"Luring your wife to be killed by a monster is a victim-less crime."
Can we all just gather enough as a country to admit that Adrienne Barbeau is a goddess? And deserves all the work and accolades she can handle? I mention this because her character in the fourth segment of Creepshow, Wilma "Billie" Northrup is a fairly maligned character in 80's horror, and, personally, I feel unfairly. The segment starts at a college mixer where we meet "our heroes" professors Dexter Stanley (Fritz Weaver) and Henry Northrup (a wan and waifish Hal Holbrook), the emasculated husband of Billie. From the very beginning, we are shown that Prof. Stanley is abusing his power by preying on young, female students under the guise of helping them with their schoolwork, and his best buddy Henry thinks that's adorable. Oh, but he sure hates his hot ass wife, who drinks and talks loudly and dresses in tank tops like the Whore of Babylon. Oh, and lol he has a lot of elaborate fantasies about shooting her in the head in public places and being applauded for it. Which is totally fine and not inappropriate for someone working in a school, ofc.
Later, a janitor loses a quarter under the stairs and locates a crate marked Arctic Exhibition June 19, 1834, which he drags out with the help of Dexter because I guess that quarter was worth dying for. They decide to open the thing with a crowbar in a random lab and it turns out to be a kind of fuzzy baboon type creature and it's hungry af. So it chows down on the janitor while a cowardly Dexter runs like a thief in the night.
Later, a janitor loses a quarter under the stairs and locates a crate marked Arctic Exhibition June 19, 1834, which he drags out with the help of Dexter because I guess that quarter was worth dying for. They decide to open the thing with a crowbar in a random lab and it turns out to be a kind of fuzzy baboon type creature and it's hungry af. So it chows down on the janitor while a cowardly Dexter runs like a thief in the night.
"Idk what I am, but I'm hungry af."
He comes upon a grad student who thinks he's either drunk or crazy, but whom he still convinces to go downstairs to the crate of doom because I'm sure this doughy unarmed kid can do more against a prehistoric murderous baboon than, say, the police. Oh, wait, no, he gets devoured as well. Live and learn.
Again failing to notify the police, Dex instead runs to Henry's house, where Henry has pathetically arranged his chess set for just such a situation. Wilma is out, at some casino or bar or specialized bitch classes, or whatever the movie wants us to think. Dexter tells Henry his crazy ass ape stories, and, being a good friend, Henry's first thought is to drug Dexter and write a long letter to lure Wilma down to the school to be eaten. The story he concocts is that Dexter raped a young female student and she's now cowering beneath the stairs and won't come out. Apparently this story is not difficult to believe, but, sure, Wilma is the real enemy here, why not? While Wilma is on her way, Henry cleans up the lab spic and span from the other two kills. The killer baboon thing, it seems, has pushed its own crate back under the stairs and just wants to go the eff back to sleep after its huge meal, which I can respect. Who among us has not slept for 200 hundred years in a crate beneath some stairs after a trip to Arby's?
Again failing to notify the police, Dex instead runs to Henry's house, where Henry has pathetically arranged his chess set for just such a situation. Wilma is out, at some casino or bar or specialized bitch classes, or whatever the movie wants us to think. Dexter tells Henry his crazy ass ape stories, and, being a good friend, Henry's first thought is to drug Dexter and write a long letter to lure Wilma down to the school to be eaten. The story he concocts is that Dexter raped a young female student and she's now cowering beneath the stairs and won't come out. Apparently this story is not difficult to believe, but, sure, Wilma is the real enemy here, why not? While Wilma is on her way, Henry cleans up the lab spic and span from the other two kills. The killer baboon thing, it seems, has pushed its own crate back under the stairs and just wants to go the eff back to sleep after its huge meal, which I can respect. Who among us has not slept for 200 hundred years in a crate beneath some stairs after a trip to Arby's?
"Ugh, dude, you never deserved this beautiful lady."
So, Wilma shows up at the lab like, ok, where's the victim of sexual predator Dexter's latest attack? And Henry is so excited that he's going to witness his wife being eaten alive that he busts out laughing, and Wilma is like, dude, what the fuck? And the baboon thing is chilling or taking a dump or whatever and it's not killing Wilma fast enough for Henry so he starts pushing her violently up against the crate like KILL MY WIFE! KILL MY WIFE! Understandably, she's not ok with this, and gets one last chance to tell him that he's not a man and bad in bed before the creature comes out like WELL, ACTUALLY and finally kills her to the childish delight of Henry.
All's well that ends well.
After cleaning up the blood and gore of his wife's horrible death, Henry tosses the crate into a quarry (brushes off hands) and heads back to his place to play chess with Dexter, who is just coming out of his drugged stupor. I mean, real talk, wimpy, cowardly Henry disposed of the crate and creature by himself? No help, nothing? Ok, I mean, I guess at this point where we're asked to applaud two terrible men for their terrible behavior, we can suspend disbelief in wondering how an old man got a thousand plus lbs out of the college into a car and out into a quarry with no issues.
As they play their first game of wife-less chess, Dexter is like, wow, I wonder if that prehistoric thing that lasted for hundreds of years without food can survive being drowned in a crate and Henry is all, LOL. The cut scene, ofc, is the murderous baboon breaking out of its crate and being super pissed off, so, anyway, that's how that worked out, glad you can enjoy more free time together, Henry and Dexter.
As they play their first game of wife-less chess, Dexter is like, wow, I wonder if that prehistoric thing that lasted for hundreds of years without food can survive being drowned in a crate and Henry is all, LOL. The cut scene, ofc, is the murderous baboon breaking out of its crate and being super pissed off, so, anyway, that's how that worked out, glad you can enjoy more free time together, Henry and Dexter.
"I am so super done with this shit, gang."
TBH, the real mystery here is why Wilma ever wanted to be married to Henry, and also why didn't just fucking roll with it. Did he think he was gonna do better? Than ADRIENNE BARBEAU? So now, in the brief lull before the prehistoric baboon thing takes over the world, we have two old dirty bastards on campus, and that is horror that you can take to the bank....THE HORROR BANK.
RSS Feed