Tags:
Film: Creepshow III
Year: 2006
Director: Ana Clavell and James Glenn Dudelson
Writer: Ana Clavell, James Glenn Dudelson, Scott Frazelle, Pablo C. Pappano and Alex Ugelow
Starring: Stephanie Pettee, Roy Abramsohn and Susan Schramm
Review:
This film begins with showing us some cartoon/comic like images before switching to a computer cartoon. We see a hooded figure walking down the sidewalk. He comes upon a dog which he kills. We then see that this figure is selling hotdogs and then we cut to the actual movie. This is an anthology film and we move into the first story.
This one is titled Alice. The title character is played by Stephanie Pettee. She is talking on the phone with her friend and complaining the whole way. She doesn’t like where she lives. Someone we should point out is a crazy old man that she mocks; he is played by Emmet Mcguire. There is also a father and son throwing a ball back and forth. The ball hits her while she is making eyes at a young man. She is irate and throws it away from them.
She enters her home and we meet her family. Her father is played by Roy Abramsohn, her mother by Susan Schramm, her brother by Matt Fromm and her grandmother by Bunny Gibson. Her brother makes fun of her and then her grandmother joins in. Her father is messing with this new universal remote he has bought. He changes the channel and Pettee gets a headache and her phone cuts out. She goes outside, but cannot find anyone. The ball rolls up to her and she throws it. She goes back inside to see that her family is not the same one. She is the only Caucasian in a family of African-Americans. This father hits the subtitle button and the family becomes Hispanic. The problem is that her hand, foot and head become mutated. Can she get everything to return to normal before it is too late?
The next segment is titled The Radio. This one follows AJ Bowen, who is a security guard. He comes home to his apartment building that is shady. He sees a prostitute that he has a crush on, played by Elina Madison. He gets yelled at by a pimp, who is played by Akil Wingate. We also meet a couple, played by Karen Agnes and Justin Smith. Bowen goes up to his apartment to listen to the radio, but it breaks.
He goes outside and runs into a homeless man, who is selling radios. This man is played by Elwood Carlisle. Bowen buys one and goes back up to his apartment. When the antenna breaks, he tries to rig one up, but a knob falls off. As he goes to smash it, the voice of Cara Cameron tells him not to. She begins to tell him what to do and he listens. This leads him to find a lot of money and murder. She has a plan for him, but will he follow it or will someone stop him?
The next story is the Call Girl. We see a woman leaving an apartment with a knife. She is played by Camille Lacey. She is cleaning the knife as she goes and she gets a call. The man calling her is played by Ryan Carty. Lacey gets yelled at by Wingate and this is when we start to see that these stories take place in two common locations and all of these characters are interconnected.
Carty wants to buy Lacey’s services for the night. On the way to her car, she is preached at by a homeless woman. Lacey stabs her to death and leaves.
Lacey pulls up to the same street that Alice took place on. As she goes to the house, she meets Michael Madrid and Ben Pronsky. Lacey enters the house and meets with Carty. She asks about his family and he explains why he is not in the pictures. As they move to the stairs, we see the family that actually live in this house. They are in are dead. He wants to be handcuffed and blindfolded. Lacey takes this chance to kill him with a knife. She takes a shower to clean off the blood. When she gets out, she thinks she can hear Carty’s voice calling her name. Can this be possible?
The segment that follows is titled The Professor’s Wife. We see that Gibson is a dean at the local university. She works with Mcguire. We learn that he is getting married.
Mcguire’s house is the one that Madrid and Pronsky are going to when they meet Lacey. We learn that Mcguire was a practical joker and that’s what these two young men think that Mcguire is doing. We meet Mcguire’s fiancée; she’s played by Bo Kresic. These two guys think that she is actually a robot he has created. They are going to try to find her off switch. The signs look like they might be right, but are they?
The final story is Haunted Dog. We see a jerk doctor played by Kris Allen. He is kicked out of a Chinese restaurant. He is asked for change by a homeless man that was with Carlisle, this other one is played by Ed Dyer. Allen ignores him and cuts in line to buy a hotdog. He drops it before he can take a bite and it is dirty. He gives it to Dyer. Allen cuts back in line to buy himself another one. Dyer begins choking on it and when the crowd calls for a doctor, Allen just leaves.
We learn that Allen has gotten in trouble and has to work in a free clinic. He is rude and treats the patients horrible. He goes out partying every night and we see that he knows Carty. The problem is that is haunted by Dyer. Can he find a way to stop Dyer from getting him?
The final wraparound story is Mcguire gets a voodoo kit and is still going to get married despite what happened to his wife. Schramm seems to think that she has a daughter named Alice while the rest of the family thinks she’s losing her mind. They don’t remember her. Mcguire does have a rabbit named Alice though.
I have to say that I usually like anthology horror films. This one I wasn’t a huge fan of though. I think the concept of some of these stories is really good. I think the idea of Alice is good, being a horror version of Click, but there are way too much unexplained aspects of it. Call Girl and The Radio also had solid concepts behind the story. There are some good looking women in this film, but that is about the extent of what I liked.
First off, the acting is not good in this film at all. None of them are all that believable and a lot of them just made me cringe at how awkward they are. I hate the use of CGI, because a lot of looked horrible fake due to this. I also think that the lack of a real good wraparound story hurts this film. They turn the street, Mcguire and Alice’s family into the story, but Mcguire’s tale is second to last and we don’t get a lot of Alice or her family after the opening story. I think that hurts it for an anthology film. Also I don’t feel that Alice’s story is completely explained or fleshed out, so it didn’t make enough sense to me what happened to her while things changed around her.
I would avoid seeing this film. The acting is bad; the stories are not all completely explained and the use of CGI is horrible. I think the concept of some of these stories is pretty good. The lack of a wraparound story also hurt this film for me. I would only recommend seeing this if you’re a big fan of anthology style or like bad horror films. You would be better off watching the original Creepshow or even the sequel, as this one has nothing to do with Stephen King or George Romero, they are only using the title.
My Rating: 3 out of 10