Episode 4 of Shudder’s Creepshow, A Tense, Slow Burn – HF Review

Oct 17
The HorrorFatale

The fourth episode of I’m calling it now, hit show Shudder’s Creepshow is a slow burning and tension filled episode. Tonight’s two segments continue Halloween season with “The Companion” and “Lydia Layne’s Better Half”.

“The Companion”

Written by: Matt Venne, based on the short story by Joe R. Lansdale, Kasey Lansdale & Keith Lansdale
Directed by: David Bruckner
Cast: Logan Allen, Afemo Omilami, Carey Jones, Voltaire Council, Dylan Gage, Addison Hershey

One night, Harry stumbles upon an old scarecrow. But when he accidentally brings the scarecrow to life and finds a dead body in its wake, can he fix everything before he becomes the scarecrow’s next victim?

At first I was sure this segment was a straight Dark Night Of The Scarecrow situation but, nope they did something a little different here. The entire segment is a callback to the 1982 film, literally naming a character Billy.

I liked this segment but I did feel it suffered a bit from time constraints. Because Harry’s limited backstory left me with a lot of questions. More than the usual, for instance where are these kid’s parents? Who paid the farmer’s property taxes? 😀 Unfortunately, to me this might be the weakest segment thus far. There was so much potential for this segment, because scarecrows are generally just scary; I feel like the writer relied on that a little heavily. But, it’s ends in true Creepshow fashion.

“Lydia Layne’s Better Half”

Written by: John Harrison, story by John Harrison & Greg Nicotero
Directed by: Roxanne Benjamin
Cast: Tricia Helfer, Danielle Lyn, Michael Scialabba, Jordan Patrick

When Lydia accidentally kills her lover and needs to hide the evidence, she gets trapped in an elevator with the body. The temperature rises and Lydia begins to wonder: will she survive until rescue comes, or will she join her dead lover in hell?

This is not an action packed segment; it’s more of a single character driven segment. Tricia Helfer makes this episode everything it needs to be – her performance is strong. You are drawn in and you will find yourself as tense as her character. The end of this episode is a nice turn. I’m happy they didn’t play it safe and have her descend into madness. Lydia is not imagining it, it’s really happening.

Also, is it wrong that I planned in my head how Lydia could have gotten away with it? This segment is the strongest and my favorite of the episode. It’s another callback to the 1982 movie , the Fathers Day segment, with a pinch of The Hitchhiker mixed in for good measure. This is another good episode for the first season.

Episode (104) of Shudder’s horror anthology series Creepshow, is airs Thursday, October 17 at 9pm ET/ 6pm PT, both on the Shudder TV live-stream and on demand.