The first season of Shudder’s Creepshow concluded a day early when the streaming service released the finale Wednesday night. Perhaps it was to avoid a Halloween night release. Or, perhaps it was due to the high anticipation for the episode which featured Tom Savini (Night of the Living Dead) returning to the director’s chair, and the franchise that he had a big hand in launching, to helm a segment based on a short story by acclaimed author Joe Hill, an alumni of the series himself. Hill, real name Joe King (and yes, son of author Stephen King), appeared as the young boy Billy in the original Creepshow, written by and co-starring his father, at age 9 in the film’s wrap-around segments which also featured the legendary Tom Atkins as Billy’s abusive father. Whatever the case for the early drop, fans were delighted to get the episode a day early.
The first segment of the finale, “Skincrawlers,” was directed by Roxanne Benjamin (who also directed the episode 4 segment “Lydia Layne’s Better Half”) with teleplay by Paul Dini and Stephen Langford. The story begins with an advertisement for a weight loss program called “Skin Deep by Sloan.” The program, we learn from client and spokesperson Debbie (Melissa Saint-Amand), boasts extreme, rapid weight loss in just a matter of days.
At the clinic’s headquarters, a group of prospective clients, which includes middle-aged Henry Quayle (Dana Gould), learn how the radical program works from program founder Dr. Herbert Sloane (Chad Michael Collins). Sloane explains that while on a South American expedition several years back, he and his team found an extremely rare species, a cross between eels and leeches, that manages to suck all the fat out of a person’s body, resulting in the weight loss.
Despite the strong sales pitch, Quayle remains skeptical of the procedure and decides to opt out. A few weeks later, though, he runs into one of the other clients at that same meeting, Kelly (Hina Kahn), and he changes his mind based on her dramatic new appearance. She convinces him to come on a morning news show with her and Sloane to demonstrate in real-time how effective the program can be. While on the show, we also learn that a major solar eclipse is about to occur via one of the show’s reporters, who happens to be reporting from “Horlicks Observatory” (an Easter egg reference to “Horlicks University” from the original film’s “The Crate” story).
As the eclipse unfolds, several individuals, including Kelly and the reporter, begin to suffer from intense pain. The symptoms then turn deadly, as the reporter’s head explodes and small worm-like creatures erupt from Kelly’s face and mouth, killing her in the process. The rest of the crew suffers similar effects until just Sloane and Quayle, who fortunately had not undergone the procedure yet, are left. Sloane theorizes that the magnetic waves produced by the eclipse caused the creatures to emerge. Quayle accuses Sloane of knowingly putting everyone at risk by using the creatures. “I just thought they would suck it all out of us. I didn’t think they would leave anything behind.” Immediately after saying this, a large, razor-toothed, tentacled monster emerges from Sloane. Quayle fights the monster off, ultimately crushing it with a candy vending machine. “Suck that,” Quayle remarks, as the story comes to an end.
The next segment is the Savini-Hill joint effort “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain,” from a teleplay by Jason Ciaramella. The story, which takes place in the 1980s, opens with a shot of the lake and a sign proclaiming it “Home of Champy.” We then come to a mother and her two children sitting around the dinner table. One of the children, Rose (Sydney Wease), is telling her mother Leigh (Gina Shaw) that the weather conditions at the lake are the same as they were when Champy, a Loch Ness-type monster, was last spotted in 1977. Rose’s father was obsessed with proving Champy’s existence and, apparently, it cost him his life. Most of the townspeople thought he was crazy, including his wife. Rose, upset that her mother still doesn’t believe Champy exists, tells her, “Dad didn’t care if the whole town believed him. He went out there every night because he wanted you to believe him.”
Complicating matters is Rose’s mentally abusive Vietnam vet step-father Chet (James Devoti), who, according to Rose, came into the family only because of the money left to them after her father’s death. After a spat with her mom and Chet, Rose runs off to the lake and finds the corpse of Champy washed up on shore. Her younger brother Joseph (David Alexander Kaplan) and boyfriend Thomas (Connor Jones) catch up with her at the lake and they decide that they are going to give full credit to her father for discovering Champy. However, before they can do anything more than take a picture with the mythical creature’s carcass, Chet shows up and decided he is going to take the credit for himself. “This thing is going to make me rich.”
After getting into a fight and threatening to kill Thomas, Chet stands seemingly victorious. That is, until the real Champy, much larger in size than the corpse they found, shows up and devours Chet whole. It seems the creature on shore was actually Champy’s child and she pulls the lifeless body back out to sea with her. And of course, this is when Joseph, who had run off to get help, returns with his mom. Not seeing any signs of Champy or her child, she is unbelieving of their claims once again. But as the segment closes, she sees through the fog Champy’s figure disappearing into the water. “Maybe your dad wasn’t as crazy as everyone thought he was.”
And so season 1 of Creepshow comes to a close. This episode was a good representation of the series as a whole, as the “Skincrawlers” segment had great gore and creature effects and “By the Silver Water” had a terrific look and atmosphere, feeling very fantasy-like in its tone. Your mileage may vary, but I thoroughly enjoyed this first season quite a bit and felt it did right by the franchise. Only one, maybe two segments out of the twelve didn’t work for me, falling a little flat. Overall, though, George A. Romero would be proud of what Nicotero and company served up this season. And I can not wait to see what season 2 of Creepshow has in store for us!
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