the radio to kill the hooker or she will kill him. He refuses and destroys the radio. Right after, the hooker finds his gun in the car and shoots Jerry, killing him. Moments after she kills him and wipes the gun clean, she is shot in the head. The shooter is revealed to be the pimp living in the same building as Jerry. When the pimp returns to his car, another radio tells him to go and start a new life.
Alice's father (Detective Jacobs) also appears in this story, investigating the various murders and strange goings-on taking place. The killer call girl, Rachael, also makes an appearance in this story, as well as the pimp and the two boys from "The Professor's Wife".
, receives a request from a shy man named Victor, her newest client. Rachel thinks he will be just another easy victim. When Rachel gets there, scenes of a murdered family with their necks ripped out are flashed on-screen, and there is no evidence of Victor living in the house. Rachel then chains him to the bed and proceeds to stab him in the chest, suffocate him by a pillow over his face, and then has a quick shower. She then keeps hearing Victor's voice saying, "You killed me." Rachel removes the pillow and reveals a gruesome creature with a large, toothy mouth. It is then revealed that Victor is a vampire. He kills Rachel and hangs her in the room with the house owners whom he's already killed.
The two young men from Professor's wife and the pimp from The Radio appear in this segment.
, which the professor has supposedly spent the last 20 years working on in his laboratory
. She also behaves like a robot and does not eat or drink, which further indicates that she is probably mechanical. When the professor is out of the house, they decide to dismantle Kathy to see what she looks like on the inside.
To their utter horror
, they learn that Kathy really was a human being after all. The professor later buys an 'advanced' voodoo kit from the homeless street vendor to put Kathy back together in time for the wedding
.
Rachael, the killer call girl, makes a brief appearance in this story.
-ordered sentence at a free clinic
, where he is very insolent and rude towards his patients. He even goes as far as to show no sympathy towards a young girl with a brain tumor and mocks an elderly woman who is going blind
. One day he buys a hot dog
, which was poisoned and intended for him.
Dr. Farwell accidentally drops it on the ground. He sadistically decides to give the dirty hot dog to a homeless man who has been bothering him for some spare change. The homeless man dies after taking one bite, and he returns to haunt the cruel doctor. The story ends with the doctor
having a heart attack from having had too many encounters with his ghostly stalker.
Victor from "Call Girl" also appears in this segment, and he seems to be in cahoots with Dr. Farwell. The homeless man can be heard muttering, "Thanks for the good dog" to Dr. Farwell throughout the segment, which is no doubt a reference to the somewhat similar "Thanks for the ride, lady!" line from Creepshow 2s final story, "The Hitch-Hiker". The Hispanic woman from "Alice" also makes an appearance in this story. Also, it is revealed that the street vendor/homeless man got the two radios from the professor in "The Professor's Wife".
. The film was released in the United Kingdom on October 20, 2008, by Anchor Bay UK
.
Creepshow III was backed by the Taurus Entertainment Company and directed by James Glenn Dudelson and Ana Clavell. The film's special make-up effects were created by Greg McDougall, who has also worked on Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds
in the special effects department
.
James Glenn Dudelson, who directed Creepshow III, is currently attached as an executive producer
on the upcoming Warner Bros. sequel, Creepshow 4, but it is understood that he will have no creative
input.
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
to the 1982 horror anthology classic, Creepshow
Creepshow
Creepshow is a 1982 American horror anthology film directed by George A. Romero and written by Stephen King. The film's ensemble cast included Ted Danson, Leslie Nielsen, Hal Holbrook, E.G...
, by Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
and George A. Romero
George A. Romero
George Andrew Romero is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter and editor, best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed "Godfather of all Zombies." -Life and career:...
. The film, like the original, consists of five tales of light-hearted horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
: "Alice", "The Radio", "Call Girl", "The Professor's Wife" and "Haunted Dog", although there is no EC Comics
EC Comics
Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...
angle this time around. The film was made in 2006, and it was released to the public in early 2007. No one from the production of either Creepshow or Creepshow 2
Creepshow 2
Creepshow 2 is an American horror comedy anthology film directed by Michael Gornick, who was George A. Romero's cinematographer on the original Creepshow. Released in 1987, the screenplay for Creepshow 2 was penned by Romero , and once again based upon stories by Stephen King...
