The balance of humour in your average episode of Creepshow can vary a suprising amount and while there’s always something of a cruel, sardonic streak of wit running through the vein of even the most darkest of episodes, some installments obviously attempt to be more chuckle-worthy than others.
However, already coming off of an episode that was lighter than most, we find ourselves smack bang in the middle of another pair of broadly goofy episodes that feature humorous – yet horrible – takes on everyday matters such as video games or feuding with a crappy neighbour. Both add appropriately Creepshow centric flavours to their respective subjects of racism and grief, but I genuinely feel that if both instalments were that little bit darker, we’d had had two top tier episodes, for sure.
Still, it’s not a bad pairing of titles, to be sure, with nifty concepts and occasional splatters of grue, it’s just a shame they’re a bit too light to make the desired impact.
Meet The Belaskos: In an alternate world where vampires not only exist, but they’ve been peacefully integrated into society, Cuck, his wife Helena and their daughter Anna, move into a new neighbourhood but immediately run afoul of their fang hating, bigoted neighbour, Doug. However, while the dude next door resents that a bunch of bloodsucker have moved into the area, his son, Alex, is instantly beguiled by Anna, who finds life as a night dwelling minority too much to bear.
As their relationship grows, so does Doug’s rage and before you know it, he’s corralled a bunch of his hunting buddies together and heads out to stake the vampire “corrupting” his boy. But Alex is left reeling by the revelation of how his mother really died, Doug is about to find out how dedicated a girlfriend vampires can really be.
Cheat Code: Middle-aged widower Jeff finds his old collection of 8-bit video games and in an attempt to connect with his distant son, Dave, introduces him to Weird Wednesday, a primitive platformer that was mysterious pulled from the shelves back in the day.
Initially bonding over the fact that Weird Wednesday was supposedly unbeatable, Jeff finds that his relationship fading as his son would rather hang with his friend Spencer and his ex-girlfriend Reina, but matters take a sinister turn when the kids find a cheat code that Spencer believes will help them beat the game.
However, it doesn’t so much help you win the game as put you inside the bastard thing, and while your physical body is controlled by whomever is playing, once your lives run out, so do you and in quite gruesome fashion too. After Spencer becomes a smear of intestinal gore on the grill of an ice cream truck, Dave is the next to unwittingly enter the code and finds that his life is literally in his father’s hands. But even if he survives the onslaught of sparking electric wires, careening bandsaws and roaring lawnmowers, can he beat the end of game boss?
Making horror tropes to mirror that of social issues is nothing new, but Meet The Belaskos is one of the more blatant attempts I’ve seen in a while as it substitutes minorities for full blown vampirism. It’s a cute idea and the episode has some neat images such as Chuck and Helena snuggling within a double-sided coffin the way human couples snuggle in a king-sized bed, the the issue with horror and fantasy films swapping out a minority in favour of a mythic creature (much like David Ayer’s Bright) it often misfires no matter how well meaning the episode may be, mainly because the true racism is baseless prejudice and the group being targeted here are beings who once violently drank blood to survive.
However, despite this, the show hits all the usual spots you’d expect with the Ned Flanders-esque Chuck weathering barely concealed animosity from his neighbour while their kids tumble into a very Romeo and Juliet type of whirlwind romance. However, despite being all rather predictable, Meet The Belaskos manages to up its game thanks to some lively gore (the stakings spray claret everywhere) and a cool creature design when Anna goes full vamp and transforms into a leathery gargoyle type once Alex gets caught in the crossfire and even though its attempts at a deeper message are ultimately thwarted, it’s still an incredibly watchable episode – however, its memory soon fades into dust like a vampire on a sunbed. Cracking fucking Salem’s Lot reference though…
Likewise suffering from being a bit too trite is Cheat Code, an 8-bit offering from Justin G. Dyck, who delivered up gold digger vs. werewolf story, To Grandmother’s House We Go last episode. The teen-centic plot sees sad dad, Lochlyn Munro try to bond with his kid via an old cartridge game he used to play as a teen in a way to help them both get past the death of his wife. It’s a well-mined idea that’s bourne fruit in such movies as the Jumanji sequels, Brainscan, The Last Star Fighter and even a section of Freddy’s Dead where video games end up having knock on effect on real life and thus crackles with Joe Dante-style energy. However, it’s a shame it doesn’t have Joe Dante’s talent for genre blending as well as an endearingly throwback concept gets lost in a tone that’s way too broad and a climax that excitedly ditches it’s own flimsy logic in order to go full-weird.
The choice of an old, 8-bit game that looks suspiciously like Paperboy is inspired and the episode’s internal rules (when it actually sticks to them) make a certain amount of sense – but despite the messy end that awaits sloppy players, there’s a noticable lack of threat and some rather extreme plot twists (a fucking telekinetic alien?) might have held together better if the tone of the piece was tighter, but as we reach the end of the episode, matters degrade into complete silliness that’s more akin to a failed Goosebumps episode than a Creepshow one.
On the other hand, the sheer randomness of the story is admittedly fun to try and keep up with even if it kneecaps its own logic like the hired muscle of an impatient loan shark – but that’s always been the fun part of Creepshow; even when the destination proves to be a bit of a let down, the journey, no matter how erratic it may be, is usually a fun ride.
It’s just a shame the directors of both stories aren’t able to do their respective spots the justice that their weirdo plots demands.
Meet The Belaskos: 🌟🌟🌟
Cheat Code: 🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 