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111-454: Creepshow consists of five short stories: "Father's Day", "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" (based on the King short story " Weeds "), "Something to Tide You Over", " The Crate " and "They're Creeping Up on You!" Two of these stories were adapted from King's short stories, with the film bookended by prologue and epilogue scenes featuring a young boy named Billy (played by King's son, Joe ), who

222-573: A 61-kilogram (135 lb) iron meteorite was found in a Sinagua (c. 1100–1200 AD) burial cyst near Camp Verde, Arizona , respectfully wrapped in a feather cloth. A small pallasite was found in a pottery jar in an old burial found at Pojoaque Pueblo , New Mexico. Nininger reports several other such instances, in the Southwest US and elsewhere, such as the discovery of Native American beads of meteoric iron found in Hopewell burial mounds , and

333-672: A blend of rock and metal, the stony-iron meteorites . Modern classification of meteorites is complex. The review paper of Krot et al. (2007) summarizes modern meteorite taxonomy. About 86% of the meteorites are chondrites, which are named for the small, round particles they contain. These particles, or chondrules , are composed mostly of silicate minerals that appear to have been melted while they were free-floating objects in space. Certain types of chondrites also contain small amounts of organic matter , including amino acids , and presolar grains . Chondrites are typically about 4.55 billion years old and are thought to represent material from

444-426: A burial mound in the sand. When Harry promptly runs to it, Richard pulls a gun on him. He forces Harry to jump into the empty hole and begin burying himself. Eventually, Richard finishes burying Harry neck-deep in the sand below the high-tide line. Richard then sets up a closed-circuit TV camera and a VCR to record Harry. He also brings along a monitor displaying Becky, who is also buried up to her neck farther down

555-476: A call from his building's superintendent Carl Reynolds, currently on vacation in Orlando . Despite his vacation, Pratt forces Reynolds to send the building's handyman Mr. White to call an exterminator under the threat of firing him. Soon after, Pratt discovers more cockroaches in a box of cereal, trying and failing to crush any that he can. Mr. White soon arrives outside Pratt's door, and tells him (speaking in

666-455: A drunken stupor. Jordy wakes up sometime later, believing the experience to have been a dream, but his hopes are dashed when he sees that the plant growth has managed to reach inside the house, as well as discovering in a mirror that he has now grown a green beard. He starts to draw a bath to relieve the itching, but he is visited by the ghost of his deceased father, who appears in his mirror and warns him against doing so by telling him that water

777-401: A fantasy sequence, Jordy imagines selling the meteorite to the local college's "Department of Meteors", hoping that the sale will provide enough money to pay off a $ 200 bank loan. Taking precautions, he douses the meteorite with a bucket of water, causing it to crack open and spill a glowing blue liquid. In another fantasy sequence, Jordy reimagines the "Department of Meteors" refusing to purchase

888-458: A few centimeters in size that were formed—according to most scientists—by the impacts of large meteorites on Earth's surface. A few researchers have favored tektites originating from the Moon as volcanic ejecta, but this theory has lost much of its support over the last few decades. The diameter of the largest impactor to hit Earth on any given day is likely to be about 40 centimeters (16 inches), in

999-798: A flat, desert plain about 100 kilometres (62 mi) southeast of Dirj (Daraj), Libya . A few years later, a desert enthusiast saw photographs of meteorites being recovered by scientists in Antarctica, and thought that he had seen similar occurrences in northern Africa . In 1989, he recovered about 100 meteorites from several distinct locations in Libya and Algeria. Over the next several years, he and others who followed found at least 400 more meteorites. The find locations were generally in regions known as regs or hamadas : flat, featureless areas covered only by small pebbles and minor amounts of sand. Dark-colored meteorites can be easily spotted in these places. In

1110-435: A given year about four metres (13 ft), and in a given century about 20 m (66 ft). These statistics are obtained by the following: Over at least the range from five centimeters (2.0 inches) to roughly 300 meters (980 feet), the rate at which Earth receives meteors obeys a power-law distribution as follows: where N (> D ) is the expected number of objects larger than a diameter of D meters to hit Earth in

1221-512: A human-shaped collection of plant matter. In despair, he reaches for a Coach Gun , prays to God that his luck will be in just this once, and blows the top of his head off, killing himself. Immediately afterwards, a TV weather forecast announces that moderate temperatures and heavy rains are predicted, as the plants spread down the roads to other towns. Richard Vickers is a vicious and heartless millionaire whose spry jocularity belies his cold-blooded and murderous nature. He visits Harry Wentworth,

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1332-401: A meteorite shower falls is known as its strewn field . Strewn fields are commonly elliptical in shape, with the major axis parallel to the direction of flight. In most cases, the largest meteorites in a shower are found farthest down-range in the strewn field. Most meteorites are stony meteorites, classed as chondrites and achondrites . Only about 6% of meteorites are iron meteorites or

1443-504: A meteorite that was understood by contemporaries to have fallen to the earth from Jupiter , the principal Roman deity. There are reports that a sacred stone was enshrined at the temple that may have been a meteorite. The Black Stone set into the wall of the Kaaba has often been presumed to be a meteorite, but the little available evidence for this is inconclusive. Some Native Americans treated meteorites as ceremonial objects. In 1915,