(namely King and Romero) was involved in the production of this film. The film Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie is a 1990 movie directed by John Harrison based on the anthology television series Tales from the Darkside...
, released in 1990, was referred to by Tom Savini
Tom Savini
Thomas Vincent "Tom" Savini is an American actor, stuntman, director, award-winning special effects and makeup artist. He is known for his work on the Living Dead films directed by George A. Romero, as well as Creepshow, The Burning, Friday the 13th, The Prowler, and Maniac. He directed the 1990...
as "The real Creepshow 3".
Wraparound story
Unlike the first two Creepshow installments in which the wraparound element linking the stories was a horror comic, Creepshow III takes an approach similar to Quentin TarantinoQuentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
's Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction (film)
Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino, who co-wrote its screenplay with Roger Avary. The film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline, and host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references...
, in which characters from each story collide with each other during the film. There is also a hotdog stand as a common element in the movie. Brochures, ads and other things from the hotdog stand are peppered throughout.
Alice
Alice (Stephanie Pettee) is a stuck-up, snotty teenager who comes home to find her father meddling with some kind of universal remoteRemote control
A remote control is a component of an electronics device, most commonly a television set, used for operating the television device wirelessly from a short line-of-sight distance.The remote control is usually contracted to remote...
. Whenever she presses one of the buttons on the device, the whole family except for Alice changes ethnicity (i.e., the "Color and Hue
Hue
Hue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as "the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,"...
Settings" button makes her family turn African-American, and the "Subtitles" button makes her family turn Hispanic
Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
). During this, Alice gradually mutates into what is supposedly her "true form".
Just when Alice thinks everything is back to normal, her father presses another button, revealing Alice's true form. Her family is absolutely horrified at the sight of Alice. The story ends with Professor Dayton, the mad scientist from down the street, using another remote control to turn Alice into a white rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
. Notable in this story is the obvious link to Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
's Alice in Wonderland. Victor, the vampire, makes an appearance in this story.
The Radio
Jerry (A. J. BowenA. J. Bowen
Uncle Alfred C. Bowen, Jr. , better known as A. J. Bowen, is an American stage and film actor who appeared as Lewis Denton in the film The Signal.-Movie career:...
) is a part-time security guard who buys a radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
from a homeless street vendor to replace his old one which has stopped working; however, this mysterious new radio is far from ordinary as it can have a conversation
Conversation
Conversation is a form of interactive, spontaneous communication between two or more people who are following rules of etiquette.Conversation analysis is a branch of sociology which studies the structure and organization of human interaction, with a more specific focus on conversational...
with Jerry. Very soon Jerry is stealing money
Money
Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
and murdering people, all at the whim of his new radio. After escaping with a hooker who lives in his building, Jerry is told by the radio to kill the hooker or she will kill him. He refuses and destroys the radio. Right after, the hooker finds his gun in the car and shoots Jerry, killing him. Moments after she kills him and wipes the gun clean, she is shot in the head. The shooter is revealed to be the pimp living in the same building as Jerry. When the pimp returns to his car, another radio tells him to go and start a new life.
Alice's father (Detective Jacobs) also appears in this story, investigating the various murders and strange goings-on taking place. The killer call girl, Rachael, also makes an appearance in this story, as well as the pimp and the two boys from "The Professor's Wife".
Call Girl
Rachel, a murderous call girlCall girl
A call girl or female escort is a sex worker who is not visible to the general public; nor does she usually work in an institution like a brothel, although she may be employed by an escort agency...
