James Gunn owes some serious cash to George Romero.

As much as I think that Romero is overrated (c'mon, have you seen Land of the Dead?) I still think he is owed an apology. After seeing Slither tonight at my pal Chris's, he urged me to see Creepshow, written by Stephen King, directed by Romero. I told him that I never wanted to see it because I walked in on my parents watching it and somehow caught the scene wher Leslie Neilson is burying Ted Danson up to his neck in the sand.

The thing is, I didn't know it was Leslie (Police Squad/Naked Gun Nielson and Ted (Cheers/blackface with Whoopi) Danson. In my memory it was some dude burying some dude and his girlfriend, and in the end they came back as swamp people and killed some old dude. Freaking terrifying as a tyke. But now it's kind of a joke but still scary as hell. Okay, so let's rewind.

Before that scene of macabre-ness is an Act devoted to a Faulknerian Idiot Manchild played by none other than Stephen King himself. The entire thing makes Emmett Kelly look like a blue ribbon winner of the next "World's Most Understated Performance" Award. In short he's the world's most ridiculous retard. Cross-eyed, drooling, referencing incredibly clever catches of phrase like "I'll be dipped in shit if that ain't a meteor". In other words very much a Stephen King character. Which works on the written page but falls apart on the screen. (Let me take a brief aside right now to defend Mr. King. For some reason there is dialog that would make Shakespeare weep on the written page--or on stage--that sounds ghastly tard-tastic on celluloid. It's no one's fault really, it's more a fault of the medium, and so...well...let's lynch us some medium.) Anyway, we have King playing a 'tard and he finds a meteor. Not really new territory for King, I mean isn't that the premise of Tommyknockers? But again, anyway, he finds a meteor (which also happens in Slither he touches it and begins to turn into something, well a moss-man, which doesn't happen in Slither, in that film the dude turns into a squid. But anyway, there's a part where King goes into his house and sees (DUMMMM dummm dummmm!!!!!) a bathtub with a clawfoot tub. That tub is the cornerstone of Slither's marketing campaign. (In the film, there's a scene where a pretty teenaged girl takes a bath and gets accosted by alien slugs. That scene has become so emblematic of the film that it now emblazons the film's posters and DVD boxes.

Anyway, I'm tired so I wrap it up. Gunn must've seen Creepshow and must've somehow been influence at some point into writing something somewhat similar. Which, i guess makes sense. I mean, I could've written that scene and have had no idea that it came from some C+ flick from the 80's. I dunno, I guess I can't blame him. Everyone's ideas have to come from somewhere. Honestly I'd be much more scared by someone who had never been influenced by anyone coming up with that shit. Like maybe some feral monkey child kept in a basement for 29 years with zero contact to the outside world and then all of a sudden he starts talking about his imaginary friends Phoebe, Ross, Rachel and Joey and how they all hang out at a coffee shop, have no jobs and screw each other.

So in closing, I guess my opening statement is bullshit. I guess I just wanted to point out a similarity between the films. Maybe this is more about my fear of copying others and less about my criticism of Gunn, a very capable and wonderful filmmaker. Maybe I'm trying to blow out someone else's candle to make mine look brighter.

Very possible.

EYES:Creepshow
EARS: Creepshow