Originally published on Set The Tape
We recently took a look at the physical media release of the first three seasons of Shudder exclusive horror anthology series Creepshow, developed as a continuation of the 80’s film series. These were released around the same time that the fourth season premiered on the streaming platform, and now the fourth season has got its own release, allowing fans to complete the collection.
As with the previous seasons, season four has six episodes, and each one covers two short horror stories, with different on and off screen talent. In the first few seasons of the show these episodes were fairly evenly split, with both stories taking around 20 minutes each. This season, however, feels quite different, as some of the episodes tend to lean more heavily towards one of the stories over the other, leading to it feeling more like a main story and a B-feature. To be fair though, the premise of the show is that you’re reading a comic book, and most comics that feature a back-up story are structured this way, with one gaining the bulk of the page count; so in that regard it does feel a bit like a comic.
This season has some interesting episodes, and opens strong with two tales that are immediately engaging. The first deals with a woman whose home comes under siege by a monster who’s chasing a woman that she decides to help. Having been told that the monster will kill her within twenty minutes, we follow the woman as she tries her best to find a solution to saving her life. Whilst it’s light on the horror, this story is surprisingly introspective, and features some really delightful interactions. And it might just have the best pizza delivery guy that’s ever been put on screen. The second part of the episode is much shorter, but works well because of it. It follows an award winning photographer whose past comes back to haunt him, and is genuinely quite creepy in places, and ended up being one of the stories from the season that really stood out in my mind.
After this first episode, however, things become kind of a mixed bag. There are still some good stories to be found, such as one about a writer who uses a lucky hat to get through his writer’s block, but it turns out the hat is controlling him. It’s kind of silly, it makes obvious nods to Stephen King (who helped create the original Creepshow), and it goes a bit creature feature towards the end, but there is something delightfully engaging about it. But I found there to be a lot more misses than hits as the show went on, with stories that were either completely forgettable, or just dull and predictable. There was one that felt like it was going through the motions until the ‘show twist’ final moment, but this elicited nothing much more than ‘Oh, so that’s the twist? Okay then’ from me.
This season seems to lack something that the previous ones had; the hook that made the others really enjoyable just doesn’t seem to be here. Part of this feels like it may be a decrease in budget. I don’t know if that’s the case, but it feels like it might be. The show doesn’t have as much punch as before. The segments with the Creep are gone, with the show now simply doing animated pages within the comic, there’s much less night shooting than previous seasons, which tends to save money, and there are next to no big name stars this season. The very first episode of the series, the very first story, opened big, with Tobin Bell, Adrienne Barbeau, and Giancarlo Esposito, all names that horror fans will recognise. Other episodes would feature people like Jeffrey Combs, Keith David, Kiefer Sutherland, Justin Long, James Remar, and other relatively big names. But this season doesn’t have any.
The lack of big name guest stars certainly makes this season feel like it has dropped somewhat in quality. Whilst none of the bigger actors featured in past seasons did anything more special than the actors in this one, with every actor essentially playing a bit part, the loss of recognisable faces means that this season just doesn’t stand out. Part of the fun of loading up an episode of the show was waiting to see if anyone you know would be in it, but after a coupe of episodes of season four I gave up even trying to anticipate, because I just knew it wasn’t coming.
Sadly, a lack of big names isn’t the only thing missing from this season. The previous home releases came with some extra features that included interviews, comic-con panels, audio commentaries, and special episodes. What does this season have listed as extra features worth getting the physical release for? Subtitles. Basic accessibility features that should be included in everything is all that this set could put together as ‘special’ features. Disappointing to say the least. Not only does this seem like a huge downgrade on previous seasons (and once again feeds into the feeling of cheapness) but it also gives those with a Shudder subscription no incentive to buy the discs. There are some people who have Shudder who’d absolutely buy the physical releases to look into the extras, but for this season they’ll likely just not bother.
I very much enjoyed the previous Creepshow releases, but season four feels like a big let down. After excitedly awaiting its delivery, hoping to get it watched before Christmas kicked in, I ended up feeling kind of deflated by the time the final episode credits rolled.
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