Customer Reviews (13)

Indispensable.
I borrowed this book a number of years ago from a college buddy- despite some of the A-List contributors, its existence was news to me (guess I don't actually read that much horror fiction). Anyway, after casually reading it for about a week, I found myself looking for something to use as a weapon or a barricade anytime I heard a noise. I've searched for my own copy ever since, but it's out of print and the title's been used more than once. If you're reading this, you owe it to yourself to snatch up a used copy as cheap as you can, maybe loan it to a friend when you're done. Like any anthology, it contains a few duds, but the good stuff totally eclipses those.

Not as good as I'd heard
I am a huge fan of the living dead genre and eagerly purchased this "classic" based on glowing reviews I'd read on Amazon.I'm sad to say I was thoroughly disappointed.I'd heard and read that the stories were daring and boundary-pushing, so I was ready for graphic depictions of the living dead.What I got was something quite different.With the exception of the story by Stephen King and possibly a couple of others, the stories were over the top not with violence, but with violent sexuality.It seemed nearly every story was written by someone with a fetish for necrophilia. Story after story focused on sex, rape, sex with the dead, rape of the dead, rape by the dead, the dead having sex with each other...the one-armed dead baby being held by its leg to be shot was an especially disturbing touch. Also, there was a running theme of "Christianity is the REAL horror".I'm not a religious person and certainly no fan of organized religion, but I don't need to be beaten over the head with someone's politics.Many of the stories portray religion as worse than being eaten alive.Call me traditional, but I'd like a LITTLE subtlety in my literature when it comes to politics.The forward goes on and on about how important it is to push boundaries and disturb people.I think they got it only partially right.Boundaries are there to be pushed, but not just for the sake of pushing them.There were times in some of the stories where I could envision the author thinking "now what can I do NEXT in the story to really gross people out and be edgy?"Was I offended by the stories?No. Was I disappointed in the lack of imagination or originality?Absolutely.If you're going to write over-the-top stories, at least make them interesting and not JUST over-the-top.

In A World Created By George Romero...
This is a short story collection based on the zombie infested world of George Romero. (If you don't know who he is then this is probably not the book for you.)

While that's the basis for the stories inclusion here, not every story feels like it was written specifically for this collection. Apparently, just being zombie-centric is good enough. It's a loose association and I guess the Romero-thing helps give this street cred. (Although if you're really with the horror crowd; just having the umbrella to hang over these stories and the authors names should be enough to attract you.)

Still it doesn't diminish the enjoyment here. Standouts are "On The Far Side Of The Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks" by Joe R. Lansdale/ "Wet Work" by Phillip Nutman/ "Less Than Zombie" by Douglas E. Winter/ "Jerry's Kids Meet Wormboy" by David J. Schow.

These stories (and to a lesser extent others) deal with some of the topics Romero has actually touched on in his series of films. The most interesting one being how adaptable people are to integrating the zombies somehow into a semblence of everyday life. (Yes, it helps if your funny bone tends towards dark humor.)

There's nothing particularly frightening about these tales. Some manage to conjure up a sense of dread. Again, like Romero, most of what seems horrible is the parable of zombies and their behaviors reflecting what goes on with ourselves on a daily basis. You don't realize how much of a zombie society has made you until you read some of these.

Brad West.

Innovative splatter
Book of the Dead is a diverse and gloriously-gory collection of stories that aim to push the envelope. The highlights:

"Home Delivery", Stephen King - the scenes of the close-knit island community waiting for their graveyard to start sprouting undead were great. And the space object causing the problem was really interesting - the sequence with the worms invading the spacecraft was unexpected and awesome.

"Eat Me", Robert R. McCammon - Presents a gruesome version of zombie lovin' but still manages to tug at the heartstrings.

"Jerry's Kids Meet Wormboy", David J. Schow - I don't usually care for stories about zombies controlled by humans (and there are 3 or 4 in this collection), but David Schow's splatterpunk style is just too cool.

It's the abundance of human-controlled-undead stories that costs this antho a star, but that's just my personal taste. Without a doubt, every story here is inventive and well-written, and you simply have to own this volume if you're a zombie fan.

