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- "You're all a bunch of dirty vultures just waiting to get your hands on my money!"
- ―Nathan Grantham to his remaining descendants
- "Where's my cake? I want my cake!"
- ―Nathan to Bedelia, when he haunts her from the grave awaiting his cake
Nathan Grantham is a character in the 1982 Stephen King horror anthology film Creepshow, in the segment entitled "Father's Day". He was played while he was alive by Jon Lormer, and as a zombie by John Amplas.
Biography[]
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 Peter 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 shouting, "Where's my cake?!", verbally berating his daughter the entire time and accusing her of being nothing more than a vulture after his money while repeatedly slamming his cane on his chair. One such occasion, Bedelia finally snapped. Grabbing a heavy marble ashtray, she bashed her father's skull in, killing him. Her niece Sylvia helped her to cover the whole thing up, staging the crime to make it look like Nathan died from an "unfortunate accident", and further connived to change 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, making some semblance of peace for her actions, 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 Blaine, 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, and 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 out that 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 severed head on a platter and proudly proclaiming, "It's Father's Day, and I got my cake! Happy Father's Day!"
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