With the success and positive reception to the new Creepshow series, Creepshow season 2 is in the works for a 2021 release. To satiate us while we wait they’ve created A Creepshow Animated Special just in time for Halloween. It premiered on October 26, and it’s waiting for you. Go get it while it’s available, so they go back to the kitchen to make more. Apparently, there was only room on the plate for the two tales, so I’m left with a yearning that makes me want to eat my foot. While we wait for the big day a year from now we’re left with a tease of only these two tales.
“Taffeta, darling.”
So let’s talk about this appetizer that’s come to the table. To start, go ahead and continue cooking that entree, but I’d like another helping of the hors d’oeuvres. You can’t just have the wait staff walking around with two shrimp cocktails. They’re going to be devoured, and then there’ll nothing. My suggestion is that you call in Gordon Ramsay, and have him insult everyone until we get a new animated tale every week! Call it a series and get cracking!
The first of the two tales was “Survivor Type,” based on the short story by Stephen King and adapted by Greg Nicotero. It stars Kiefer Sutherland as a man so determined to stay alive he does some unspeakable things to himself. The original story was written in the early 1980s, so the message you could glean about self-absorption and narcissism was most likely not intentional. Instead, wait for someone living in 2020, learning the story for the first time to waste your time with that metaphor. Or you could just enjoy Creepshow the way it’s meant to be consumed; dipped in just the right amount of blood and guts. The comic book sequences in all the Creepshows harken to a time we’d read gory horror tales and monster magazines under the covers late at night. It makes perfect sense to translate an entire tale (instead of just the beginning or the end) into comic-style animation.
Sutherland’s voice is cast well. Often, a known star will take you out of the story. If Shudder is experimenting with this please go ahead and order more. Stars will be lining up to pump their voice over resume with a Creepshow animated series. Just remember while testing the waters tom stay on the raft.
The second tale was a good contrast to the first. Not only was it a more contemporary tale, literally, but it was told in a creative way. Writers have dabbled in so many new technology angles to deliver the story that the approach itself is becoming cliche. However, “Twittering from the Circus of the Dead,” based on the short story by Joe Hill and adapted by Melanie Dale, was told in a way that was practically necessary due to the nature of the plot. If that sounds cryptic it won’t once you’ve seen it. This story is all but Live Tweeted to us by a teen girl named Blake. She’s stuck with her family on a road trip, and hating every minute of it until the family steps into an off the beaten path circus. The grim chronicle unfolds in 280 characters or less at a time. Joey King (The Kissing Booth, The Act) is perfectly cast as a desensitized and angsty kid.
The art in both tales is grisly and gorgeous. It fits the Creepshow pallet, and fits very nicely on the Shudder menu. I highly recommend this animated Creepshow Special. It’s only a taste of what they can do with this franchise, but it promises a grave future for everything else if they continue to do it just right.
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I really did not see it as all that good. The “animation” was almost non-existent, there were only two colors and what animation there was moved extremely slow. No real story line at all. If this was supposed to be scary, I am not looking forward to the real episodes. I expected a LOT more.