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‘Creepshow’ Season 2 Episode 5 Recap: “Night Of The Living Late Show”

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Creepshow (2019)

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Episode 5 of the second season of Creepshow is, rather than the show’s standard of a pair of short films, just one longer short: Greg Nicotero and Dana Gould’s “Night of the Living Late Show.” In it, milquetoast inventor Simon (Justin Long) creates a virtual reality chamber out of a tanning bed for the express purpose of porting the user into the movie of their choice. It’s a Stay Tuned that leans heavily into the terror elements of the premise: Sherlock Jr. carried to its most unpleasant extremity. Simon’s favorite movie is Eugenio Martin’s great Horror Express, a post-Amicus/post-Hammer Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee pairing that serves as another great adaptation of John Campbell’s “Who Goes There?” and one of the first movies to take full advantage of the shaft-shifting nature of the freshly-thawed monster. I love Horror Express, though the prospect of getting shot into the middle of it in all its grime and atrocity wouldn’t necessarily be my first choice for a good time.

What “Night of the Living Late Show” does extremely well is nailing the most dangerous elements of fandom without also condemning liking things. Simon loves what he loves and his affection for Horror Express has its roots in a trip to the theater with his dad as a kid, the first “grown up” film he was allowed to see. So many of the things we hold as totems against the inevitable march of mortality are these things experienced in childhood, even “Creepshow,” which first scratched the EC Comics notalgia itch of that generation and is now, in this tele-anthology format, scratching the itch of people of my generation who grew up with George Romero’s and Stephen King’s film. It’s an intricate series of signifiers that also makes a nod towards Horror Express’ influence on Creepshow‘s “The Crate.” The more you know, in other words, the better it is – though it’s very fine on its own.

Simon is sketched beautifully as a smart disappointment, married to rich Renee (D’arcy Carden) against the advice of a disapproving father-in-law, looking for a way to disappear into an artifact of a time and place from before he was a failure. When Renee declines to participate in his invention, Simon’s disappointment registers deeply in the hearts of creative folks with “potential” who have families who love them and have not the first idea what it is that they do. Renee wants to celebrate his accomplishment, but she will never completely share in Simon’s excitement and the sense of loneliness in that is palpable for both of them. Credit Long and Carden for bringing a lot of subtlety and maturity to the piece. In structure, “Night of the Living Late Show” uses extended clips from Horror Express (and then Night of the Living Dead) and even introduces a subtext of porn-addiction in Simon’s virtual wooing of Silvia Tortosa’s Countess character (Hannah Fierman steps in for a few interactive sequences). The idea that becoming lost in fort/da totems is related at some level to object choice in porn is something I’d never considered so explicitly. It’s very smart and obviously the right relationship to draw.

“Night of the Living Late Show” is a highlight of a strong season. It reminds a great deal of the short-lived Perversions of Science HBO series Walter Hill produced (following the success of his Tales from the Crypt, Creepshow‘s predecessor in anthology horror for the small screen) in terms of its desire to explore the grimmer consequences of some hard science-fiction concepts. The use of extended clips from Horror Express is fun within the limits of time and budget and if it all just serves as encouragement for more folks to seek out Martin’s film, that would be enough. But its real strength is how interested it is in dissecting loneliness, expectation, and how these artifacts we accumulate throughout our lives begin to function as more than security blankets, but as proofs of self-worth in devaluing actual human relationships. Loving things is wonderful up to the point that it becomes a purity test others must pass – or a possession that can be possessed by no one else. And while it’s not the most energetic, not the flashiest, certainly, the prospect of being able to be literally consumed by an object of obsession is maybe the scariest single idea in terms of personal and social impact, that Creepshow has presented in two seasons. I’m stunned by the robustness of the rabbit holes in this one.

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.

Watch Creepshow Season 2 Episode 5 on Shudder