Creepshow 3 (Ana Clavell/James Glenn Dudelson, 2006, USA)

Creepshow 3, related to the first two films in name only, is the third installment of the George Romero/Stephen King-created franchise. While the story behind Creepshow 3, made in 2006 - nearly 20 years after the last film in 1987, is probably long and convoluted, the short version is that a company called Taurus Entertainment ended up securing the naming rights for the Creepshow franchise as well as Day of the Dead. It is hard to consider Ana Clavell and James Dudelson's film in the same breath as the first two films, as it is from an entirely different universe.

The film does attempt to follow the anthology format of the first two films, this time featuring five different stories that are linked by common characters and bookended by animations. The animations are straight out of the flash animation era and are amateurish to an extreme degree. While some of the segments have interesting premises, they are executed in a witless way that doesn't feature any of the dark irony or deeper meaning of the original films or the EC comics from which they were inspired. The best that can be said for these segments is that some of them are outrageous.

Creepshow 3 is a slog to get through, and it doesn't help that the five chapters are not marked. What ends up happening is that all of the chapters blend into one another. The film is nearly fifteen minutes longer than Creepshow 2 - something remarkable considering the film seems to be a little more than a cash grab based on the IP. Thankfully, the Creepshow franchise was redeemed with the series on AMC's Shudder that would emerge in 2019. It seems that most people involved with that series would prefer to forget that this film ever happened, including fans. 

1/10