George Romero has been associated with some diabolically fun horror anthologies of the past, including Creepshow, Creepshow 2, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie and Two Evil Eyes. Do not add Deadtime Stories to that list. Neither writing nor directing, Romero just collects a paycheck as host. Sitting in a chair with his signature TV-tube-shaped, black-rimmed glasses nearly as big as his head, he introduces three incredibly amateurish tales with zero star power (this not being 1985, Nick Mancuso does not count), not to mention any power, period. Hell, they can’t even be bothered to keep the typeface consistent.
In the first, “Valley of the Shadow,” a woman assembles a South American jungle expedition to search for her husband, who’s been missing for three years. Once there, one team member finds trees bearing strange fruit that look like extra-veiny testicles and squirt Aim toothpaste; but pay no mind, as this discovery has nothing to do with the story. They arrive at one island where not one of them thinks to say, “Hey, what’s with all those bloody heads on the pointy sticks?” Moral of the story: White people are stupid assholes.
“Wet” is just that. Despite warnings not to, a fat, bearded ginger pulls a mermaid head out of a box and buries it with her other parts. She comes back to life, crawls into his bed, and bites off his wiener. Then he turns into a merman. It’s like Splash meets … oh, say, a Turkish prison toilet. Moral of the story: Mancuso is starting to look an awful lot like Howard Hesseman.
Tom Savini directs the final chapter, the old-timey-set “House Call,” in which a frenzied woman summons a wizened old doctor to her home because her son thinks he’s a vampire — shades of Romero’s Martin — and he is. Moral of the story: I shan’t waste my precious time on Volume 2. —Rod Lott