'Creepshow Season 2, Episode 1: Model Kid/Public Television of the Dead'


I've been going through one of my periodic 'agonising over whether to cancel Shudder' phases just recently. I'm always a little bit short at the end of the month so end up wondering (in that middle aged kind of way) whether I'm getting my money's worth out of my Shudder subscription. The funny thing is that something always seems to pop up that convinces me to keep the subscription going just a little bit longer. This time round, I popped into Prime Video, yesterday, and saw an advert for Season 2 of 'Creepshow'. I was sold :o)

I binged the first season of 'Creepshow' whilst on holiday last August. Anyone who was about then might well remember that most of that week was 'Creepshow' posts.... Yep, that's the one ;o) As is pretty much to be expected with anthology series of any kind, I found season one of 'Creepshow' to be a little up and down, in terms of quality (which is fair enough, you're not going to like everything are you?) but there was more than enough to keep me coming back and definitely more than enough to get me all interested at the thought of a Season 2 (and I hear that Season 3 has already been greenlit so I'm interested in that too).

So I got back home, last night, and got straight into the first episode of this second season. Two stories, both directed by Greg Nicotero, in an episode that very neatly sums up the issue of consistency in the show. It's not great but there's definitely hope for the future.

'Model Kid' sees horror fan Joe having a really shitty life that he can only escape from through his horror models and movies. After Joe's mother dies, his 'Uncle' Kevin tries to toughen him up by binning all the horror stuff. This is not a good move as Joe has just taken delivery of a voodoo doll...

While 'Model Kid' doesn't do anything particularly wrong in its execution, it doesn't do anything new either and that's where it fell flat for me. I'm as big a fan of seeing the bad uncle/school bully/whoever get their comeuppance, as the next person, but when the show already did an iteration of this in Season 1 ('The Companion') and this story is making no attempt whatsoever to be original... You're left with a story that's signposted so heavily that I was watching it just so I could get to the end and watch whatever came next. I certainly wasn't watching it for the scares because there weren't any. And what was with that ending? What was that all about? I don't know and I can't see myself going back to find out.

'Public Television of the Dead' though... That made up for everything and singlehandedly raised the bar for the rest of this season.

It's just another day at WQPS, a Pittsburgh public TV station, where infighting is about to see the foulmouthed children's TV presenter do the chilled out Bob Ross lookalike out of his job. Or that's what would have happened if the 'Antiques Roadshow' style show didn't have its presenter read a page from the Necronomicon...

Yes, we're talking that Necronomicon... A story that starts out looking like it's paying homage to Romero zombies takes a sudden turn into 'Deadite Territory' and hits every single target, that it aims at, along the way. Ted Raimi, Coley Campany and Peter Leake all make great Deadites and to be honest, it's just like watching a 'lost episode' of 'Ash Vs Evil Dead', just without quite so much gore (you can't have everything). It's a completely different story to 'Model Kid' but what it has, that 'Model Kid' could do with, is a plot that is happy to be chucked in different directions to see what happens next. Here, you get a sense of urgency that results in great jump scares and that's just what you want in a story that's just under half an hour long. And someone says, 'groovy' :o) You've probably guessed that I'm an 'Evil Dead' fan but even if I wasn't, 'Public Television of the Dead' is still everything that 'Model Kid' could have been, but wasn't.

Creepshow's new season kicks off on a bit of an odd note then; treading far too familiar ground and then deciding to just go 'hell for leather, with Deadites'. I know what I want to see more of and I'll be watching to see where the show goes next.

Earlier 'Creepshow' posts can be found right Here.

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