Remarkable Collection.
This is a highly unusual collection of horror.At least a couple of the stories in the collection: "A Sad Last Love At The Diner Of The Damned" and "Across The Cadillac Desert With Dead People", are cult classics.The rest are at least well written and interesting.This is, however, out of print and somewhat hard to find.Also, beware, it is an extremely graphic and gory collection in terms of horrific, and sometimes sexual, content. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

Cheesy Fun
If you've seen the kinda cheesy, kinda not-so-good movie that this comic was generated from, then you'll already know all of the stories. (I'm not totally panning the film however, I do after all own it and Creepshow 2!) Even though the stories were old hat though, I still had a good time reading the comic version. Do not dive into this book thinking that it is a graphic novel. Nothing could be further from the truth. Creepshow is done entirely in the tongue-in-cheek style of the old horror comics. The host is a wise-cracking undead version of Stan Lee himself and the stories, while still a bit scary for the most part, are fairly lame.

This is not to say that Creepshow is not a fun, quick read. I read it in an evening and like most of the comic books that I have floating around from my childhood, I guarantee that I'll pick it up and read it again at some point in the future. That's the beauty of comics, there's no need for deep thinking. It's something that you can pick up, lose yourself in for an hour or two and be finished with it. Sometimes we need that release.

I guess on that note, I'll quit before I have more words in this review than there are in the book itself!

Creep Show
Creepshow is a really excellent movie I ever seen. (I even like the comic drawings in the movie more than the comic book drawings). But I question, why doesn't the comic book say, "# Issue Collectors' Edition & Jolting Tales of HORROR?" "And what the f*:o is the L logo on the comic in the movie!?"

Also, I thought of a doing parodic comic based on Creep Show called, "Creep Bear"

Creepshow.That's NOT the ticket
Unfortunately, the comic book is not as good as the movie (in fact my favorite movie). The comic book is illistrated by a different person than the movie. That's one reason I don't like it. I'd only recommend it to fans of the movie.

The comic book is basically like a storyboard for the movie. For the most part the dialogue is the same but sometimes completely different.

Basically, I don't like the comic book as much as the movie, but it's not bad. I'd only recommend it to the fans of the movie. As Jordy Verell would say, "Thats the ticket!"

It would not keep me up nights
Some of Stephen King's material has kept me up at nights, both while reading it and lying in bed listening to the walls creak. However, the movies based on his books never seem to generate the passionate fear that his books do. I attribute this to the fact that less imagination is required in the movies, which means that there is less suspension of reality. This book is a set of cartoons based on the movie of the same name by George A. Romero.
The cartoons plus dialog is not scary, and while the artwork is good, it cannot be described as spectacular. My favorite story is "The Crate", where a monster was somehow captured in an expedition to the Arctic a half century earlier. The idea that it somehow lay dormant all that time was absurd, but the interesting part to me was the shrewish wife of a college professor. As an academic, the (exaggerated) subplot of academic politics running throughout the story kept my interest.
If you are a Stephen King fan, you will probably find the cartoons of interest. However, King is one of those people whose ideas are best savored in written form, where the scary details can be up close and personal. That takes away some of the force of the stories.

CREEPSHOW-One of king's best works
I've read alot of Stephen King's novels. But I've found CREEPSHOW
to be one of his best works. I rented it from the local library & am waiting to own a copy soon. ... Read more

Product Description
Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of a true iconic horror movie classic! NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD co-creator John Russo brings you a new tale of terror set during the night that changed the world forever. The Eastern United States is in chaos as hordes of the undead wage war against the living, and increasingly frantic television transmissions are the only source of information available to a terrified populace. But there is no escape from the living dead and no safe place to hide, not even the WIIC-TV studio where original NOTLD news anchorman Chuck Blaine has some difficult decisions to make: Should his heroic news crew continue their emergency public broadcasts, or run from the army of ghouls amassing outside the station? More importantly, should he continue to disseminate questionable government recommendations that could be luring viewers into inescapable death traps? This special bonus-sized tale features appearances by some of the original film's most memorable characters, including the recently deceased Johnny, Barbra and little Karen Cooper! This cover is the Platinum Foil edition which was limited to only 600! ... Read more

Product Description
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A zombie is a creature that appears in books and popular culture typically as a reanimated dead or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful wizard. Zombies became a popular device in modern horror fiction, largely because of the success of George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. According to the tenets of Vodou, a dead person can be revived by a bokor, or sorcerer. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will of their own. "Zombi" is also another name of the Vodou snake lwa Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kikongo word nzambi, which means "god". ... Read more

Product Description
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD THE BEGINNING #3 ... Read more

Product Description
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A zombie is a creature that appears in books and popular culture typically as a reanimated dead or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful wizard. Zombies became a popular device in modern horror fiction, largely because of the success of George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead ... Read more