Creepshow 2 (1987)

 "I feel the need, the need for weed!"

It's getting close to Halloween which, I think, is as good an excuse to watch only fun, cheesy horror films for the rest of October. This is a particularly fine example, with three nice little Stephen King stories (he gets an amusing cameo) adapted, but not directed, by George A. Romero in another entertaining little '80s Hollywood version of those old Amicus anthologies. It's nice to see that the cast, while short of star wattage, is full of character actors with familiar faces who are getting prominent roles and nailing them.

The first segment, uncharcteristically, happens in some western state that isn't Maine, which is very un-Stephen King. It's a simple tale of a kindly old couple who are nice to the local native tribe and try to support their dying community, only to be cruelly murdered by a young psychopathic thug and his underlings, who are all then slain in increasingly fun ways by a wooden carving of a Native American  chief. It is, I suppose, vaguely racist in its stereotypes, but the killings are clever and fun. The axe in the back, in shadow but with a splattering of blood, is nicely done in particular.

The second segment, about four teenagers on a raft being menaced and killed off one by one by some kind of sentient oil slick, is superb. The straightforward plot doesn't really reflect the cleverness of how events play out for maimum tension. I love how all but one of the kids smoke some weed, making one expect a "drugs are bad, m'kay" undercurrent with the one girl surviving... but they are all doomed regardless. I love how the slick is inexorable and can't be outrun. There's no logic or reason to cling to, only fear and death.

The third and final segment is outstanding, as a very rich woman leaves the home of an expensive male prostitute(!), is late, and in her panic fatally runs over a hitchhiker who pursues her inexorably to her death after she drives off and tries to avoid the consequences. The horror and tension are nicely juxtaposed with her musings on the guilt she feels. On a mundane note, I smiled at the beginning when the digital alarm clock failed to go off and flashed "12:00" after a power cut. That exact situation made me late a couple of times back in the days before we all just used our phones...

This film isn't big, it doesn't claim to be clever, but it's enormous fun and gave me quite a feeling of warmth.