, receives a request from a shy man named Victor, her newest client. Rachel thinks he will be just another easy victim. When Rachel gets there, scenes of a murdered family with their necks ripped out are flashed on-screen, and there is no evidence of Victor living in the house. Rachel then chains him to the bed and proceeds to stab him in the chest, suffocate him by a pillow over his face, and then has a quick shower. She then keeps hearing Victor's voice saying, "You killed me." Rachel removes the pillow and reveals a gruesome creature with a large, toothy mouth. It is then revealed that Victor is a vampire. He kills Rachel and hangs her in the room with the house owners whom he's already killed.
The two young men from Professor's wife and the pimp from The Radio appear in this segment.
The Professor's Wife
Two former students come to visit Professor Dayton and meet his fiancee, Kathy. Having been victims of his practical jokes in the past, they suspect that Kathy is actually a robotRobot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
, which the professor has supposedly spent the last 20 years working on in his laboratory
Laboratory
A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...
. She also behaves like a robot and does not eat or drink, which further indicates that she is probably mechanical. When the professor is out of the house, they decide to dismantle Kathy to see what she looks like on the inside.
To their utter horror
Horror (emotion)
The distinction between horror and terror is a standard literary and psychological concept applied especially to Gothic literature and film. Terror is usually described as the feeling of dread and anticipation that precedes the horrifying experience...
, they learn that Kathy really was a human being after all. The professor later buys an 'advanced' voodoo kit from the homeless street vendor to put Kathy back together in time for the wedding
Wedding
A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...
.
Rachael, the killer call girl, makes a brief appearance in this story.
Haunted Dog
A cruel, miserly doctor, Dr. Farwell, is working a 30-day courtCourt
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
-ordered sentence at a free clinic
Clinic
A clinic is a health care facility that is primarily devoted to the care of outpatients...
, where he is very insolent and rude towards his patients. He even goes as far as to show no sympathy towards a young girl with a brain tumor and mocks an elderly woman who is going blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
. One day he buys a hot dog
Hot dog
A hot dog is a sausage served in a sliced bun. It is very often garnished with mustard, ketchup, onions, mayonnaise, relish and/or sauerkraut.-History:...
, which was poisoned and intended for him.
Dr. Farwell accidentally drops it on the ground. He sadistically decides to give the dirty hot dog to a homeless man who has been bothering him for some spare change. The homeless man dies after taking one bite, and he returns to haunt the cruel doctor. The story ends with the doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
having a heart attack from having had too many encounters with his ghostly stalker.
Victor from "Call Girl" also appears in this segment, and he seems to be in cahoots with Dr. Farwell. The homeless man can be heard muttering, "Thanks for the good dog" to Dr. Farwell throughout the segment, which is no doubt a reference to the somewhat similar "Thanks for the ride, lady!" line from Creepshow 2s final story, "The Hitch-Hiker". The Hispanic woman from "Alice" also makes an appearance in this story. Also, it is revealed that the street vendor/homeless man got the two radios from the professor in "The Professor's Wife".
Release
The film was released May 15, 2007, in the United States by HBO through their parent company Warner Home VideoWarner Home Video
Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...
. The film was released in the United Kingdom on October 20, 2008, by Anchor Bay UK
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment is a U.S. based home entertainment and production company and is a division of Starz Media, which is a unit of Starz, LLC. It was previously owned by IDT Entertainment until 2006 when IDT was purchased by Starz Media. Anchor Bay markets and sells feature films, series,...
.
Creepshow III was backed by the Taurus Entertainment Company and directed by James Glenn Dudelson and Ana Clavell. The film's special make-up effects were created by Greg McDougall, who has also worked on Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds
War of the Worlds (2005 film)
War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction film adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel of the same name, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. It is one of three film adaptations of War of the Worlds released that year, alongside The Asylum's version and...
in the special effects department
Departmentalization
Departmentalization refers to the process of grouping activities into departments.Division of labour creates specialists who need coordination. This coordination is facilitated by grouping specialists together in departments....
.
James Glenn Dudelson, who directed Creepshow III, is currently attached as an executive producer
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
on the upcoming Warner Bros. sequel, Creepshow 4, but it is understood that he will have no creative
Creativity
Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new that has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs...
input.