Long
before Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, horror had plenty of unreliable
narrators. They were usually crazy people. That could well be the case for the
narrator of the best story of the second episode of Shudder’s Creepshow anthology
series, which premiered last night on Shudder.
However,
this week the Creep first introduces screenwriter-director Rob Schrab’s largely
conventional Bad Wolf Down. The Allies might be winning the war, but
they are definitely losing the battle. Retreating from a particularly vicious National
Socialist ambush, a rag tag squad of American soldiers takes cover in a French
police station. Inside, they find weird scratches on the wall and a highly
agitated women locked in a cell.
Basically,
Bad Wolf Down is sort of like the start of the film adaptation of DC
Comics’ Weird War Tales that nobody ever cared to produce. We immediately
get where it is going, but genre fans will appreciate the splatterific
practical effects and the scenery chewing of legendary Re-Animator actor
Jeffrey Combs as a vengeful German officer.
The
second story, The Finger written by David J. Schow and directed by showrunner
Greg Nicotero is far more intriguing. Clark, a divorced and under-employed
web-designer, narrates his brush with the uncanny with a resigned air of regret
in retrospect. The nebbish loser was in the habit of salvaging cast-off junk. Somehow,
that eccentric habit compelled him to pick-up and take home a sinister,
Giger-esque looking finger.
Naturally,
Clark’s dark shabby home provides the perfect environment for the finger to regenerate
the rest of its small but lethal monster body. Clark rather takes a shine to
the creature he decides to name “Bob” and the feeling is mutual. Despite his
predator tendencies, Bob is not a threat to his host. In fact, he is eager to please
Clark—too eager.
Schow’s
narration hits the right note of ambiguity and Joker-like rage, which DJ
Qualls totally knocks out of the park. Frankly, this could be his best screen
performance yet. The creature effects are also spectacularly creepy. Even the
way it moves around the house is deeply unnerving.
So
far, the series version Creepshow appears to be following a pattern,
wherein each episode starts with a relatively old school yarn and then concludes
with a more ambitious (and scarier) tale of terror. The presence of fan
favorite horror stars like Combs this week and Adrienne Barbeau in the series
opener is also a winning strategy. So yes, Shudder’s Creepshow continues
to be quite entertaining, especially The Finger and House of the Head.
Still recommended for fans, Creepshow: Bad Wolf Down/The Finger is now
streaming on Shudder.
