Henry Northrup

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Henry Northrup is one of the main protagonists in the 1982 Stephen King anthology film Creepshow, in the segment The Crate.

He is portrayed by the late Hal Holbrook.

Biography[]

Professor Henry Northrup was the husband of the unpleasant Wilma Northrup a.k.a. Billie. He taught English at Horlicks University and was best friends with his fellow professor Dexter Stanley. The two men met once a week to play chess. Aside from his chess night with Dex, Henry's life was predominantly miserably thanks to Wilma's constant nagging and verbal abuse, and he constantly fantasized about killing her, but never had the backbone.

That is until one August night when a visibly distraught Dex showed up at the Northrup doorstep with a wild tale about an unknown creature that had been found in the basement of Amberson Hall in an old crate. The beast had killed and eaten both the janitor Mike Latimer and Charlie Gereson, a grad student. Dex had even brought evidence with him in the form of the unfortunate janitor's mangled shoe.

Deciding that this story, if true, would be the perfect way to rid himself of his horrible wife, Henry, after slipping knockout drugs into Dex's drink, left a note for Wilma and drove down to the university and went into Amberson Hall. Here he found more evidence of Dex's story: a blood trail leading from Dex's classroom to the basement stairs. Here, Henry found the crushed glasses of the killed student as well as the crate itself, its occupant currently sleeping. Knowing that Wilma would soon arrive after getting his note, Henry set about cleaning up all of the blood. Henry's story to Wilma was that Dex has "problems coping with young female students," and that he had attempted to rape one of them in Amberson. His note claimed that he needed Wilma's assistance in coaxing the girl out from under the stairs, where she'd hidden herself.

When Wilma arrived, Henry uses the broken glasses as "evidence" of what had happened, and then showed his wife under the stairs. At the opportune moment, he shoved her under, where after a brief struggle between the pair, the monster inside the crate popped out, seized Wilma, and devoured her, to Henry's simultaneous relief and horror. Later, as Henry explained to Dex, he chained the crate back up once the monster was sleeping again and drove it to Ryder's Quarry where he dumped it into the deep water and drowned it. Or so he thought.