What TV SHOWS are you watching?

I reviewed the original Creepshow movie for my high school newspaper. I saw it on a weeknight, so there were maybe two dozen people in the audience. During the final segment with the cockroaches, literally half the audience fled the theater. I was dutybound to watch the whole thing, but the mixture of gore and corny humor wasn't my bag. Hopefully this Creepshow tv show is better.

jason10mm wrote: Being consistently creepy is tough.

/Representative Matt Gaetz has entered the chat

Shellhead wrote: I reviewed the original Creepshow movie for my high school newspaper. I saw it on a weeknight, so there were maybe two dozen people in the audience. During the final segment with the cockroaches, literally half the audience fled the theater. I was dutybound to watch the whole thing, but the mixture of gore and corny humor wasn't my bag. Hopefully this Creepshow tv show is better.

Clearly, they were trying to emulate Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt from the old EC line, but I think they fell prey to the usual "comic to movie" transition foibles that were extant before Marvel showed everyone how it's done (and. earlier, HBO had shown how to do it specifically with Tales from the Crypt.) Everything had to be to the nth degree in Creepshow, although there are a couple decent performances. I really liked Leslie Nielsen in a serious role and Adrienne Barbeau gave one of her legendary moments ("Just call me 'Billie'! Everyone does!")

The cockroach story with Mr. Pratt still gets me. Just so gross.

The new creepshow has Adrianne Barbow (dammit, now I gotta Google her, it Barbeau) in a nice bit, must be a nod to her role in the original.

It does have a non-crypt keeper host. I actually don't recall many of the Tales from the crypt eps, either they were super generic or rifled on by so many other shows I lost track. I remember the films better, the sound tracks at least.

Creepshow/Tales always seemed more tawdry and gory, probably more sex as well, compared to Tales from the Darkside, Freddy's Nightmares, Friday the Thirteenth, and other anthology horror shows. Damn I miss that stuff. American Horror is about the only modern thing that comes close. Maybe Slasher (or is it Scream?) Never watched that though.

I need HBO to sort itself out and get back to the classics. Tales, Fraggle Rock, Dream On, and a new Larry Sanders

Some of the HBO Tales seasons were the furthest thing from "generic". A lot of the episodes were brilliantly funny (in a macabre sense) and were the hot thing to be a part of in Hollywood for a few years. I remember in October 1991 (pretty sure) they ran a marathon of Tales on the night before Halloween, which was my first lengthy exposure to them, as I hadn't had HBO for any length of time prior to that. It started at 11 PM and ran until 6 the next morning. I started watching with one of my then-housemates, who was a night owl like I was. (She was a very statuesque young woman from Liverpool and was at Michigan as a doctoral candidate in French.) The first episode they showed was Abra Cadaver, with Beau Bridges, and she was squirming at the ending. I was, of course, howling with laughter. She lasted another hour or two and went to bed. I stayed up all night. Great, great stuff.

Jackwraith wrote: I started watching with one of my then-housemates, who was a night owl like I was. (She was a very statuesque young woman from Liverpool and was at Michigan as a doctoral candidate in French.) The first episode they showed was Abra Cadaver, with Beau Bridges, and she was squirming at the ending. I was, of course, howling with laughter. She lasted another hour or two and went to bed. I stayed up all night. Great, great stuff.

No offense but I think you missed out that night

When I resubscribe to HBOmax a run through TotC is high on my list.

Ha. Yeah, that would've been nice, but she was way, way out of my league. I had long since accepted the idea that she was a housemate and nothing beyond that. I started to find it strange when other guys would show up at the house and be all goggle-eyed when they saw her and I was like: "Oh, yeah. That's just Sarah."

The frustrating thing: HBO doesn't have Tales from the Crypt in their current catalog. I think there's a rights issue. Been waiting for it to come back for years, especially because it's an HBO production, but there's something keeping it out of the loop.

Really? Damn. I don't think that show had much of a DVD release either (amazon shows me that some are available) . Might have to ahoy matey it then if that is even possible.

I don't even know who has the rights to stuff like Freddy's Nightmares or F13. I doubt there is much appetite for it either though it would be nice to hit the highlights of those shows.

Almost done with season 3 of Gotham. I'm still enjoying it. Strangely, it became a bit more "standard superhero comic book" than I was expecting, but it's still decent because it's actually developing its characters and its story. And the one super highlight that's just been revealed in the last couple episodes is



Anyway, it's been a solid show and my girlfriend actually stops reading her phone to give it her full attention most of the time. Small win.

jason10mm wrote: That dollhouse ep......ugh.

That's hilarious, because I thought "House of the Head" was one of the standouts from Season 1. Was it scary? Not particularly, but I found it creepy and inventive and a cut above the obvious morality tales that tend to dominate EC-esque anthologies.

The first story of the Season 2 premiere was a jaw droppingly shameless rehash of the story that bookends the Creepshow movie, even down to the "voodoo doll" that the boy orders via mail. There's a subplot with the boy's mother that doesn't really pay off and Kevin Dillon is wasted in an "asshole stepfather" role.