1554-437: A murderous rage by Nathan's constant insults and his petulant demands for his cake, bashed her overbearing father's head in with a marble ashtray (which is hidden throughout the other stories). In the present day, Bedelia arrives at Grantham Manor that evening. She stops by the family cemetery, just outside the mansion, to lay a flower at her father's grave. She drunkenly reminisces about the murder, and reveals that Sylvia staged

1665-437: A penchant for embarrassing herself, belittling her husband, and annoying or insulting everybody she meets. Henry regularly fantasizes about killing his horrific wife, but is far too timid to actually go through with it. Stanley meets Mike at Amberson Hall, where the former discovers the crate. Both men move the crate into a nearby biology lab, where they tirelessly work to get it open. In the process, Mike sticks his hand inside

1776-548: A pin, finally getting revenge on his father for his abuse. The images of Billy jabbing the doll becomes the cover of the next issue of Creepshow . The Creep is seen holding the same comic book, laughing sinisterly as a candle goes out. Wraparound Story Father's Day The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill Something to Tide You Over The Crate They're Creeping Up on You "Father's Day", "Something to Tide You Over" and "They're Creeping Up on You!" are original stories by King written for

1887-512: A radius of a hundred or more kilometers. Whistling and hissing sounds are also sometimes heard but are poorly understood. Following the passage of the fireball, it is not unusual for a dust trail to linger in the atmosphere for several minutes. As meteoroids are heated during atmospheric entry , their surfaces melt and experience ablation . They can be sculpted into various shapes during this process, sometimes resulting in shallow thumbprint-like indentations on their surfaces called regmaglypts . If

1998-554: A rapid rise in commercial collection of meteorites. This process was accelerated when, in 1997, meteorites coming from both the Moon and Mars were found in Libya. By the late 1990s, private meteorite-collecting expeditions had been launched throughout the Sahara. Specimens of the meteorites recovered in this way are still deposited in research collections, but most of the material is sold to private collectors. These expeditions have now brought

2109-1107: A shooting star; astronomers call the brightest examples " bolides ". Once it settles on the larger body's surface, the meteor becomes a meteorite. Meteorites vary greatly in size. For geologists, a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create an impact crater . Meteorites that are recovered after being observed as they transit the atmosphere and impact the Earth are called meteorite falls . All others are known as meteorite finds . Meteorites have traditionally been divided into three broad categories: stony meteorites that are rocks, mainly composed of silicate minerals ; iron meteorites that are largely composed of ferronickel ; and stony-iron meteorites that contain large amounts of both metallic and rocky material. Modern classification schemes divide meteorites into groups according to their structure, chemical and isotopic composition and mineralogy. "Meteorites" less than ~1 mm in diameter are classified as micrometeorites , however micrometeorites differ from meteorites in that they typically melt completely in

2220-428: A single person, Ivan Wilson. In total, nearly 140 meteorites were found in the region since 1967. In the area of the finds, the ground was originally covered by a shallow, loose soil sitting atop a hardpan layer. During the dustbowl era, the loose soil was blown off, leaving any rocks and meteorites that were present stranded on the exposed surface. Beginning in the mid-1960s, amateur meteorite hunters began scouring

2331-509: A stereotypical minstrel voice to mock him) that he is calling a fumigation service. A rolling blackout then heads towards the building. During the blackout, cockroaches numbering in the hundreds of thousands begin pouring out of every nook and cranny in Pratt's apartment. As the insects overwhelm Pratt, he activates the emergency power and attempts to call the police for assistance. The police are unfortunately unable to be of any help because of

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2442-458: A wooden storage crate marked "Ship to Horlicks University via Julia Carpenter - Arctic Expedition - June 19, 1834" hidden underneath the staircase. He calls Professor Dexter Stanley to notify him of the discovery, drawing Dexter away from a faculty social gathering. Also at the gathering are Dexter's best friend, the mild-mannered Professor Henry Northrup, and Henry's perpetually drunk, obnoxious, and emotionally-abusive wife Wilma "Billie", who has

2553-608: A year. This is based on observations of bright meteors seen from the ground and space, combined with surveys of near-Earth asteroids . Above 300 m (980 ft) in diameter, the predicted rate is somewhat higher, with a 2 km (1.2 mi) asteroid (one teraton TNT equivalent ) every couple of million years – about 10 times as often as the power-law extrapolation would predict. In 2015, NASA scientists reported that complex organic compounds found in DNA and RNA , including uracil , cytosine , and thymine , have been formed in

2664-456: Is 0.4%. Stony-iron meteorites constitute the remaining 1%. They are a mixture of iron-nickel metal and silicate minerals. One type, called pallasites , is thought to have originated in the boundary zone above the core regions where iron meteorites originated. The other major type of stony-iron meteorites is the mesosiderites . Tektites (from Greek tektos , molten) are not themselves meteorites, but are rather natural glass objects up to

2775-616: Is a darkly humorous short story by Stephen King . It was first published in Cavalier magazine in May 1976. On Independence Day , a backwoods hick farmer in New Hampshire named Jordy Verrill thinks his newfound discovery of a meteorite will provide enough riches to pay off the remaining $ 200 (equivalent to $ 1,071 in 2023) of his bank loan, but instead finds himself overcome by a rapidly spreading plant-like organism that arrives in

2886-516: Is a meteorite collected after its arrival was observed by people or automated devices. Any other meteorite is called a "meteorite find". There are more than 1,100 documented falls listed in widely used databases, most of which have specimens in modern collections. As of January 2019 , the Meteoritical Bulletin Database had 1,180 confirmed falls. Most meteorite falls are collected on the basis of eyewitness accounts of

