Main cast: Brock Duncan (Joe Aurora), Tyner Rushing (June), Jana Allen (Barb), Kevin Dillon (Kevin), Mark Ashworth (Norm Roberts), Marissa Chanel Hampton (Claudia Aberlan), Coley Campany (Mrs Bookberry), Ted Raimi (“Ted Raimi”), Todd Allen Durkin (George), and Peter Leake (Goodman Tapert)
Director: Greg Nicotero
Well, the second season of the made-for-small-screen Creepshow is here, and for some reason, they think going all meta and reminding me of better shows in the past is the way to go. People can be really strange sometimes, I tell you.
Model Kid is basically an extension of the bookend segments of the first Creepshow movie, only this time, the creepy and awkward-looking kid, Joe Aurora, loses his mother to cancer while being terrorized by his abusive uncle Kevin. When Kevin destroys Joe’s collection of toys and comics, the kid’s rage somehow leads to his dead mom manifesting in a dream to pass over what will be Joe’s violent tool of vengeance.
This segment just drags. The people behind this segment uses public domain black and white films to pad up the air time, which only drives home that watching those movies will be a better way to pass the time instead. The characters are one-dimensional stereotypes, so them just taking up so much time with their soap opera moments is boring. Joe isn’t even a sympathetic kid—instead of coming off as misunderstood and tragic, he just feels off somehow, like he’s just waiting for the right moment to start reveling in his inner serial killer. The last few minutes of this segment cement that, of course, with a gory climax. Well, as gory as fake-looking effects would allow it to be, that is. This segment may be trying to build up how poor Joe is driven to be as monstrous as his tormentor, but what I get instead is a mostly dull and meandering segment of uninspired walking clichés going through the motions and serving me missed the bullseye by a mile realness.
The next segment Public Television of the Dead is even more meta to the detriment of itself. Chaos is unleashed among the crew of a Pittsburgh public television station WQPS when this version of Ted Raimi, played by the real Ted Raimi, reads aloud the Necronomicon, which he claims to be a family heirloom, and turns into a Deadite just like those in the Evil Dead movies. So yes, this segment is a homage to those movies as well as to public television.
However, the characters are such tired old clichés to the point that I can tell right away who will die and who will survive to the end. Sure, it is one thing if such a segment wanted to play on overused and common horror tropes, but it needs to elevate itself a little by doing something extra to these tropes, such as by giving some unique twist to these tropes, or making the characters memorable and larger than life perhaps. This segment needs to give me a better reason to appreciate it, instead of just being an uninspired cobbled-together showcase of how much screenwriter Rob Schrab knows his tropes.
The often awkwardly inserted garish illustrated panels and other effects in this segment can’t help reminding me of the equally garish but more entertaining The Banana Splits Movie.
The bland characters, for whom I can barely muster any care for, are the main reasons why both segments fall flat for me. Memorable characters can help elevate stories that have been told many times before, but unfortunately for me, the ones in these two segments are meh. Factor in cheap effects as well predictable plot developments, and these two overly-meta segments only end up reminding me of the much better source materials that they plumb heavily from.
