Shudder’s Creepshow continues season three with a double feature of monsters in the third episode. The first segment, “The Last Tsuburaya,” is directed by Jeffrey F. January (The Walking Dead), written by Paul Dini (Batman: The Animated Series) and Stephen Langford (Family Matters), and stars Joe Ando-Hirsh (The Walking Dead), Brandon Quinn (Sweet Magnolias), Jade Fernandez (Little), and Gina Hiraizumi (Doom Patrol).
The second segment, “Okay, I’ll Bite,” is directed and written by John Harrison (Tales from the Darkside, Book of Blood) and stars Nicholas Massouh (The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It), Nic Starr (Survivor’s Remorse), and Glenn Magee (Black Lightning).
“The Last Tsuburaya”
Directed by Jeffrey F. January
Written by Paul Dini & Stephen Langford
In episode three’s first segment, confused Best Buy employee Bob (Ando-Hirsh) is made aware that he’s the last living descendant of Tsuburaya, an ancient famous Japanese artist specializing in painting horrifying creatures. He is left the never-seen, the last piece of artwork Tsuburaya ever painted, still in its protective crate.
While Dr. Mai Soto (Hiraizumi) pleads with him to sell the painting to a museum, billionaire, and all-around scumbag Wade Cruise (Quinn), interrupts the meeting to offer Bob a deposit of 20 million dollars to his bank account in exchange for the painting. Bob quickly accepts the offer.
Later that night, at a party Wade throws, he opens the painting, takes in the view, and burns it before anyone else can see it, becoming the only other human to ever see the last Tsuburaya painting. Wade laughs maniacally and ushers his guests out, only to continue drinking and belittling his girlfriend/hired artist, Geesa (Fernandez). After she leaves, Wade starts to see the creature from the painting stalking him.
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It attacks, and upon injuring it, he realizes it can be hurt. Wade waits for the creature to attack once again and, this time, stabs it with a sword, landing a killing blow. The creature turns into Tsuburaya himself, who tells Wade that he was cursed to live in that creature forever, and now his curse is over, and Wade’s has now begun. Wade then kills himself to escape his fate but morphs into a cursed creature anyway.
This segment offered my favorite story of the season so far. I loved the art-centered plot, the curse involved, and the actual artwork used in the episode, which was beautiful and creepy. Although I hated the main character (as I was supposed to), and side characters got little-to-no development, more length and detail was put into Wade with this being a lengthier episode, and the audience was given several reasons to dislike him.
An extremely effective creature suit was used for the demon, and it looked great in both dark and light shots. I think this was the most complete feeling segment of the season so far, and it checked off all of the typical Creepshow boxes with a moralistic and satisfying ending.
“Okay I’ll Bite”
Directed & Written by John Harrison
The second segment follows Elmer Strick (Massouh), a strange prison inmate and arachnologist continuing his studies on spiders within his cell, including hiding a massive tarantula in his cell wall. After Elmer is denied parole, he’s attacked by other prisoners, which results in one of his spiders biting an attacker (in the eyeball) and the rest being released.
The warden demands the spiders be killed, and Elmer gives himself up to the giant arachnid in the wall. The giant spider absorbs Elmer entirely, mutating into a disturbing-looking creature, and attacks and kills one of Elmer’s main abusers.
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Although “Okay I’ll Bite” offered up a good creep factor (I am not a spider person at all), the story and execution fell flat. Elmer’s development and backstory were decently done, and I enjoyed the isolated conversations he was having with his spider friends, but his motivations and willingness to die for some spiders seemed way too far-fetched.
The spider bite to the eye was pretty gnarly and not something I saw coming. I also loved the design of the giant mutated tarantula, but I was itching for it to be practical over CG and was surprised when it wasn’t during the climactic reveal. Overall, this was a one-and-done segment with little re-watch value.
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