2997-516: Is completely submerged by the advancing tide, he looks directly into the camera and vows revenge on Richard. Hours later, Richard returns to Harry's "grave" to collect the tape. He finds the ruined monitor, but no sign of Harry. Not disturbed, Richard writes this off as the body having been carried away by the current. Later that night, Richard hears voices calling his name, as a mysterious unseen presence easily bypasses Comfort Point's extensive security system. The culprits turn out to be Harry and Becky,

3108-413: Is currently prohibited by national law, but a number of international hunters continue to remove specimens now deemed national treasures. This new law provoked a small international incident , as its implementation preceded any public notification of such a law, resulting in the prolonged imprisonment of a large group of meteorite hunters, primarily from Russia, but whose party also consisted of members from

3219-507: Is making its way into the nearby town. The story was adapted into the second segment of the anthology film Creepshow in 1982. The segment was titled "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill", a reference to the Bob Dylan song " The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll ". Stephen King himself plays Verrill in the adaptation, and the location of Verrill's farm is changed to Maine. The story includes Verrill's humorous daydreams about trying to sell

3330-569: Is out of town on a fishing trip. Upon hearing the words "cold water" in his mind, Jordy gives in to the temptation and takes a bath to relieve the itching caused by the growing plants; however, the water only serves to accelerate the plants' growth on his body. The next day, Jordy now resembles a plant creature with a roundish head with no visible neck and round shoulders. He can even hear the plants (that are now on his property) talking. Loading his shotgun, Jordy kills himself, saying he's "lucky at last". The grass continues to grow across his property and

3441-578: Is punished by his abusive father for reading horror comics . Creepshow is an homage to the EC horror comics of the 1950s, such as Tales from the Crypt , The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear . In order for the film to give viewers a comic book feel, Romero hired long-time effects specialist Tom Savini to replicate comic-like effects. The film earned $ 21 million in the United States. It

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3552-420: Is starting to go down the road. Meteorite A meteorite is a rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or moon . When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction , pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause it to heat up and radiate energy. It then becomes a meteor and forms a fireball , also known as

3663-479: Is then visited by the ghost of his father (also portrayed by Bingo O'Malley), who appears in his mirror and warns him not to get in the tub as it is the water that the plants want. Believing he is doomed anyway, Jordy gives in. Over several hours, Jordy is transformed into a plant creature. He kills himself with a shotgun. A radio forecaster predicts long periods of rain and sunshine as the camera pans across Jordy's farm, now overrun with monstrous vegetation as some of it

3774-414: Is what the plants want. Grimly rationalizing that not getting in would only delay the inevitable, Jordy laments that "[he's] a goner already." When the itching from the growth on his skin becomes unbearable, Jordy succumbs to temptation and collapses into the bathwater. The next morning, Jordy's farm has been completely coated with dense layers of the alien vegetation , with Jordy himself transformed into

3885-613: The Dhofar and Al Wusta regions of Oman, south of the sandy deserts of the Rub' al Khali , had yielded about 5,000 meteorites as of mid-2009. Included among these are a large number of lunar and Martian meteorites, making Oman a particularly important area both for scientists and collectors. Early expeditions to Oman were mainly done by commercial meteorite dealers, however, international teams of Omani and European scientists have also now collected specimens. The recovery of meteorites from Oman

3996-699: The asteroid belt that never coalesced into large bodies. Like comets , chondritic asteroids are some of the oldest and most primitive materials in the Solar System . Chondrites are often considered to be "the building blocks of the planets". About 8% of the meteorites are achondrites (meaning they do not contain chondrules), some of which are similar to terrestrial igneous rocks . Most achondrites are also ancient rocks, and are thought to represent crustal material of differentiated planetesimals. One large family of achondrites (the HED meteorites ) may have originated on

4107-422: The genetic code of all life on Earth. These compounds have also occurred spontaneously in laboratory settings emulating conditions in outer space. Until recently, the source of only about 6% of meteorites had been traced to their sources: the Moon, Mars, and asteroid Vesta. Approximately 70% of meteorites found on Earth now appear to originate from break-ups of three asteroids. Most meteorites date from

4218-416: The same source , a collision that occurred somewhere between Jupiter and Mars. One of these fossil meteorites, dubbed Österplana 065 , appears to represent a distinct type of meteorite that is "extinct" in the sense that it is no longer falling to Earth, the parent body having already been completely depleted from the reservoir of near-Earth objects . A "meteorite fall", also called an "observed fall",

4329-530: The 10th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition found nine meteorites on a blue ice field near the Yamato Mountains . With this discovery, came the realization that movement of ice sheets might act to concentrate meteorites in certain areas. After a dozen other specimens were found in the same place in 1973, a Japanese expedition was launched in 1974 dedicated to the search for meteorites. This team recovered nearly 700 meteorites. Shortly thereafter,

4440-737: The American Southwest have been submitted with false find locations, as many finders think it is unwise to publicly share that information for fear of confiscation by the federal government and competition with other hunters at published find sites. Several of the meteorites found recently are currently on display in the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, and at UCLA 's Meteorite Gallery. A few meteorites were found in Antarctica between 1912 and 1964. In 1969,

