Creepshow Tango

By E. F. Schraeder

I get goofy nostalgic for the campy gore I grew up watching, but revisiting old favorites with a modern lens sometimes leads to more cringe-worthy than binge-worthy experiences. The 1982 horror-comedy crafted by legends George Romero and Stephen King Creepshow starts and ends with gleeful expressions of male violence —  buck up little boy and get to know how the patriarchy feels at the end of dad’s slap. But Creepshow delivers more than a ride-along with patriarchy, it’s a roadmap to crush it.

The work of Romero or King reflects substantial variety, and a comprehensive analysis of the feminist themes throughout their prolific careers is well beyond the scope piece.. However, a short look at highlights provides a backdrop to consider the patriarchy-bashing goodness they produce in Creepshow. George Romero doesn’t shy away from messages in films, as evident in the landmark The Living Dead trilogy.  Each installment tackles socio-political themes like racial injustice, classism, and consumerism. From selecting an African American male lead in the 1968 original to the consumeristic mayhem of the mall, Romero’s work often functions as a zeitgeist.  They transgress expectations and have included female leads long before such roles became somewhat more commonplace. Romero’s ethereal cult classic Season of the Witch (1972) takes a Betty-Friedanesque look at the frustrations of white suburban heterosexual female agency, framed within an empowering occult exploration.

  King’s legendary portrayals of both the emergence and fear of female power blaze in print and film adaptions of major works in coming of age projects like Carrie (1976), Firestarter (1984) as well as the potent Misery (1990) and Dolores Claiborne (1995). With narratives about resisting religious fundamentalism, toppling gender norms, and cultivating an internal or otherworldly powers, King’s quiet but persistent feminist themes appear in numerous works.  Even if central female figures are not rampant in King’s extensive catalog , those women who appear are often nuanced and complex, crafted to resist simplistic gender norms and objectification.

In short, icons Romero and King have had decade-spanning careers during a time period involving dynamic social changes that impacted perceived gender roles. More than maternal nurturers or objectified placeholders, they create nuanced, messy, and often transgressive women’s roles. Within a backdrop of fluid, progressing norms, these master storytellers craft women characters that go well beyond sexist stereotypes.

In this light, Creepshow can be considered as a lens offering a distillation of the shortcomings of patriarchal power and toxic masculinity. The opening framework highlights the shortcomings of ‘traditional’ U.S. family roles, with a quiet mother (ironing, no less), angry father (Stanley), and a mischief-making lad who wants nothing more than to read his nasty little comics. In opening scenes, Stanley establishes himself as an angry dad archetype: he insults his son Billy’s reading choices, accuses him of ‘snooping’ when called out for a hidden pornography stash, and lashes out with violence when contradicted.  When his meek wife hints at criticism, her concerns are rejected in favor of upholding the rules, squashed with the retort, “That’s why God made fathers.” But Romero and King have another ending in mind when they cut to the scolded, cheek reddened boy alone in his room. Instead of ending with the triumphant paternal figure, they expose the brutalizing social dynamics imposed by relationships that hinge on escalations and one upmanship. Imagining the consequences of this particular brand of fatherhood invested in power-over dynamics and the cycle of violence imposed by the escalations they demand, the scene ends with Billy in his room, but he isn’t crying; he’s hoping his father rots in hell.  It’s a hope Billy makes good on by the end of the film, thus revealing the ultimate ouroboros and self-defeating nature of patriarchal fatherhood.

In “Father’s Day,” Romero and King center another domestic scene to expose violent entitlement. Viewers meet Bedelia after her dad’s death, witnessing flashbacks of her being belittled and berated by a demanding, cruel, and rich father. We learn dear dad killed her boyfriend and got away with the crime by claiming it was a hunting accident. Before viewers can hate him any more, Bedelia snaps, murders the old man, inherits his wealth, and also gets away with murder because she’s followed so closely in his footsteps. The crimes and cruelty of the patriarch contextualize Bedelia’s justifiable outrage and eventual breaking point. Viewers may be excited by the turn of events, rooting for Bedlelia as she finally gets her comeuppance. She’s due for a break, right? Or so entitlement suggests. However, the horror of doing whatever one wants with impunity reveals how twisted escalating retribution becomes when the reanimated corpse of this murdered patriarch rises from the grave. Rotting and nearly jawless, the old man still demands more, screaming, “Where’s my cake?”  Entitlement is a nasty business.

In “Something to Tide You Over” Romero and King take aim at outdated ownership mentality embedded in historic marriage laws that treated women as property. The love triangle’s betrayed husband Richard (Leslie Nielsen) rejects the idea of an easy divorce,  and acknowledging only one thing matters: “I keep what is mine, no exceptions.” Obsessed with his possessions, Richard kills them for the breach and watches from a safe distance (on six monitors). Once disposed of, the lovers come back to wreak payback and dismantle Richard’s ownership with a revenge of their own. Delusional until death, Richard promises he can hold his breath for a long time—like the patriarchy itself, a leftover attitude that somehow expects survival, even when buried alive.

Nowhere is the indictment of patriarchal power clearer than in “The Crate,” as the brilliant pairing of Adrienne Barbeau and Hal Holbrook capture a methodical look at misogyny, where the thin line between casual woman-hating and murder is razor sharp.  Barbeau’s boozy Billie is brash and overpowering, with a demeanor that irritates everyone. Her quiet professor husband Henry fantasizes about murdering her repeatedly in little vignettes delivered mostly for comedic effect. Viewers are led to perceive Henry as the likable one— the quintessential nice guy, teased and tormented by obnoxious Billie. But since two out of five female murder victims are killed by intimate partners , what happens in Creepshow reflects something that happens often in reality: a woman is murdered by her husband. In a fierce ending, the beast that is patriarchy is locked in place, upheld by two upper middle class heterosexual white men who casually agree to keep each other’s secrets.

From entitlement and ownership to retribution, Creepshow’s (perhaps at times inadvertent) feminism dances through these macabre tales and reveals the underpinnings and weaknesses of selfish power paradigms that value individual justifications over social justice. You can’t crush what you don’t see, and by pinpointing the weaknesses of the patriarchal framework, Creepshow exposes them. As long as nice but murdery dudes get by on handshakes and tacit agreements, the patriarchy wins; but Creepshow sees it and names it, leaving viewers with the tools to interrupt its casual flow. Creepshow, after all, is a 1982 horror show designed to disgust, repel and repulse, and even by 2021 standards, it gets a lot right.

E.F. Schraeder is the author of Liar: Memoir of a Haunting (Omnium Gatherum, 2021), the story collection Ghastly Tales of Gaiety and Greed (Omnium Gatherum, 2020), and two poetry chapbooks. Recent work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Mystery Weekly Magazine, Lavender Review, and other journals and anthologies. Schraeder’s nonfiction has appeared in Vastarien, Radical Teacher, the Intellectual Freedom blog, and other

places. Awarded first place in Crystal Lake Publishing's 2021 Poetry Contest, Schraeder was also semi-finalist in Headmistress Press’ 2019 Charlotte Mew Contest. Currently working in youth services at a public library, Dr. Schraeder is a former philosophy and gender studies professor who holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. and advanced degree in Library Science.

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