The second story is essentially Evil Dead 2 fan fiction, where a character played by Ted Raimi takes the Necronomicon to a PBS station for appraisal on their version of Antiques Roadshow and all hell breaks loose. Unfortunately, it didn't do anything that Ash Vs. Evil Dead hadn't already done better and they just should have gone all the way with the ripoff homage and cast Bruce Campbell as the Bob Ross character.

I'm hoping subsequent episodes are better because the first was a serious letdown in a format where I'm already braced for disappointment.

TftC suffers the same problem with uneven quality that plagues every anthology series, but its high points are so much higher that I can easily overlook the duds, and it's fun to revisit the early 90's and see the occasional famous face. I rarely like the non-supernatural episodes as they too often involve adultery and shady financial deals that just aren't that interesting and Season 7, when production was moved to England, is garbage.

Some of my favorites:

And All Through the House: The Christmas episode with Larry Drake as Santa, 'nuff said.
Dig That Cat...He's Real Gone: A fun episode with several TftC hallmarks; goofy pseudoscience, black humor, a little sex, betrayal, and a pretty good twist that works because it's so simple. Plus Joe Pantoliano is great and he takes the edge off having to watch Robert Wuhl (sorry, Arli$$ fans).
Til Death: The voodoo stuff is problematic, to say the least, but the story of a con man who seduces an heiress via "love potion" only for it to blow up in his face is excellent despite its simplicity. This is peak TftC with a truly squirm-inducing ending.
Three's a Crowd: One of the good non-supernatural episodes, this story of a jealous husband is a pure piece of nihilistic trash, and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible.
People Who Live in Brass Hearses: Another good non-supernatural one, this one stars Bill Paxton, Brad Dourif, and Lainie Kazan in a small role. It's a crime revenge story that goes completely off the rails at the end and is a guilty pleasure of mine.
The Ventriloquist's Dummy: This stars Bobcat Goldthwait as an aspiring ventriloquist and Don Rickles as his reluctant mentor. It has a bonkers twist and it's great to see Bobcat and Rickles together.
What's Cookin': With Christopher Reeve as a failing restaurant owner, Judd Nelson as the drifter who helps him revamp his menu, and Meatloaf in a sly bit of stunt casting as a landlord. This is another guilty pleasure episode of mine.

Honorable mentions: The Man Who Was Death, Cutting Cards, Television Terror, Carrion Death, The Reluctant Vampire, Easel Kill Ya, Let the Punishment Fit the Crime.

I might watch just the true crime/conniving spouse/insurance fraud/murdered business partner episodes to see if I like them more this time around.

The Walking Dead S10. Normally I'm not a fan, but I half watch it when my wife watches it. Up to episode 12 it was standard Walking Dead "What's going to wipe out everyone this time?" And it was okay, not great. The last six episodes were mood pieces, that were added to make up for S11 getting delayed by covid. They were small-cast episodes, centered around two or three characters. Some were good; Negan's origin story was especially good. Some were boring.

SebastianBludd wrote:

jason10mm wrote: That dollhouse ep......ugh.

That's hilarious, because I thought "House of the Head" was one of the standouts from Season 1. Was it scary? Not particularly, but I found it creepy and inventive and a cut above the obvious morality tales that tend to dominate EC-esque anthologies.

Maybe I used the wrong...onomatopoeia (I'm not ashamed to admit that I had to look up how to spell it, I'm just proud that I even know the word exists . Not ugh as in disgust, but maybe AHHHHHHHH! as in fear because little doll things, along with mannequins (Unless they turn into Kim Cattrall of course), trigger some deep seated fear that I can't explain. So that ep was a stand out, not a low point

I think a lot of these shows are suffering due to the demise of the short story format from which to draw inspiration. I used to read TONS of short stories in magazines and collections as a kid, but it seems like they are a dying medium, despite a handful of collections from notable editors each year. They are more and more just tag-ons to established universes rather than unique and clever stories contained within themselves.

I'm watching Community for the third time. I told myself I'd quit after the first season, and now I'm halfway through the fourth. What have I become. They removed the DnD episode because of Chang's blackface. So much of this show would not make it on the air now, especially all of Pierce's various slurs. What I find amusing is that it is just so obvious that Harmon is torturing Chevy Chase, who probably deserved it. Jokes about Pierce's age, impotence, tackiness, senility, and Pierce's constant desire to be the center of attention and part of the cool kids crowd are obvious digs at someone who was notoriously hard to work with.

Despite all the crudity the show is occasionally touching. When Octogenarian Leonard describes his experience in the Korean war during the Ken Burns pillow fight spoof, it was kind of chilling and moving. It's just funny enough and the episodes are short enough for my brain, which can no longer focus for longer than three minutes, that I keep watching.

I'm also bracing myself for the Harmon-free season and the sixth season's descent into Harmon's madness. Kind of getting tired of Chang, although Ken Jeong commits every scene. There are times when the show is unnecessarily cruel, and then there will be an episode where the characters are confronted by their own meanness.



Edit: Ken Jeong is actually Tweeting good vaccine information . Glad to see medical school was not wasted.

Everyone I know raves about it, but I just never felt any actual heart in Community. It was all basically just over the top cartoon characters to me, but lots of people I know say it has genuine character moments and such.