4551-452: The Earth are caused by iron meteoroids, which are most easily able to transit the atmosphere intact. Examples of craters caused by iron meteoroids include Barringer Meteor Crater , Odessa Meteor Crater , Wabar craters , and Wolfe Creek crater ; iron meteorites are found in association with all of these craters. In contrast, even relatively large stony or icy bodies such as small comets or asteroids , up to millions of tons, are disrupted in

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4662-624: The Meteorite Observation and Recovery Project, ran from 1971 to 1985. It too recovered a single meteorite, Innisfree , in 1977. Finally, observations by the European Fireball Network , a descendant of the original Czech program that recovered Příbram, led to the discovery and orbit calculations for the Neuschwanstein meteorite in 2002. NASA has an automated system that detects meteors and calculates

4773-721: The Příbram fall, other nations established automated observing programs aimed at studying infalling meteorites. One of these was the Prairie Network , operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1963 to 1975 in the midwestern US . This program also observed a meteorite fall, the Lost City chondrite, allowing its recovery and a calculation of its orbit. Another program in Canada,

4884-469: The US as well as several other European countries. Meteorites have figured into human culture since their earliest discovery as ceremonial or religious objects, as the subject of writing about events occurring in the sky and as a source of peril. The oldest known iron artifacts are nine small beads hammered from meteoritic iron. They were found in northern Egypt and have been securely dated to 3200 BC. Although

4995-868: The United States began its own program to search for Antarctic meteorites, operating along the Transantarctic Mountains on the other side of the continent: the Antarctic Search for Meteorites ( ANSMET ) program. European teams, starting with a consortium called "EUROMET" in the 1990/91 season, and continuing with a program by the Italian Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide have also conducted systematic searches for Antarctic meteorites. The Antarctic Scientific Exploration of China has conducted successful meteorite searches since 2000. A Korean program (KOREAMET)

5106-754: The arid areas of the southwestern United States. To date, thousands of meteorites have been recovered from the Mojave , Sonoran , Great Basin , and Chihuahuan Deserts , with many being recovered on dry lake beds. Significant finds include the three-tonne Old Woman meteorite , currently on display at the Desert Discovery Center in Barstow, California , and the Franconia and Gold Basin meteorite strewn fields; hundreds of kilograms of meteorites have been recovered from each. A number of finds from

5217-406: The atmosphere and fall to Earth as quenched droplets. Extraterrestrial meteorites have been found on the Moon and on Mars. Most meteoroids disintegrate when entering the Earth's atmosphere. Usually, five to ten a year are observed to fall and are subsequently recovered and made known to scientists. Few meteorites are large enough to create large impact craters . Instead, they typically arrive at

5328-516: The atmosphere can appear to be very bright, rivaling the sun in intensity, although most are far dimmer and may not even be noticed during the daytime. Various colors have been reported, including yellow, green, and red. Flashes and bursts of light can occur as the object breaks up. Explosions, detonations, and rumblings are often heard during meteorite falls, which can be caused by sonic booms as well as shock waves resulting from major fragmentation events. These sounds can be heard over wide areas, with

5439-433: The atmosphere, and do not make impact craters. Although such disruption events are uncommon, they can cause a considerable concussion to occur; the famed Tunguska event probably resulted from such an incident. Very large stony objects, hundreds of meters in diameter or more, weighing tens of millions of tons or more, can reach the surface and cause large craters but are very rare. Such events are generally so energetic that

5550-440: The beach, where the rising tide is already washing over her face. Richard does tell Harry that he and Becky have a chance of survival: if they can hold their breath long enough for the sand to loosen once the seawater covers them, they can break free and escape. With that, Richard abandons Harry and returns to Comfort Point. Sipping a cocktail , Richard watches with great satisfaction as Harry and Becky slowly drown. Just before Harry

5661-438: The blackout, nor is Mr. White, who is stuck in the elevator. At his wit's end, Pratt locks himself inside a climate-controlled panic room to escape the growing swarm of cockroaches. He gets another call from Lenore, who continues to curse at him. It's during this call that Pratt finds his bedcovers wriggling, and he removes them to discover that the cockroaches have already invaded the panic room. With no way for Pratt to escape,

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5772-412: The bloody lab. When Billie arrives, Henry lures her under the basement stairs, trying to awaken the creature. As Billie rants at Henry for dragging her out there in the middle of the night and assaulting her, the beast awakens and proceeds to consume her. The next morning, Henry tells Dexter that he secured the beast inside its crate, and then dumped the crate into a nearby quarry , watching as it sank to

5883-498: The bottom. He convinces Dexter that the creature has drowned, and both men agree to let the authorities handle the disappearances. Unknown to Henry and Dexter, the beast is shown to still be alive, and is last seen tearing the submerged crate apart. Upson Pratt is a ruthlessly cruel business mogul who suffers from mysophobia , which has rendered him living in a hermetically-sealed penthouse apartment outfitted with electric locks and surveillance cameras . His apparent contacts with

5994-780: The case of several meteorite fields, such as Dar al Gani , Dhofar, and others, favorable light-colored geology consisting of basic rocks (clays, dolomites , and limestones ) makes meteorites particularly easy to identify. Although meteorites had been sold commercially and collected by hobbyists for many decades, up to the time of the Saharan finds of the late 1980s and early 1990s, most meteorites were deposited in or purchased by museums and similar institutions where they were exhibited and made available for scientific research . The sudden availability of large numbers of meteorites that could be found with relative ease in places that were readily accessible (especially compared to Antarctica), led to

