For the newest installment of Phantom Limbs, we’ll be cracking open the pages of Creepshow 2 and poring over “Pinfall”, an unproduced segment of that 1987 horror anthology. Adapted from an unpublished Stephen King story by George A. Romero, “Pinfall” was originally slated as the second story to unfold in the sequel before it was ultimately axed in favor of “The Hitch-hiker”, the third tale in the finished film.
Joining us for this peek into an unmade Romero is Benjamin T. Rubin, the Horror Studies Collection Coordinator for the University of Pittsburgh Library System. Mr. Rubin was kind enough to take time away from overseeing the library’s George A. Romero Archival Collection (https://romero.library.pitt.edu/) to chat about the origins of “Pinfall” and its ultimate, tragic fate as the King/Romero collaboration that never was.
Following up on the modest financial success of 1982’s Creepshow, Creepshow 2 arrived a half decade later with Stephen King and George A. Romero once again in tow, albeit in diminished roles for this outing. Whereas King wrote and Romero directed the previous feature, the sequel found Romero writing the screenplay based on King stories, with frequent Romero cinematographer Michael Gornick helming this time around. Unfortunately, even for its pedigree, Creepshow 2 earned even less than its predecessor, putting the series as we know it* into the tomb until horror streaming service Shudder brought the property back in 2019 as an anthology television series which is three seasons in at the time of this writing.
George A. Romero on the set of ‘Creepshow’ (1982)
Curiously, Creepshow 2 features a mere three stories during its runtime (not including the wraparound segments), whereas the original film boasted five stories. Since its release, it’s been revealed that there were indeed two other tales meant to be included in the follow-up. One, “Cat from Hell”, would eventually find its way into the Romero-penned Tales from the Darkside: The Movie. The other, “Pinfall”, has gone sadly unproduced to this day.
“We have three drafts of Creepshow 2,” Rubin reveals of the Romero Archival Collection. “The first draft that’s actually noted as such from January of ‘84 includes ‘Pinfall’, along with ‘Old Chief Wood’nhead’ and ‘The Raft’. It’s interesting, because it was pitched that it would be a five segment anthology like the original, but there are still only these three.”
Rubin notes that “Pinfall” sticks around in the second draft, which also features “Cat from Hell”. “So ‘The Hitch-hiker’ is omitted from the first two drafts, and finally ends up in the third draft. Then the third draft has the three segments that we see [in the final film]. So it’s interesting that “Pinfall” was there from the beginning … [it] just never made it anywhere from my understanding.”
It’s long been understood that budgetary concerns kept “Pinfall” from being produced, a sentiment that Rubin echoes. “It was partially a special effects issue. Which I find extremely hard to believe that, you know, Savini and Nicotero couldn’t pull that off. But that’s at least one story that I’ve heard.”
Another consideration would have been the film’s runtime. The finished feature is over ninety minutes already, after all. “It would’ve been substantial,” Rubin says of “Pinfall”. Indeed, the story is twenty-seven pages long in the second draft of the script, which would have given us a nearly thirty minute segment had it been adapted faithfully. No insignificant length there, surely.
But what story did the shorn segment tell?
Pinfall – opening splash artwork by Jason Mayoh
Creepshow’s Crypt-Keeper proxy The Creep introduces our tale as “a gruesome little revenge story, short, sweet and…heh, heh, heh…striking! I call this one…PINFALL.” We open on splash panel comic art which dissolves to a live action frame revealing: bowling pins, struck down by one REGGIE RAMBEAUX (“likes himself a lot and that, in part, makes us not like him at all”). Reggie is the captain of the Regi-Men, a group of five bowlers currently strutting around at Big Ten Lanes. The Regi-Men are described as being entirely unlike a typical blue collar bowler, being comprised of Silicone Valley junior execs with razor cuts and Selleck ‘staches.
Reggie’s game is thrown off by J. FREDERICK MACDUGAL (“a Scotsman who looks about a hundred-and-fifty-years old”), a Big Ten regular despised by the Regi-Men for “always causing a disturbance” with his not-so-great skills on the lanes. Reggie approaches the little old man and berates him for breaking his concentration, a bit of bullying which sends MacDugal into a heart issue-related coughing fit that he resorts to medicating away.
On the other side of MacDugal’s lane are the BAD NEWS BOORS, described as being much more like a stereotypical team of beer-swilling bowlers (“They look like Jack Davis drawings. They all have terminal beardshadow”). The B.N.B. team leader is revealed as CHOOCH MANDOLINO (“a Donkey Kong look-alike”), who overhears the exchange and trudges over with fellow Boor LOUIE (“short and stubby with a scrunched-up face”, follows Chooch everywhere, punctuating the bigger man’s every sentence with only one word – “Definitely”). Chooch threatens Reggie for his behavior, then accepts MacDugal as an honorary member of the Boors.
During their game, wherein they find themselves a stone’s throw from beating the Regi-Men’s current score, MacDugal remarks that he usually bowls on the lanes at his own home (“Just off the billiard room, between the pool and the gym”). After bowling a 7-10 split, which the old man remarks that he’s never been able to make in all his years of bowling, MacDugal swings the ball hard. When it doesn’t come free from his hand, the 82-year-old is launched down the lane, his body and the bowling ball connected to it knocking the 7-10 split down. Before anyone can react, the lane’s pin-sweep drops down onto the little man, killing him.
