a review of 鬼作秀

HOOPTOBER, NIGHT SEVEN POINT FIVE: This is a late addition to my list, since I only found out that my local theater was showing it a day or two before I went to see it. I've wanted to catch up with it for years, but always seem to miss out on it being available on streaming. As an anthology, it hangs together well even when some of its segments don't live up to their full promise, and the teaming of Romero and King as collaborators is pretty much everything I wanted from the concept. Speaking of King, I'd heard a lot of people talk shit about his rare acting turn in "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill", but I actually found him pretty entertaining in a role clearly meant be taken as pure broad comedy. I think it speaks to King's lack of pretentiousness that he dove into it with clear joy and aplomb. There's a few things that don't really hold up too well 35+ years on, most notably the deep, played-for-laughs misogyny in the wife-murder plot of "The Crate" (especially as directed towards Adrienne Barbeau, who is always one of the best things about any movie she's in), but perhaps it's best to take the movie as both of its time, as well as an homage to past horror and suspense yarns from a less enlightened age.