Creepshow ventures into the final frontier, then comes back down to Earth.
The longer a franchise is around, the higher the chance that it's going to venture into space at some point. Leprechaun, Pinhead, Jason Voorhees, they've all made the trip. With the third episode of the second season of the Shudder anthology series Creepshow (inspired by the two Creepshow films George A. Romero and Stephen King brought us in the '80s), this franchise has also left Earth. The first story told in this episode is The Right Snuff, and the setting is Space Station Ocula as it orbits the moon.
There are only two astronauts on board Ocula, Captain Alex Toomey (Ryan Kwanten) and Major Ted Lockwood (Breckin Meyer), and both of these guys are known to the American public. While Lockwood has recently gained fame for creating a device that emits a gravity wave, a device which eliminates weightlessness in space and could be used for both construction and demolition, Toomey is just known for being the son of the first astronaut to step foot on Mars. Toomey has been living in his father's shadow for his entire life, and when he realizes that he's living in his buddy Lockwood's shadow now as well, things begin to fall apart on Ocula.
Scripted by Paul Dini and Stephen Langford, along with this series' creative supervisor Greg Nicotero, The Right Snuff goes in some unexpected directions as it plays out, but this oddball sci-fi horror story didn't really appeal to me very much. Toomey's very quick mental disintegration was interesting, but the stuff involving the Gorangi, the alien race that shows up by the end, just wasn't my type of story. That's the risk of a horror franchise delving into sci-fi; sometimes viewers who show up for the horror of it all can find it difficult to follow the franchise down the sci-fi path. Personally, I was glad when this story ended so we could get away from space and aliens with the second half of the episode.
The most intriguing aspect of The Right Snuff for me was the fact that the segment was directed by Joe Lynch, director of such films as Wrong Turn 2 and Everly. I'm a fan of Lynch's, so I was glad to see his name on Creepshow.
It's worth noting that the second story contained in this episode, Sibling Rivalry, was not originally meant to be part of this particular episode. When this was first put together, the second episode was going to be one that had Marilyn Manson as a cast member. But after that segment was filmed, Evan Rachel Woods and others stood up to say that Manson has been abusive toward them in the past, so the Creepshow segment Manson was in was scrapped and replaced by Sibling Rivalry. I really hope it will be possible for Nicotero and his collaborators to just reshoot the moments from the original segment that Manson appeared in so it won't be a total waste.
Sibling Rivalry marks the Creepshow debut of director Rusty Cundieff, who has anthology experience, having directed all three films in the Tales from the Hood series. He did a fine job shifting into the Creepshow style. Working from a script by Melanie Dale, Cundieff brings us a story about a teenage girl named Lola (Maddie Nichols) who tells her high school guidance counselor Mrs. Porter (high school movie legend Molly Ringwald) that she fears her brother Andrew (Andrew Brodeur) is going to kill her. Much of this segment is carried by dialogue that's being spewed very quickly by Lola, which is great because Nichols gives a terrific comedic performance. Dale's script also takes a fun turn along the way, so I found this segment to be quite entertaining to sit through. I don't want to give away details, but I did not expect this to be the sort of story it turned out to be.
Season 2 episode 3 had a segment that I thought was fun and one that I would say was so-so. I would rank this episode below the two that preceded it, but it was still a good time overall.
No comments:
Post a Comment