6105-418: The cockroach swarm charges at him, which induces a fatal heart attack . When electricity returns to the building, the apartment is utterly devoid of cockroaches. Pratt's corpse is shown in the panic room as Mr. White calls in to report. When he gets no answer, Mr. White mockingly asks Pratt "Bugs got your tongue?" Pratt's body soon begins to contort as cockroaches burst out of his mouth and chest, re-enveloping

6216-578: The comic's content, Stan throws it in the garbage. As Billy sits upstairs, wishing that his father rots in Hell , he hears a sound at the window. The source of the noise turns out to be the Creep, the host of the comic book, who beckons him to come closer and removes the trash can's lid. Sylvia Grantham meets her nephew Richard and niece Cass, along with Cass's new husband Hank Blaine at the Grantham estate for

6327-399: The course of clearing a field. The result was the discovery of more than 200 new meteorites, mostly stony types. In the late 1960s, Roosevelt County, New Mexico was found to be a particularly good place to find meteorites. After the discovery of a few meteorites in 1967, a public awareness campaign resulted in the finding of nearly 100 new specimens in the next few years, with many being by

6438-405: The crate and begins yelling in pain. The crate opens to reveal its contents: a shaggy, ape -like creature with sharp fangs. Despite its diminutive size, the creature promptly kills and devours Mike whole, leaving behind only his mangled boot. Fleeing the lab, Dexter bumps into graduate student Charlie Gereson, to whom he frantically relays what happened. While skeptical, Charlie agrees to investigate

6549-533: The discovery of the Winona meteorite in a Native American stone-walled crypt. In medieval China during the Song dynasty , a meteorite strike event was recorded by Shen Kuo in 1064 AD near Changzhou . He reported "a loud noise that sounded like a thunder was heard in the sky; a giant star, almost like the moon, appeared in the southeast" and later finding the crater and the still-hot meteorite within, nearby. Two of

6660-420: The doctor will chop the afflicted fingers off without anesthetic . Over time, the strange substance continues to grow all over Jordy's farm, everything Jordy has touched, and even on Jordy's body, which causes him to itch furiously. Jordy panics as he discovers the increasing growth, and tries to calm himself by pouring himself a bottle of vodka and mixing it with orange juice . Soon after, Jordy falls asleep in

6771-534: The early Solar System and are by far the oldest extant material on Earth. Analysis of terrestrial weathering due to water, salt, oxygen, etc. is used to quantify the degree of alteration that a meteorite has experienced. Several qualitative weathering indices have been applied to Antarctic and desertic samples. The most commonly employed weathering scale, used for ordinary chondrites , ranges from W0 (pristine state) to W6 (heavy alteration). "Fossil" meteorites are sometimes discovered by geologists. They represent

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6882-476: The evening. He tells Henry everything that happened since the crate was discovered, and insists that the monster must be disposed of somehow. Seeing the supposed creature as an ideal way to rid himself of his wife, Henry appears to believe Dexter's story. To this end, Henry spikes Dexter's drink with sleeping pills and writes a note stating that Dexter had supposedly assaulted a female student. This brings Billie rushing to Amberson Hall, where Henry has since cleaned up

6993-450: The extremely arid climate, there has been relatively little weathering or sedimentation on the surface for tens of thousands of years, allowing meteorites to accumulate without being buried or destroyed. The dark-colored meteorites can then be recognized among the very different looking limestone pebbles and rocks. In 1986–87, a German team installing a network of seismic stations while prospecting for oil discovered about 65 meteorites on

7104-485: The family's annual dinner on the third Sunday in June. They proceed to tell Hank about the family matriarch , Great Aunt Bedelia, and of how it is an open secret in the family that she murdered her late father: the miserly and domineering Nathan Grantham who had accumulated the family's fortune through bootlegging , fraud , extortion , and murder-for-hire . Many years earlier, Bedelia was rendered an unstable spinster ,

7215-409: The film three out of four stars and wrote, "Romero and King have approached this movie with humor and affection, as well as with an appreciation of the macabre". In his review for The New York Times , Vincent Canby wrote, "The best things about Creepshow are its carefully simulated comic-book tackiness and the gusto with which some good actors assume silly positions. Horror film purists may object to

7326-403: The film, with Nathan gloating over a terrified Cass and Richard in freeze-frame , the comic book based on the film has the Creep giving a vague hint that Nathan's next act was to "blow out their candles". Jordy Verrill, a comedic and dim-witted yokel watches as a meteorite crash lands on his farm. Observing the crash site, Jordy gets his fingers burned when he tries to touch the meteorite. In

7437-538: The film. "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" is based on King's short story " Weeds " and "The Crate" is based on the short story of the same name . In keeping with Romero's tradition of filming in and around the Pittsburgh area, most of the film was shot in an empty all-girls school located outside Greensburg, Pennsylvania . The school was converted into a film studio, and the episodes "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" and "They're Creeping Up on You", as well as

7548-424: The fireball or the impact of the object on the ground, or both. Therefore, despite the fact that meteorites fall with virtually equal probability everywhere on Earth, verified meteorite falls tend to be concentrated in areas with higher human population densities such as Europe, Japan, and northern India. A small number of meteorite falls have been observed with automated cameras and recovered following calculation of

7659-457: The first time, including ribose , suggesting that chemical processes on asteroids can produce some organic compounds fundamental to life, and supporting the notion of an RNA world prior to a DNA-based origin of life on Earth. In 2022, a Japanese group reported that they had found adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and uracil (U) inside carbon-rich meteorites. These compounds are building blocks of DNA and RNA ,

