5 Jolting Tales of Terror!
Father's Day (First story, written by King expressly for the film): Years ago, Nathan Grantham was killed on Father's Day when his daughter Bedelia bashed him in the head with a marble ashtray as he screamed for his cake. Years later, as his relatives get together for their annual dinner on Father's Day, Nathan returns from the grave for revenge.
The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill (Second story, originally titled "Weeds", adapted from a previously published short story): A dimwitted backwoods hick thinks a newly-discovered meteorite will provide enough money to pay off the remaining $200 of his bank loan. Instead, he finds himself overcome by a rapidly spreading plant-like organism that arrives in the meteorite. Stephen King himself plays the doomed protagonist in this darkly humorous story.
Something to Tide You Over (Third story, written by King expressly for the film): A coldblooded Leslie Nielsen stages a terrible fate for his unfaithful wife, Becky (Gaylen Ross) and her lover, Harry Wentworth (Ted Danson), by burying them up to their necks on the beach, below the high tide line. But the tide sometimes has a way of bringing things back...
The Crate (Fourth story, adapted from a previously published short story): A mysterious, extremely lethal creature is unwittingly freed from its crate in this supenseful and gory monster story. Hal Holbrook stars as college professor Henry Northrup, who sees the creature as a way to rid himself of his emotionally abusive wife, Wilma, played by Adrienne Barbeau. The monster in the crate was nicknamed "Fluffy" by the film's director, George A. Romero.
They're Creeping Up On You! (Fifth and final story, written by King expressly for the film): A cruel, miserly and ruthless businessman, Upson Pratt (played by screen legend E.G. Marshall), is disgusted by germs and insects, but finds himself helpless to stop them when Mr. White, his put-upon employee, allows his apartment to be overrun by endless hordes of cockroaches.
The film ends with the boy's father experiencing neck pains, transmitted by a voodoo doll ordered from the comic by the young boy, Billy, whom we see being chastised by his father at the beginning of the film.
