Creepshow has been a longtime favorite of mine, and it is certainly the one George A. Romero film I repeatedly visit several times a year, especially around Halloween. So I was especially ecstatic to finally get a chance to check out Michael Felsher’s Just Desserts documentary that takes a look back at the seminal anthology that perfectly captured the wickedly subversive spirit of EC Comics and brought that aesthetic into mainstream horror back in 1982.
Released as a bonus feature on a special edition DVD of Creepshow back in 2007, Felsher’s celebration of the film is solidly made and entertaining as well, albeit with a straightforward talking heads presentation that feels a bit more like something you’d watch as supplemental material, as opposed to a film project deserving of a separate release. That being said, the interview segments are lively and informative, and Felsher really covers everything you could want to know about Creepshow, so ultimately Just Desserts is certainly worth a watch if you grew up loving Romero’s masterpiece as much as I did.
Just Desserts chronicles how Creepshow came about, featuring in-depth interviews with Romero and makeup effects legend Tom Savini, who justifiably lays the framework for Felsher’s visual retrospective. Other interviewees include actors Tom Atkins, Adrienne Barbeau, Ed Harris, David Early, Marty Schiff, and Bingo O’Malley, as well as those who collaborated on Creepshow behind-the-scenes, including Rick Catizone, John Harrison, Pasquale Buba, Richard P. Rubinstein, Bernie Wrightson, and more.
Throughout the interviews, we learn how Romero and Stephen King first came together to work on an adaptation of The Stand before going in a wholly different direction to create something original that could be made on a lower scale than King’s epic post-apocalypse novel. With both of them sharing a love for EC Comics and wanting to bring that adoration to the big screen, Creepshow was born, with King completing the script in just 60 days and production moving pretty rapidly from there.
In Just Desserts, Felsher digs into everything you’d want to know about Creepshow, from the effects, to anecdotes from key cast members, to production tales from each segment, to how the look and sound of Creepshow came together. Even those damned cockroaches from “They’re Creeping Up on You” get their moment in the spotlight, and stories about how they were captured and how they broke loose on set gave me a sufficient case of the heebie-jeebies.
While it is interesting, I couldn’t help but want a little more from Just Desserts—maybe I’m just a product of being spoiled by genre docs that go at their topics with a little more gusto than Felsher does here. Everyone is certainly pleasant, but the reflections often never go further than “so-and-so was lovely to work with,” and as a fan, I was looking for something that dug a little deeper.
There are plenty of King stories shared throughout Just Desserts, but the lack of his involvement is felt for sure, especially considering how involved he was in bringing Creepshow to fruition. Something else that’s a bit odd is a Grip’s anecdote about a
“tomato he wanted to spend the weekend with”—a story that feels out of alignment with the rest of the memories shared throughout the documentary.
Synapse’s recent Blu-ray release of Just Desserts is sublime, though, with a ton of special features that make for great companion material to the main doc, including two audio commentaries and additional interview material focused on Savini’s achievements from Creepshow, with an additional doc about his entire career, too.
By and large, Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow certainly has a lot of affection for its material, as Felsher covers practically everything about what went into the creation of Creepshow. Fans of Romero’s anthology should be pleased with the documentary—I just personally hoped it would offer more in-depth insights, but by and large, what is revealed and shared is certainly entertaining and informative.
Movie Score: 3.5/5, Disc Score: 4/5
Heather A. Wixson was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, until she followed her dreams and moved to Los Angeles in 2009. A 14-year veteran in the world of horror entertainment journalism, Wixson fell in love with genre films at a very early age, and has spent more than a decade as a writer and supporter of preserving the history of horror and science fiction cinema. Throughout her career, Wixson has contributed to several notable websites, including Fangoria, Dread Central, Terror Tube, and FEARnet, and she currently serves as the Managing Editor for Daily Dead, which has been her home since 2013. She's also written for both Fangoria Magazine & ReMind Magazine, and her latest book project, Monsters, Makeup & Effects: Volume One will be released on October 20, 2021.
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