7770-552: The highly weathered remains of meteorites that fell to Earth in the remote past and were preserved in sedimentary deposits sufficiently well that they can be recognized through mineralogical and geochemical studies. The Thorsberg limestone quarry in Sweden has produced an anomalously large number – exceeding one hundred – fossil meteorites from the Ordovician , nearly all of which are highly weathered L-chondrites that still resemble

7881-456: The hot deserts of Australia . Several dozen meteorites had already been found in the Nullarbor region of Western and South Australia . Systematic searches between about 1971 and the present recovered more than 500 others, ~300 of which are currently well characterized. The meteorites can be found in this region because the land presents a flat, featureless, plain covered by limestone . In

7992-586: The impact point. The first of these was the Příbram meteorite , which fell in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) in 1959. In this case, two cameras used to photograph meteors captured images of the fireball. The images were used both to determine the location of the stones on the ground and, more significantly, to calculate for the first time an accurate orbit for a recovered meteorite. Following

8103-519: The impactor is completely destroyed, leaving no meteorites. (The first example of a stony meteorite found in association with a large impact crater, the Morokweng impact structure in South Africa, was reported in May 2006.) Several phenomena are well documented during witnessed meteorite falls too small to produce hypervelocity craters. The fireball that occurs as the meteoroid passes through

8214-467: The killing as an accident in order to steal and distribute Nathan's fortune among the rest of the family. She accidentally spills her whiskey bottle in front of the headstone . Just then, Nathan's reanimated, putrefied, maggot-infested corpse emerges from the burial plot, still demanding the Father's Day cake he never got. He avenges himself on Bedelia, strangling her. He proceeds to systematically wipe out

8325-549: The laboratory under outer space conditions, using starting chemicals, such as pyrimidine , found in meteorites. Pyrimidine and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) may have been formed in red giants or in interstellar dust and gas clouds, according to the scientists. In 2018, researchers found that 4.5 billion-year-old meteorites found on Earth contained liquid water along with prebiotic complex organic substances that may be ingredients for life. In 2019, scientists reported detecting sugar molecules in meteorites for

8436-460: The levity even though failed, as a lot of it is". Gary Arnold, in his review for The Washington Post , wrote, "What one confronts in Creepshow is five consistently stale, derivative horror vignettes of various lengths and defects". In his review for The Globe and Mail , Jay Scott wrote, "The Romero-King collaboration has softened both the horror and the cynicism, but not by enough to betray

8547-484: The man with whom his wife Becky is having an affair . Richard mentions that he and Becky never shared any actual affection, but such is beside the issue; Richard's point of honor is always keeping what's "his", a rule that he enforces no matter what. Rather than physically assault Harry, Richard plays a recording of Becky's voice, where she tearfully begs Harry to help her. Both men travel to Comfort Point, Richard's isolated beach house . Richard points out what appears to be

8658-427: The meteor to an imagined "Department of Meteors" at the community college and his decision not to seek medical attention, as he fears a doctor (portrayed by Bingo O'Malley ) would amputate his fingers. Plant growth affects everything Jordy touches. As Jordy prepares a bath to soothe his itchy skin, the plants are covering his hands, jawline, chest, back, and an area that causes Jordy to declare, "Oh no, not there!" He

8769-448: The meteorite when he ends up coming in contact with it. It is mentioned that Jordy doesn't have much good luck. After a rainstorm, Jordy sees that the organism has grown roundish grass around where the meteorite struck. Not only are the plants growing on anything he touches that is wet, but there are also plants growing on his fingers, his left eye, his penis, and his tongue, where he starts to get itchy. He can't go to his usual doctor, who

8880-463: The meteoroid maintains a fixed orientation for some time, without tumbling, it may develop a conical "nose cone" or "heat shield" shape. As it decelerates, eventually the molten surface layer solidifies into a thin fusion crust, which on most meteorites is black (on some achondrites , the fusion crust may be very light-colored). On stony meteorites, the heat-affected zone is at most a few mm deep; in iron meteorites, which are more thermally conductive,

8991-437: The more notable meteorites recovered include Tissint and Northwest Africa 7034 . Tissint was the first witnessed Martian meteorite fall in more than fifty years; NWA 7034 is the oldest meteorite known to come from Mars, and is a unique water-bearing regolith breccia. In 1999, meteorite hunters discovered that the desert in southern and central Oman were also favorable for the collection of many specimens. The gravel plains in

9102-410: The now broken meteorite. Resolving to try and glue the halves together in the morning, Jordy nonchalantly dumps the liquid inside the meteor into the soil, but not before the substance makes contact with his skin. As time passes, Jordy finds his fingers being overcome by what appears to be grass. He attempts to call a doctor, but he reconsiders doing so when he imagines (in another fantasy sequence) that

9213-808: The oldest recorded meteorite falls in Europe are the Elbogen (1400) and Ensisheim (1492) meteorites. The German physicist, Ernst Florens Chladni , was the first to publish (in 1794) the idea that meteorites might be rocks that originated not from Earth, but from space. His booklet was "On the Origin of the Iron Masses Found by Pallas and Others Similar to it, and on Some Associated Natural Phenomena" . In this he compiled all available data on several meteorite finds and falls concluded that they must have their origins in outer space. The scientific community of

