Directors: James Dudelson, Ana Clavell

Starring: Stephanie Pettee, AJ Bowen, Kris Allen

“Nurse Jacobs, I can’t write a prescription for ugly.” (Dr Farwell, Creepshow 3)

James Dudelson and Ana Clavell should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. In 2005 Dudelson bought the rights to the Day Of The Dead name and released Day Of The Dead: Contagium, an unofficial sequel that completely pissed on everything George Romero’s classic stood for.

After this, having also obtained the rights to Creepshow (the fantastic anthology series previously written by Stephen King and directed by Romero), Dudelson and chum Clavell got to work on a script for Creepshow 3. If the aim was to once again destroy the great reputation of a classic film by releasing an atrocious sequel that’s so bad you actually feel angry as you watch it, then mission accomplished. Creepshow 3 is an embarrassment.

Like its two predecessors, Creepshow 3 is an anthology consisting of numerous short stories (five in this instance) rather than one long film. Whereas each of the stories in Creepshow 1 and 2 were self-contained tales with messages of morality though, the five mini-insults here each make very little sense whatsoever.

The first, entitled “Alice”, tells the story of a teenager whose father has bought a new TV remote. Every time he presses a button on the remote she’s transported to an alternate dimension where her family are black, Hispanic and so forth. Oh, and for some reason she starts mutating and turning into a rabbit. The ending is completely bewildering and explains nothing.

Then there’s “The Radio”, which is probably the best of the bunch and the only story of the five on offer that actually makes sense and has a plot that can be followed from start to finish. A guy buys a new radio that talks to him and instructs him to murder people and steal money. It actually ends on a pretty clever note and for a second it looks like Creepshow 3 might have redeemed itself.

This notion is immediately kicked down a flight of stairs with “Call Girl”, in which a serial killing prostitute meets her match when a vampire chap requests her services. This one’s thankfully pretty short: it’s a shame, because while the concept is a good one the execution is weak.

The fourth tale is “The Professor’s Wife”, in which a weird professor chap (easily the worst actor in the film) invites two of his ex-students over to meet his fiancee in advance of their wedding. Convinced she’s a robot, the students proceed to hack her to bits to find how the professor put her together, going so far beyond the point where it’d become clear a mistake has been made that the whole thing becomes ridiculous.

Finally there’s “Haunted Dog”, which is among the most cringeworthy twenty minutes you’ll ever experience in a film. An arrogant doctor leaves a tramp to choke on a hot dog and is haunted by him from that point on. Again, it’s a good idea, but it’s ruined by the guy they got to play the doctor, who’s so painfully unfunny during the countless “look how much of a cock this guy is” montages that watching him poorly insult patient after patient for far too long becomes a true exercise in patience.

The film attempts to tie all five stories together Pulp Fiction style by having characters from each story appearing in cameo roles in others, but it only serves to add to the confusion. Why is the doctor attending the vampire kid’s all-vampire party? How come the Hispanic alternate dimension mother is at the professor’s wedding along with the real mother? The whole thing’s a mess.

Stay away from Creepshow 3, especially if you saw and enjoyed the first two. The second story may be half-decent but overall the film is a complete insult to the series and should have been shit-canned at the idea-gathering stage.