The second season of Creepshow comes to an end with a small-screen tribute to classic horror movies Horror Express and Night of the Living Dead. In “Night of the Living Late Show,” Justin Long plays Simon, the inventor of an innovative virtual-reality device that allows users to literally join in on their favorite movies. In the meantime, Simon’s preoccupation with his new invention intensifies existing problems in his troubled marriage.
Greg Nicotero and Dana Gould’s episode has the good fortune of being double the length of a standard Creepshow segment. The extended runtime would normally allow more room for getting to know the characters, but the technical ambition in the finale takes precedence over substantial development. The story starts off well enough with D’Arcy Carden‘s Renee feeling pushed away by her husband Simon, and she addresses that quite candidly at the beginning. Hearing Simon gush over his latest form of escapism hits a nerve for Renee; she brings up how she’s now estranged from her father because he disapproved of her husband. The biggest sting here is perhaps Renee knowing deep down her father was right. Her pathos is plain to see, and Carden’s persuasive performance has a lot to do with that.
Simon, on the other hand, is thinly written so there’s not a chance of feeling anything but irritation towards him. From feigning illness so he can skip out on dinner with Renee, to cheating on her with a VR simulation, Simon is flat and irredeemable. Renee is the most well-rounded and tactile character here, whereas Simon is so thoroughly one-dimensional, not to mention cartoonishly insensitive. Ultimately, the story takes the very easy way out, and the end result is more derivative than interesting.
The upside to “Night of the Living Late Show” is the production value. This is the most polished a Creepshow episode has possibly ever looked, and that may have to do with it needing to match the cinematic quality of the movies it is reverencing. Other entries shoehorn in the comic-book aesthetic during the actual episode, but foregoing it here is for the best. Once Simon pops himself into the world of Horror Express, you can’t help but admire the blending of existing and original footage. It’s an impressive feat for a show that typically has less resources to work with when it comes to special effects. Any point where the technology isn’t seamless is usually due to the awkward interactions between Long and Carden’s characters and the ones from either of the real-life movies — it’s very obvious they’re not in physical proximity. When Hannah Fierman stands in for Silvia Tortosa’s Countess Irina Petrovski, though, those moments come off as more natural.
Without all the doctored footage, the finale would be much shorter. Does the VR gimmick warrant the additional time? The artifice isn’t perfect and sometimes it goes on longer than absolutely necessary, yet the device makes the episode stand out from others. Admittedly, however, “Night of the Living Late Show” is too front-loaded. Renee’s emotional response to Simon’s behavior, the fleshier dialogue, the marital conflict and drama — you feel like you’re in for something else, something formidable. The route taken isn’t offensive, but it is more trivial than initially let on. Overall, there is just too much going on here for such a simple story. Had it relied less on the mended footage, kept the tone and quality of the first half, and provided some genuinely satisfying moments between the main characters beyond the midpoint, “Night of the Living Late Show” could have been a more considerable way to top off the season.