9324-406: The only materials from other planets ever recovered by humans. About 5% of meteorites that have been seen to fall are iron meteorites composed of iron- nickel alloys , such as kamacite and/or taenite . Most iron meteorites are thought to come from the cores of planetesimals that were once molten. As with the Earth, the denser metal separated from silicate material and sank toward the center of

9435-502: The orbit, magnitude, ground track , and other parameters over the southeast USA, which often detects a number of events each night. Until the twentieth century, only a few hundred meteorite finds had ever been discovered. More than 80% of these were iron and stony-iron meteorites, which are easily distinguished from local rocks. To this day, few stony meteorites are reported each year that can be considered to be "accidental" finds. The reason there are now more than 30,000 meteorite finds in

9546-474: The order form has already been redeemed. Inside the Hopkins house, Stan complains to his wife that he is suffering from a stiff neck, figuring that he must have strained it. Upstairs, Billy is revealed to have sent away for the voodoo doll, and has decorated it with a piece of his father's clothing and some of his hair. Stan clutches his throat in pain as Billy repeatedly and gleefully jabs the voodoo doll with

9657-595: The original meteorite under a petrographic microscope , but which have had their original material almost entirely replaced by terrestrial secondary mineralization. The extraterrestrial provenance was demonstrated in part through isotopic analysis of relict spinel grains, a mineral that is common in meteorites, is insoluble in water, and is able to persist chemically unchanged in the terrestrial weathering environment. Scientists believe that these meteorites, which have all also been found in Russia and China, all originated from

9768-476: The outside world are through the telephone and are primarily made to put-upon employees. His character seems to have been influenced by Howard Hughes . One stormy night, Pratt receives a call from George Gendron, one of his subordinates, about the fact that his company (Pratt International) has recently instigated a corporate takeover of the Pacific Aerodyne company. Gendron also informs Mr. Pratt that

9879-458: The panic room. Mr. White continues to call Pratt's name to get a response, then calls him a bastard when he gets no answer. The next morning, two garbage collectors find the Creepshow comic book on the curb. They look at the book's ads for X-ray specs and a Charles Atlas bodybuilding course. They also see the advertisement for the Voodoo doll that was briefly glimpsed earlier, but lament that

9990-487: The parent body of the Vesta Family , although this claim is disputed. Others derive from unidentified asteroids. Two small groups of achondrites are special, as they are younger and do not appear to come from the asteroid belt. One of these groups comes from the Moon, and includes rocks similar to those brought back to Earth by Apollo and Luna programs. The other group is almost certainly from Mars and constitutes

10101-569: The planetesimal, forming its core. After the planetesimal solidified, it broke up in a collision with another planetesimal. Due to the low abundance of iron meteorites in collection areas such as Antarctica, where most of the meteoric material that has fallen can be recovered, it is possible that the percentage of iron-meteorite falls is lower than 5%. This would be explained by a recovery bias; laypeople are more likely to notice and recover solid masses of metal than most other meteorite types. The abundance of iron meteorites relative to total Antarctic finds

10212-477: The professor's claims. The two find the lab covered in blood, with no sign of the creature or its crate. They discover that the crate has been moved back under the stairs, where they also discover Mike's boot. Wanting to measure the bite marks on the boot, Charlie examines the crate closer. The creature pounces on Charlie and kills him, prompting Dexter to escape and take the boot with him. Traumatized and hysterical, Dexter runs to Henry's house after Billie leaves for

10323-580: The prologue and epilogue, were filmed in their entirety at the former school. Filming took place at the Greensburg location throughout 1981. Several additional locations were also used for filming: In a 2015 interview with The A.V. Club , Ted Danson explained the brief shot of his character drowning underwater: "So they make a little aquarium tank. I got in a wetsuit and climbed in, and somebody would reach down with an oxygen tank ventilator thingy, and I'd breathe, and then they'd take that out. And there

10434-457: The rest of his family: telekinetically crushing Hank to death with a gravestone, then twisting Sylvia's neck; he also kills Mrs. Danvers, the Granthams' cook , possibly to cover his tracks. As a gruesome final joke, Nathan surprises Cass and Richard by presenting them with his Father's Day cake: Sylvia's severed head, covered with frosting and lit candles. While the ending is left ambiguous in

10545-407: The result of a lifetime spent putting up with her father's incessant demands and emotional abuse , which got even worse after he suffered a stroke and she was made to nurse him full-time. The torture culminated with Nathan orchestrating a fatal "hunting accident", which took the life of his daughter's fiancé Peter Yarbro, in order to keep her under his thumb. That Father's Day , Bedelia, driven into

10656-535: The so-called "Northwest Africa" meteorites. When they get classified, they are named "Northwest Africa" (abbreviated NWA) followed by a number. It is generally accepted that NWA meteorites originate in Morocco, Algeria, Western Sahara, Mali, and possibly even further afield. Nearly all of these meteorites leave Africa through Morocco. Scores of important meteorites, including Lunar and Martian ones, have been discovered and made available to science via this route. A few of

10767-458: The sources — Creepshow is almost as funny and as horrible as the filmmakers would clearly love it to be". David Ansen , in his review for Newsweek , wrote, "For anyone over 12 there's not much pleasure to be had watching two masters of horror deliberately working beneath themselves. Creepshow is a faux-naif horror film: too arch to be truly scary, too elemental to succeed as satire". In his review for Time , Richard Corliss wrote, "But

