Creepshow

I love a good anthology series. The problem with them, however, is that the film industry just doesn't care to create them. Anthology series are ripe in storytelling, after all that is precisely what they're there to do. They tell a short story, and then leave. Shows like the Twilight Zone are some of my favourite shows of all-time as a result of this. One episode comes and goes and is replaced with something completely different. Sometimes the episodes aren't that great, sometimes they're incredible. The whole fun of this sub-genre is pretty much that: unique little stories each told in different ways, with different casts and different meanings. Every so often we get something like this, though they're so few and far between that they come and go far too quickly. Shows like Love, Death & Robots. Black Mirror. I was surprised to hear about the Creepshow reboot as a result of the poor attention this area gets. I have seen a bit of the original series, to which I loved but I don't think I ever truly finished. Though my curiosity recently was in the quality of the rebooted version from Shudder. Rebooted series and franchises are usually a sign of desperation from a production company, to revive the dead with a good name and utilise that purely to hook people in and give them something that's barely a ghost of its former self. Riddled with modern political agendas and just completely forgetting about what made the original so interesting to audiences in the first place.

Politics aside, I did sort of expect this with Creepshow's reboot. But a few episodes in, I found it to be quite interesting. Pretty much what a Creepshow series should be: cheap horror thrills at times, with fun little stories. Some being ones you can easily remember, others just being fun for ten to fifteen minutes before being replaced. These episodes were pretty engaging, some a little predictable. But what I have really enjoyed so far is that it isn't trying to be more than what Creepshow used to be. Sticking to its name and pursuing the same structure. With modern horror being something that seems a bit lost, either focusing too much on the 'slow burn' sort of thing, or the annoying fascination with the paranormal exclusively, Creepshow is a breath of fresh air in the vastness of very boring, all too familiar attempts at horrors and thrillers, a reminder of the older way, in which fantasy creations roam freely. Budgets remain low, but stories are rich and entertaining.

So far I'd definitely say that the show is worth checking out, it's certainly something fresh in this era. A lot of fun and with plenty of potential, but this is a first impressions post, so anything could happen from this point on! Though I hope the quality continues on.

Each episode of Creepshow is split into two different stories of around twenty minutes in length. I quite liked how the setup worked, to get two short stories within one episode helps it keep fresh, and the feeling that the stories don't stick around for too long is felt. These two episodes don't have any correlation with each other whatsoever, they don't contain the same actors, nor the same world and stories. You can get one episode on someone turning into some slime-like monster, and the following can be about soldiers in World War 2 discovering a werwolf in the forest. I really liked this, the ways in which each episode really feels unique, stories that are vastly different in appeal, to the point where one episode can be great, and it gives you a curiosity over what the next might be. Sometimes the production quality differs in these episodes, but it feels like this is often a creative pursuit rather than money constraints. A certain cheapness to the episodes, but you can see how they're influenced by the cheaper, more dated areas of horror. That physical costume aesthetic, as well as the camera effects and movements that were used in decades prior.

This is where cinematography can vary. It shows how different filmmakers approach certain stories. How they themselves may have influences from elsewhere. I really liked one episode in which a dollhouse is used, the camera weaves in and out of that dollhouse like it's a real interior, back into the exterior of the real world. The way it was shot really gave it some depth, that connection between the small world within the dollhouse, and the reality as circumstances started growing too familiar to the character. With an episode that mostly took place within one room, the way the camera moved around the dollhouse gave the story a lot more depth. I quite like productions that can take advantage of limited space, taking advantage of it and instead finding ways to make it a strength. Another episode I liked had interesting costume design, something that stood out, a gradual decline into some sort of monster as the body began to deteriorate.

One major strength is that the episodes aren't strictly your typical horror stories. There is a nice balance between the odd and supernatural, as well as areas of deep fantasy. Areas of the stories that focus on the mystical and the hellish. Monsters and creations that really don't have much of an explanation. A lot of what the cause really is comes from your own interpretation, sometimes there really isn't any necessary backstory to find out what exactly the cause is or what the being is/where it came from. Instead, you get your story containing it, and then we move on. I think it's nice this way, not having the exposition that aims to constantly explain anything to us, giving us all answers to the worlds we are given a short introduction to. It keeps these worlds interesting as we don't see the aftermath of these events, we just see what the main characters are exposed to, if they survive or not. In some episodes we get a bit of a conclusion, but what really works is the idea that nobody else finds out about these events, they're kept in secret which then conveys the idea that maybe there are many of these odd events taking place around, but kept silent.

It's a little hard to summarise how Creepshow really is without spoiling some of the episodes, this is a very simple show but it's one that works very well. The anthology method is just perfect for bite-sized horror stories. I just wish there were more like it. Fortunately, for now, I have this series of Creepshow and the few seasons it had released. Again, I recommend it already. Check it out if you're into fantasy horror!