Nathan Grantham

Nathan Grantham is a character from the EC-inspired movie Creepshow, created by Stephen King and George A Romero. He appears in the segment Father's Day.

Story
Warning: This character synopsis contains spoilers.

Nathan Grantham was a mean and miserly old man who had come into a fortune through unknown means, although it is implied by his daughter he was a bootlegger, and it is known that he dealt with shady characters as he was able to pay for people to be assassinated.

One such victim of Nathan's cruel business dealings was Yarbro, the elderly boyfriend of his hated daughter Bedelia, of whom he was hysterically jealous. While on a hunting trip, he had the man shot and then covered it up as a "hunting accident".

After the death of her gentleman caller, the already unstable Bedelia grew increasingly worse. Complicating matters, Nathan had a stroke and required full-time care from none other than his loathed offspring, who grudgingly obliged.

Although apparently feeble, Nathan took every opportunity to belittle and harass Bedelia. A particular favorite of his was to demand his cake on Father's Day at the top of his lungs, verbally berating his daughter the entire time and accusing her of being nothing more than a vulture after his money.

One such occasion, Bedelia finally snapped. Grabbing a marble ashtray, she bashed her father's skull in. Her niece Sylvia helped her to cover the whole thing up, and further connived to fix Nathan's will so that the family would inherit everything despite the miser's clear intent to the contrary.

Seven years passed, and every year Bedelia would return to visit her father's grave, make a semblance of peace for her sin, and then have dinner with Sylvia and her niece and nephew, Richard and Cass.

However, on the seventh year, as a very drunk Bedelia spilled whiskey over her father's grave and proceeded to call him a murderer for what he had done to Yarbro, Nathan made a surprise Father's Day visit by rising from his grave as a badly decomposed corpse and strangling her, all the while demanding his cake.

Later that night Hank, Cass's recently married husband who had just learned the tale of Bedelia and her father from Sylvia, became worried that she hadn't arrived so late in the evening and went out to the family plot to find her.

All he found was trouble. Accidentally tripping into Nathan's dug up grave, he found a very dead Bedelia, and worse, that Nathan's tombstone was steadily slipping down on him. Above the grave, Nathan appeared, seemingly willing the tombstone forward until it fell and crushed Hank beneath it.

With Hank and Bedelia both gone, and it being very dark outside, the Grantham siblings began to argue over who would go out to find them. Settling the debate, Sylvia went instead, but only got to the kitchen before finding Mrs. Danvers, the family servant, had been killed, and Nathan was there to greet her with a quick snap of her neck.

As Cass and Richard continued to wait, Cass finally began to panic, begging Richard to go out with her to find out what had happened. Although initially reluctant, he finally conceded, and the two were met at the pantry door by their long-dead ancestor, brandishing Sylvia's icing and candle-decorated head on a platter and proudly proclaiming, "It's Father's Day, and I got my cake!"

Ghoulish Look
Nathan is first introduced as he was when alive through a flashback as Sylvia relates the tale of his murder to Hank. At the time of his death, he was an old man, partially balding, with wooly white hair, tiny spectacles, and a round face that seemed forever reddened by his constant screaming. He was known to wear a suit, and carried a study wood cane that he would rasp on chairs with when he wanted to vent his anger.

After his death and subsequent return from the grave, he has rotted into a filth-encrusted skeleton wearing his frayed and dirty suit. He also is crawling with maggots.

The living Nathan is played by Jon Lormer, while his undead version is played by John Amplas.

Abilities
Nathan's transformation into a zombie-like creature appears to have given him abilities he didn't have while alive.

The first and most apparent is his phenomenal strength. Far from the feeble old man who wasn't even able to get out of a chair in time to save his own life, the zombie Nathan is up and about (if slow) and shown to strangle one victim while ripping the head clean off another after cleanly snapping her neck at a 180 degree turn. He also apparently had the strength to dig himself out of his own grave, which is no easy task.

The second ability Nathan appears to have gained is a sort of telekinetic power that enables him to move heavy objects like tombstones simply by willing them toward him. It is unknown if Nathan had this power while alive through knowledge of the occult, or if it was limited to his own tombstone.