10878-455: The structure of the metal may be affected by heat up to 1 centimetre (0.39 in) below the surface. Reports vary; some meteorites are reported to be "burning hot to the touch" upon landing, while others are alleged to have been cold enough to condense water and form a frost. Meteoroids that disintegrate in the atmosphere may fall as meteorite showers, which can range from only a few up to thousands of separate individuals. The area over which

10989-409: The surf, leaving Richard's own seaweed-covered video camera to record his coming demise. As the approaching tide proceeds to drown him, the hysterical Richard screams that he can hold his breath "for a LONG time!" Mike Latimer, a janitor at Horlicks University, drops a quarter he was flipping and it rolls behind a grate under a basement staircase. While attempting to retrieve the coin, he comes across

11100-495: The surface at their terminal velocity and, at most, create a small pit. Large meteoroids may strike the earth with a significant fraction of their escape velocity (second cosmic velocity), leaving behind a hypervelocity impact crater. The kind of crater will depend on the size, composition, degree of fragmentation, and incoming angle of the impactor. The force of such collisions has the potential to cause widespread destruction. The most frequent hypervelocity cratering events on

11211-588: The takeover caused a business rival, Norman Castonmeyer, to commit suicide , much to Pratt's delight. During the call, Pratt slowly begins finding cockroaches around his apartment. Being a fanatical insect hater, Pratt arms himself with bug spray in an attempt to combat the insects. Before long, someone manages to get through on Pratt's private line. The caller turns out to be Norman Castonmeyer's widow Lenore, who tearfully recalls her husband's final moments and curses Pratt for causing his death. After finding pieces of cockroaches in his food processor , Pratt receives

11322-559: The top spot, and had a five-day total of $ 8,003,017. In total it grossed $ 21,028,755 in the United States and Canada, making it the highest grossing horror film for the Warner Bros. studio that year. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 66% approval rating based on 74 reviews; the average rating is 6.3/10. The site's consensus reads: "It's uneven, as anthologies often are, but Creepshow is colorful, frequently funny, and treats its inspirations with infectious reverence." Roger Ebert gave

11433-645: The total number of well-described meteorites found in Algeria and Libya to more than 500. Meteorite markets came into existence in the late 1990s, especially in Morocco . This trade was driven by Western commercialization and an increasing number of collectors. The meteorites were supplied by nomads and local people who combed the deserts looking for specimens to sell. Many thousands of meteorites have been distributed in this way, most of which lack any information about how, when, or where they were discovered. These are

11544-507: The treatment manages to be both perfunctory and languid; the jolts can be predicted by any ten-year-old with a stopwatch. Only the story in which Evil Plutocrat E.G. Marshall is eaten alive by cockroaches mixes giggles and grue in the right measure". Bravo awarded it the 99th spot on their "The 100 Scariest Movie Moments", mostly for the scene with the cockroaches bursting out of Upson Pratt's body. Weeds (short story) " Weeds " (also known as " The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill ")

11655-431: The two lovers having returned as waterlogged, seaweed -covered revenants intent on revenge on their killer. Richard shoots them, but when the bullets have no effect, he barricades himself in his bedroom, only to find Becky and Harry already inside. The two victims taunt Richard, who laughs insanely. Sometime later, the undead lovers have buried Richard up to his neck on the beach. They have since disappeared together into

11766-607: The use of the metal found in meteorites is also recorded in myths of many countries and cultures where the celestial source was often acknowledged, scientific documentation only began in the last few centuries. Meteorite falls may have been the source of cultish worship . The cult in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World , possibly originated with the observation and recovery of

11877-588: The world's collections started with the discovery by Harvey H. Nininger that meteorites are much more common on the surface of the Earth than was previously thought. Nininger's strategy was to search for meteorites in the Great Plains of the United States, where the land was largely cultivated and the soil contained few rocks. Between the late 1920s and the 1950s, he traveled across the region, educating local people about what meteorites looked like and what to do if they thought they had found one, for example, in

11988-543: Was a yoke made out of... I don't know, wood and fake sand, so it looked like my head was buried in the sand, underwater." Ray Mendez, an entomologist with the American Museum of Natural History , and David Brody provided 20,000 cockroaches for the segment "They're Creeping Up on You". In the final scene of the segment—in which the room is almost filled with cockroaches—many of the apparent insects were actually nuts and raisins, as specified by Tom Savini. Creepshow

12099-418: Was followed by a 1987 sequel , Creepshow 2 , directed by the first film's cinematographer, Michael Gornick , written by Romero and based on stories by King. A second sequel, Creepshow 3 , was released in 2006, without involvement from either Romero or King. Billy Hopkins, a young boy, gets disciplined by his abusive father Stan for reading Creepshow , a horror comic. Not wanting his son to be exposed to

12210-459: Was given a four-week test release in Boston during July 1982 to get a sense of how to market it later on, with the hugely successful results convincing Warner Bros. that they had a hit on their hands. It went into wide release on Wednesday, November 10, 1982. In its opening weekend, Creepshow grossed $ 5,870,889 from 1,127 theatres, ranking number 1 at the U.S. box office, replacing First Blood in

12321-466: Was launched in 2007 and has collected a few meteorites. The combined efforts of all of these expeditions have produced more than 23,000 classified meteorite specimens since 1974, with thousands more that have not yet been classified. For more information see the article by Harvey (2003). At about the same time as meteorite concentrations were being discovered in the cold desert of Antarctica, collectors discovered that many meteorites could also be found in

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