What if a comic book came to life? Not a superhero comic, but one filled with creepy stories that leave nothing to the imagination when it comes to the gory stuff as well. The new show Creepshow has two distinct stories in each episode. The show creates a live-action version of the comic book of the same name. The stories are sometimes just plain scary, having a supernatural element; other times there are monsters and vampires dealing with normal people in an absurdly comical way. Humor and some clever writing make this show a fun watch, and the episodes bring up socio-political themes as well, interweaving them within the interpersonal conflicts of the characters. The first episode has two smaller ones, which are not connected to each other. The first mini-episode, titled 20 Minutes with Cassandra, features a rat-monster with an interesting backstory, and the next mini-episode, Smile, delivers good old chilling supernatural horror in an efficient manner.
Spoilers Ahead
’20 Minutes With Cassandra’ Recap & Ending
Lorna Snell, a thirty-something-year-old woman, had just entered her home and ordered a pizza when the doorbell started ringing incessantly, with screaming and thudding being heard outside. Lorna’s ‘me time’ was not going to go as planned, it seemed. She opened the door to find a woman who seemed extremely distressed, as if she had seen a ghost. Lorna tried to calm her down, but the terrified lady threw Lorna’s phone outside and didn’t even allow her to notify the police. Lorna was baffled by this behavior. The terrified woman told Lorna her name was Cassandra and that she was being chased by a rat monster, and the police wouldn’t be able to do anything. Lorna sat her down and thus began their conversation about why the rat monster was chasing her. Before the reason could be deciphered, the door started to bang again. Lorna, for a moment, believed that there really was a rat monster, but it was just a mailman. Lorna felt relaxed, but this did not last for long. The mailman was decapitated by the rat monster, who must have sat just around the corner ready to pounce and terrify Lorna.
Cassandra was relatively pleased by the fact that Lorna had discovered that she wasn’t making stuff up. Her demeanor became more poised as Lorna started to panic and prepare for battle. Lorna got herself a baseball bat and started pinning knives and forks onto it to fight the monster. Her phone was still outside, so she couldn’t call for help. Cassandra told her how the rat monster came to be, while Lorna fretted about the pizza delivery guy who was about to show up. Cassandra told Lorna that the rat monster was the ghost of a rat that had died a terrible death. She had used a rat trap (the kind with the glue on top), and the rat had to gnaw its paw off to save itself, yet it perished. Lorna found the story to not be as poignant as Cassandra made it out to be. Her mind was on the pizza delivery guy. The man named Okwe arrived with the pizza, and after a heartfelt small talk about ‘cold pizzas’, he left but was eaten alive by the rat monster. The good thing Okwe had done was to leave the pizza at the door, which had a message written on it for Lorna.
The rat monster was actually a nice creature and wasn’t really after Cassandra. It was Cassie, as the rat-monster called her, who was the actual monster. Her modus operandi was to engage people for twenty minutes, after which her pet monster would barge in and finish things off. Lorna went back to Cassie and told her about the truth she had just found out. Cassie showed no remorse; on the contrary, she blamed Lorna for not spending the last twenty minutes of her life sharing it with Cassie. They could have become friends, according to her, but sadly, Lorna wasted this precious time and now has to die.
Was Lorna A Killer Too?
The rat-monster barged in the door, and it’s clear it could have done so earlier as well, but was waiting for the stipulated twenty minutes to end so he could make a stereotypically dramatic entry. Lorna asked it for a time out, and the rat monster obliged. Cassie had already left, and they could have a chat without offending her. The rat monster told her that Cassie wasn’t always like this. She became resentful and murderous only after her mother’s death, caused by loneliness. Cassie, from then on, started this string of killings. The rat monster saw a locked trunk and asked Lorna what was inside of it. She said that she had her own monster in the trunk. If Cassie had the rat monster, Lorna had the cat monster. It didn’t mean that Lorna was a killer like Cassie. Lorna’s monster loved to hide in the trunk, away from the world, symbolizing her own fear of going out. Lorna lived alone and perhaps could have died of loneliness herself. Cassie’s motive for killing people was that she didn’t want to leave them sad and lonely after twenty minutes of friendship. When Lorna described her biggest failure in life as her not consoling a crying kid in school, the rat-monster dropped his plans of killing Lorna, and they both shared a friendly moment, appreciating the nice gestures somebody had done for them in the past or the opportunities they had missed in life.
‘Smile’ Recap & Ending
James Harris was a big name in photojournalism. He had just received an honor from the Humanitarian Photojournalistic Society. People flocked to him, praising his efforts. He had gone to remote corners of the world and clicked photos that captured the essence of the place and brought important ethical matters to the forefront. But there was something odd here. The photographer didn’t want himself photographed. He preferred signing autographs to clicking a selfie. His wife Sarah adored him, and there was only one thing in her life more important than James: their son Max.
Sarah had planned an intimate dinner honoring the occasion. Max was at home having a get-together with friends. The couple thought that they could have some time for themselves, but they were haunted by the photographs. Someone was leaving a trail of photographs capturing their moments together. Sarah thought it was a prank, but the photos proved to be taken in real time. It seemed impossible. It was as if an invisible man was clicking them together at every turn and couldn’t be seen from the vantage point.
What Was James’ Dirty Secret?
James saw the street sign that read San Miguel Street. San Miguel was the place James had taken his award-winning photo of the man drowning in water, trying to save his son from the flood. He told Sarah that perhaps there was a spirit following him that wanted to harm him for not helping the man save his son. They received a photo of Max at another turn near a cemetery, this time asking James to ‘Pray’ instead of ‘Smile’. The couple rushed home and found Max safe, but not for long. The house soon came under the control of a powerful spirit that played tricks on James’ psyche.
Complete darkness came over the house, and a camera clicked James’ photo, something that he had been avoiding. The light came back on with the sound, but Max was nowhere to be found. The photo was processed by the camera when James saw Max drowning in the pool. He jumped in, trying to save his son, but the spirit had completely taken over his mind. Playing tricks, James was reminded of the time that he didn’t help the man, even though he could have. The photo seemed more precious to him. In the pool, James started to see the father’s mutilated body. He tried to drown the ghastly looking father in the pool, but Sarah saw the photo and came running out, but it was too late. The spirit had made James kill his own son. James thought he was fighting the living dead, but it was actually Max. His psyche was under the control of the spirit and James killed his own son. This was what the last photo showed: James carrying Max’s corpse in the pool, mimicking the father’s pose, who had held his own son, and asked James for help.