Later, at an industrial park, Reggie and his Regi-Men are stunned to read in the daily paper that MacDugal was the world’s tenth wealthiest man (“I certainly would have gone easier on him if I’d known he was rich”). At their steel mill, the Boors find out the news about their newly-made and recently-deceased friend (“I guess he wasn’t shittin’ about the pool and the gym”). At the bowling alley, both teams are informed by MacDugal’s attorney C. HAMILTON WILBURFORCE that his employer had set aside an escrow account of over five million dollars to go to the team that boasts the highest score of the season. With a television crew in place to record the results, the Boors and the Regi-Men battle it out on the lanes. When the commotion caused by the reporters and their cameras throws Reggie’s game off, the Boors pull ahead, setting themselves up for victory – and MacDugal’s millions.
Later that night, the Regi-Men sabotage the Boors’ rusty Dodge van, leading to the team’s fiery cliffside death. After the tragedy, the next team night at the lanes finds the Regi-Men showing up to the lanes wearing black armbands, promising the reporters that they will use MacDugal’s millions to buy the Boors’ specially designed headstones to honor the fallen bowlers. The Regi-Men bowl all evening, even sticking around after the alley closes to continue practicing for their final games. Once the scorekeeper and after hours cleaning crew take off, the team is left alone in the building to rule over the lanes.
Well…sorta alone.
Reggie scores in Pinfall – artwork by Jason Mayoh
At the end of their night, the Regi-Men huddle in the locker room and complain about Reggie pushing them so hard to practice for a perfect game. Then, the lights go out. The Regi-Men are attacked, one by one, in increasingly grisly ways. Regi-Man #1’s throat is grabbed by something shaped like a hand. “It’s dark and crusty … it’s strong! It’s choking the man.”
The Regi-Men stumble around in the dark, pushing their way out of the locker room and seeing – a large, burnt-to-a-crisp dead man. “The crust is flaking off in spots, revealing bone. He seems to be decomposing even as we watch.” The man grabs hold of Regi-Man #2 and drags him out of the locker room, all scored to his teammates’ shrieks.
The remaining Regi-Men race away, finding the breaker box and throwing the lights back on, revealing their first fallen Regi-Man. Regi-Man #3 is grabbed by another burnt walking corpse, then hurled straight into an arcade game, frying the man to death. The fourth Regi-Man is attacked near the refreshment stand, with another corpse throwing him head first into the stand’s hot dog rotisserie, melting away his face before the script cuts away.
Reggie, still on the lanes, looks on in horror at the corpses of his murdered team. Something grabs hold of him. Reggie turns, sees he’s being held by another corpse. “It’s big, this corpse,” the script reads. “Very big, and shaped like the Cookie-Monster.” Behind him, a second, much smaller corpse. They’re both grinning.
It’s Chooch and Louie.
Chooch and the Bad News Boors return in Pinfall – artwork by Jason Mayoh
Once Reggie realizes who’s attacking him, he freaks out, screams and “squeals like a roped pig.” Chooch pushes Reggie’s head into the lanes’ ball-drill. “Three holes, about size nine … right into Reggie Rambeaux’s skull.”
The segment ends with a tableaux right out of an EC Comics finale. A “parody of team-night”, with the dead, decaying Bad News Boors having a blast on the lanes, joined by the undead corpse of J. Frederick MacDugal, “out for a high old time bowling with the boys.” All of the Boors drink “bloody beers” and bowl the lanes once more, this time with the Regi-Men’s arms and legs standing in for traditional pins (Reggie’s head, of course, is the bowling ball).
“As that head bowls a strike, the picture FREEZES, then DISSOLVES TO: a DRAWING of the head among the flying pins, the closing panel of the story as it appears in CREEPSHOW COMICS.”
“It would’ve been so perfect for [Creepshow 2], Rubin laments. “It’s got the zombies, it’s got the perfect EC comeuppance … it has that Tales from the Crypt twist of fate to it. It’s such a shame that one didn’t make it in there.”
While neither “Pinfall” nor “Cat from Hell” made it into Creepshow 2, Rubin reveals that the former story at least stood a shot at making it into another Romero anthology. “It was considered for Tales from the Darkside, and just didn’t make it in. They went with the ‘Cat from Hell’ segment.”
Nevertheless, the story did eventually receive an adaptation in print form, via artist Jason Mayoh, whose completed “Pinfall” comic made it into Arrow Video’s limited edition Blu-ray release of Creepshow 2. Please enjoy some panels from the story throughout this article, and check out the physical artwork in person at the University of Pittsburgh Library System, whose Romero Archival Collection holds the pages that Mayoh gifted Romero.
While “Pinfall” never made it to screens back in the 80s, it’s nevertheless a fun and effective King/Romero collaboration that remains ripe for adaptation to this day. With Shudder’s Creepshow series due for a fourth season, who knows? Maybe we’ll yet witness Chooch and the boys gracing our screens some day in the future.
Let us know in the comments section below – what do you think of this unproduced Creepshow 2 tale?
Very special thanks to Horror Studies Collection Coordinator Benjamin Rubin for his time and assistance with the research necessary for this article.
*Tales from the Darkside (both the TV series and the feature film) are considered to be unofficial Creepshow spinoffs. In addition, Taurus Entertainment’s Creepshow 3 and web series pilot Creepshow: RAW were released in 2007 and 2009, respectively, though neither boasted the participation of King or Romero.
Works Cited:
Creepshow 2: Pinfall artwork, George A. Romero Archival Collection, 1962-2017, SC.2019.03, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
‘Creepshow 2’ (1987)
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