Editorials
Six Episodes, Twelve Tales of Terror: We Rank Every Segment of Shudder’s “Creepshow”
The record-breaking first season of Shudder’s original anthology series Creepshow has wrapped up (just in time for a second season to be announced!), offering 12 new tales of terror from the likes of Stephen King, Greg Nicotero, Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, John Harrison, David J. Schow, Joe Hill, and Tom Savini, among others.
As is the case with almost any horror anthology, the offerings were uneven – some were terrific, others not as successful. While there wasn’t an out and out clunker in the bunch, there’s no getting around the fact that not all of Season One’s segments were created equally.
It’s time to look back at the highs and lows of the first six episodes.
12) “By the Silver Waters of Lake Champlain” (Episode 6) It brings me no joy to rank this one last, seeing as how it’s adapted from a story by Joe Hill and the only Season One installment directed by the great Tom Savini, who directs all too rarely. A young girl misses her father while coping with mom’s abusive boyfriend puts her faith in a lake monster her dad once claimed to have seen. Though it tries to say some things about abuse and childhood belief, the emotional beats come across a little too saccharine; the results feel dramatically limp. It takes too long to get where it’s going; by the time it finally arrives, the results are too little, too late.
11) “Grey Matter” (Episode 1) This new iteration of Creepshow got off to a somewhat shaky start with this segment, adapted from a Stephen King story and directed by makeup FX legend Greg Nicotero, who also serves as showrunner. It’s about a kid whose alcoholic father is slowly changing into…something else. Despite boasting one of the most impressive casts of the season – a lineup that includes Tobin Bell, Adrienne Barbeau, and Giancarlo Esposito – as well as some cool and goopy practical effects, “Grey Matter” never quite comes together in a satisfying way, making the segment a pretty mixed bag. Thankfully, the back half of Episode 1 was much more promising.
10) “The Companion” (Episode 4) Fairly standard revenge yarn, adapted from a short story by Joe Lansdale, about a bullied kid who discovers a killer scarecrow willing to do his bidding. David Bruckner (V/H/S “Amateur Night,” The Ritual) directs it well and even brings a bit of gothic flavor to this story, which is almost slow burn until it eventually rips. Everything about this segment is competently done, but its lack of any real surprises lands it on the lower half of the list.
9) “Times is Tough in Musky Hollar” (Episode 5) Gritty prison drama-slash-zombie story about a former mayor locked up in a prison with several of his co-conspirators (including David Arquette), all being held captive by angry townspeople with a score to settle. Director John Harrison was the composer for the original Creepshow and director of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, so he knows his way around anthology horror and gets a good deal of mileage out of the show’s comic book approach. Though it takes a stab at political relevance, there’s almost too much story and too many ideas for this segment’s running time, so it never really comes together in a satisfying way despite displaying a great deal of promise. The same comic book shortcuts that work in something like “Bad Wolf Down” here prove to be a hindrance. At least the effects are cool.
8) “Lydia Layne’s Better Half” (Episode 4) Tricia Helfer brings some star power to this darkly comic morality play about an executive who murders her employee/lover but runs into trouble when trying to dispose of the body. Written by John Harrison and Greg Nicotero and directed by Roxanne Benjamin (XX, Body at Brighton Rock), “Lydia Layne” is more of a character piece than most of the other Creepshow segments – a distinction that’s to the short’s benefit. Reminiscent, in some ways, of the great Tales from the Crypt segment “And All Through the House” (in terms of the challenges of getting rid of a body), “Lydia Layne” tries for a bit of social commentary but is ultimately a little too thin to pull it off.
7) “All Hallows Eve” (Episode 3) The most emotional segment of the season centers on a group of kids trick-or-treating on Halloween night. This being Creepshow, there’s obviously more to it than first meets the eye. This one scores major points for its Halloween atmosphere – an entry set on the best holiday of the year is a must for any horror anthology series – and for some genuinely sad and moving developments in its story. It’s less “horror” than many of the season’s other offerings, but one of the things I really like about Creepshow’s inaugural season is that allows for so many different flavors inside the genre.
6) “Bad Wolf Down” (Episode 2) Sure, this WWII werewolf tale directed by Rob Schrab is basically Dog Soldiers, but it’s punchy and fun and features Jeffrey Combs playing a Nazi. Between the color palette and some of the editing, this is also the first segment of the season to really lean into the old Creepshow comic book style, cleverly using animated panel transitions to compensate for the lack of budget to do full werewolf transformations. It’s a fun one.
5) “Skincrawlers” (Episode 6) The more successful of director Roxanne Benjamin’s Season One contributions is also the goriest outing to date. Dana Gould plays a man looking into a radical weight loss treatment that has…explosive results. I’m a fan of gore that goes giddily, gleefully over the top – the kind where I feel like I can imagine the director cackling off camera at what she or he has orchestrated. That’s how I felt about the climax that Benjamin orchestrates here. Again, I love that Creepshow has made room for all kinds of horror in its first season, including gnarly splatstick comedy like “Skincrawlers.”
4) “The House of the Head” (Episode 1) An extremely creepy affair, once again directed by John Harrison, arguably the MVP of Creepshow’s first season. It features a ghoulish disembodied toy head that suddenly appears in a little girl’s dollhouse, causing her other dolls to begin behaving strangely. This might be the most psychologically unsettling segment of the first season. If only it had managed to stick the landing a little better.
3) “Night of the Paw” (Episode 5) Despite being the umpteenth retelling of W.W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw,” this John Harrison-directed installment is one of Creepshow’s strongest offerings by virtue of its moody atmosphere and a terrific performance by Bruce Davison. He plays an undertaker who rescues a woman on the run and spins an elaborate tale of finding a paw that seemingly grants wishes, with dark and macabre results. The punchline of this one is in the grand E.C. comics tradition.
2) “The Man in the Suitcase” (Episode 3) One of the most offbeat segments of the first season – even by Creepshow standards – is also one of the best. A young man whose life is dangerously close to shambles accidentally picks up the wrong suitcase at the airport, only to discover that inside is a badly contorted man who, it turns out, dispenses money when caused pain. This bizarre riff on the standard genie-in-the-lamp tale is yet another morality play, though this one’s willing to reward the decent more than Creepshow usually is. Director David Bruckner takes such a straightforward approach to the material (written by Christopher Buehlman) that he totally sells the insanity, finding the perfect balance between humor and horror, camp and class. The whole segment is like a dazzling high wire act.
1) “The Finger” (Episode 2) My favorite segment of Season One comes from showrunner Greg Nicotero and author David J. Schow. It tells the story of a divorced man (DJ Qualls) who finds a finger that rapidly grows into a creature he nicknames Bob, brought to wonderful life through what looks like stop motion animation and practical puppetry. Bob begins acting on all of the man’s darkest desires and things get bloody pretty fast. Not only is Bob a great creation, but his bond with Qualls’ character and the actor’s direct-to-camera narration sets this one apart from every other segment in the season.
Part morality tale, part creature feature, “The Finger” is classic Creepshow.
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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