The Exceptional Pilot of ‘Creepshow’ Bodes Well For Shudder’s Original Series

Like so many movies in the matinee of my movie going experience, I read Stephen King’s Creepshow book before I could talk my parents into letting me see the movie, and I devoured it. Done in the style (though I didn’t know it at the time) of the old EC Comics featuring legendary artist Bernie Wrightson, it was at once a graphic novel before the term found traction and loving homage. It would be followed a year later by King and Wrightson’s Cycle of the Werewolf collaboration which would eventually be adapted into the and underestimated Dan Attias film Silver Bullet. I finally saw the film on home video the next year at the tender age of 10 and the images and ideas have left an impression on me, though I have trouble sometimes distinguishing between feelings I had while reading the comic versus feelings inspired by the film. They’re indistinguishable to me in my memory and the better for it. By the time the film got its sequel in 1987, I was a hardened King fan, hungry for a faithful adaptation of the story “The Raft” from King’s Skeleton Crew anthology. I was sorely disappointed.

Now Shudder has revived the title with a weekly series exclusive to their streaming service. The production values are high, the knowledge of King and EC Comics is on point, and the obvious love slathered on the project will be gratifying for fans of King. Consider the opening animation that finds the Creep opening the “crate” from the first film to find a cache of old Creepshow issues. The pages flap to the first story, “Gray Matter”, and as the animation goes into live-action, we see a lost pets bulletin board with Pet Sematary‘s Church, Cujo, and what appears to be King’s own Molly a.k.a. The Thing of Evil among others. It’s a fun Easter Egg, and sets the tone for this adaptation of one of the most memorable stories in King’s Night Shift, his first collection of short stories.

Tobin Bell stars as Chief, a policeman in a New England backwater, playing cards one night with his friend Doc (Giancarlo Esposito) and cashier Dixie (Adrienne Barbeau). All three are veterans of other King projects. Esposito from Maximum Overdrive, Barbeau from the first Creepshow movie, and Bell from a short adapted from King’s “My Pretty Pony.” On the night of a bad storm, a boy Timmy (Christopher Nathan) comes in for a case of Harrow’s Supreme beer, putting a few stained bills on the counter next to a newspaper talking about the disappearance of the “Grady Twins.” We’re deep in King country, now. Seems Timmy’s dad Richie (Jesse C. Boyd) hasn’t been doing well since he got a real bad can of Harrow’s a few months back. All Timmy can say is that “he’s changed.” Dixie tells Timmy he needs to get some food in him and sends Chief and Doc to deliver the beer. It deviates from the story in a couple of minor ways (rain instead of snow, a different-looking monster, a different ending), but the overall impact of it is a kind of cozy nostalgia. It looks great, finds room to address the toll of masculinity on fathers and sons, of addiction and grief, and is smart enough to include a cartoon text box “*PSHHT*” with every popping of every can of beer. Look for a gorgeous shadow play near the end as Dixie does the math on how long the human race has left to it.

Creepshow follows “Gray Matter” with “The House of the Head”, a wonderful little exercise written by Josh Malerman (Bird Box) involving a little girl Evie (Cailey Fleming) who loves playing with a doll family in their antique doll house. One day, the severed head of some terrible corpse doll appears in the house and as director John Harrison follows Evie’s horrified point of view from one room to another, a bloody domestic supernatural drama begins to play out. Old Chief Wood’nhead from Creepshow 2 makes a brilliant appearance here in the only way he possibly can, and the progression of Evie’s anxiety becomes a palpable thing. The film speaks to a child’s empathy for her toys – it’s like Toy Story for horror fans. She scolds them before she leaves on an outing with her parents: “nobody move again,” but of course, while they’re gone, they do. I love that Evie never asks her parents to intervene, knowing perhaps that parents never believe children anyway. And I love that the two places Evie goes for help: first a policeman, then a spiritual leader, disappoint her as they must. Harrison shoots Evie’s interactions with her dollhouse in odd angles and with distorted lenses. He finds a child’s anxieties and fears there and in a lovely performance by young Fleming. It’s a story about a loss of innocence. It’s scary as hell.

Shudder’s Creepshow is great. It could all go to hell in subsequent episodes, but the pilot is just exceptional. If it maintains this impossible standard, it’ll be a classic. Shudder is making a case for itself as an essential subscription. I can’t wait to watch as the series unfolds.

Walter Chaw is the Senior Film Critic for filmfreakcentral.net. His book on the films of Walter Hill, with introduction by James Ellroy, is due in 2020. His monograph for the 1988 film MIRACLE MILE is available now.

Stream Creepshow on Shudder