Main cast: Brandon Quinn (Wade Cruise), Joseph Steven Yang (Ishido Tsuburaya), Jade Fernandez (Geesa), Gina Hiraizumi (Dr Mai Sato), Kenny Alfonso (Mitch Duclon), Joe Ando-Hirsh (Bobby Tanaka), Nick Massouh (Elmer Strick), Nic Starr (Director Poppler), Deborah Bowman (Estelle Flinty), Jackson Beal (Officer Butcher “Bunk” Dill), Tony Demil (Polish Frank), and Glenn Magee (Officer Willis)
Directors: Jeffrey F January and John Harrison
Well, the tentative good feelings of mine didn’t last long. It’s just the third episode of the third season of Creepshow and we’re back in that same old rut: this episode is most likely written and produced by committee. The theme of the segments here seem to be monsters from abroad or something. Who cares, really, they are both duds.
The first segment, The Last Tsuburaya, refers to the supposedly final work of the infamous Japanese artist Ishido Tsuburaya. His works of scenery and other lovely stuff fetch little value, but his works of horror and gore are highly sought after. Well, folks recently unearthed what seems like one last painting that has been unclaimed anyone, and this painting comes with an odd bequest from the painting to be given to Tsuburaya’s descendant on the 100th anniversary of his death.
Well, over the top narcissistic douchebag billionaire Wade Cruise manages to track down the descendant and obtains the pointing, still unopened, for seven digits. He then invites his disappointed rival, Dr Mai Sato that only wants the painting to be displayed in museums because she just wants to share the gore, and other fans of the artist’s works to an unveiling party, where he then burns the painting after seeing it. You see, he wants to be the only one that knows what the last Tsuburaya looks like, and he also wants to see the expressions on the others’ faces when he burns the painting.
Too bad, the monster in the painting shows up around the place. Brandon Quinn puts on a pretty good show as the ridiculously nasty Wade, but this segment quickly devolves in a quick succession of lazy jump scares after another—I count four in the space of 20 seconds—and an unintentionally hilarious denouement. Oh, and the supposedly nastiest monster ever committed to canvas looks like someone in a cheap demon suit, so yeah, good job to everyone involved in this segment.
This segment is brought to everyone by people that fervently believe dark rooms and loud noises are all it takes for something to be considered horror, and that’s sad.
In the next segment, Okay, I’ll Bite!, a corrupt Officer Bunk falsifies charges to make sure that inmate Elmer Strick is denied parole, so that Elmer will be forced to continue serving him as part of Bunk’s prison drug ring. Poor Elmer is beaten black and blue, but hey, he has his spiders for company! One of them is somehow the embodiment of Sekhmet, an Egyptian deity that is never associated with spiders until now, and Elmer gets his hands on a scroll that contains a ritual to become a spider himself…
Okay, I’m out. This segment is full of elements that seem to be tossed together haphazardly. Spiders… in a prison… and an Egyptian goddess in a US setting? What? These people are just making up crap now, right? Still, I have to concede that the design of the man-spider thing is pretty cool.
All in all, a pretty typical episode in this show in that it goes through the correct motions, but the end result is never as satisfying as it should have been.
