‘Creepshow’ Season 2 Episode 2 – An order of Dorothea Puente with a side of Food of the Gods – HF Review

Apr 8
The HorrorFatale

It’s official for me at least the second season of Creepshow is just as good or maybe even better than its inaugural season. Today’s episode Dead & Breakfast and Pesticide offers up greed, haunted houses, Instagram Live feeds and Food of the Gods trauma. And most importantly, the iconic Keith David and Hellraiser’s Ashley Laurence.

A marketing ploy at a haunted Bed and Breakfast becomes too realistic; an exterminator gets more than he bargained for when he takes on a big job.

The first segment Dead & Breakfast pays to tribute to two things I hold near and dear to my horror loving heart a ghost story and female serial killers like Lizzie Borden and in this case Dorothea Puente. In the 1980s, Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California and murdered various elderly and mentally disabled boarders before cashing their Social Security checks. Her total count reached nine confirmed murders, and six unconfirmed. Newspapers dubbed Puente the “Death House Landlady”.

Dead & Breakfast stars Ali Larter and C. Thomas Howell as brother and sister owner of The Spinster Bed and Breakfast, where the establishment specializes in a haunted stay at the site of their late grandmother’s alleged murder spree. Things clearly have not been going well, because they want and need visitors. To get reservations and to draw excitement and notoriety to the hotel they invite an influencer played by Iman Benson to spend the weekend there. Her visit goes from bad to worse, ending in a way I am almost sure she does not expect.

The episode is directed by Axelle Carolyn (The Haunting of Bly Manor) and written by Michael Rousselet and Erik Sandoval (Dude Bro Party Massacre III). It is a nicely done “retelling” of the Death House Landlady with the modern twist, updated elements and classic poetic ending. The segment also has its humorous tones. Larter, Howell and Benson do a good job with their characters, hitting the expected notes if you will. Larter departs from her usual nice girl  in a satisfying way.

Pesticide features Keith David as a rich man that hires Josh McDermitt (from Walking Dead sans mullet) who plays an exterminator to eliminate the “pests” that are occupying his property. McDermitt takes him up on his offer and his guilt creates some pretty unbearable creepy and horrific (for me at least) situations. The pests he has previously exterminated come back to exact their revenge on him, as stated Food of the Gods (1976) style, ie they giant. This segment is also reminiscent of Their Creeping Up on You from the 1982 Creepshow film.

Ashley Laurence plays the literally worse psychiatrist in this segment.  She winds up begrudgingly seeing McDermitt as a patient for his visions and night terrors he has developed during his undertaking for David. Let’s just say she offers very little comfort and an equally heinous solution for him.

The first segment is my favorite of the episode, because I can’t take oversized rodents. It’s always a no for me.  I love the way the writers this season are taking time to make sure these stories cater to horror fans. As previously stated the directors, writers and production are paying close attention and taking great care with the details and continuing showing their love for the anthology, and us monster lovers in general.

Dead & Breakfast and Pesticide, is streaming today on Shudder, with new episodes premiering live and on demand weekly on Thursdays at 9:00 pm ET/ 6:00 pm PT.