‘Creepshow,’ Season 1, each story ranked -

It’s easy to grow cynical about reboots and remakes these days. Michael Myers just won’t quit; a new vision of Pet Sematary was met to tepid response this spring; and come December, Black Christmas is getting its second facelift. As major motion picture studios battle it out over the next iconic property, AMC Networks horror-ific streaming service Shudder is crafting some truly marvelous and bloody offerings, including Nightmare Cinema, Monster Party, GWEN and The Furies. Each acquisition or total original displays a keen eye for small scale affair that possesses style, perspective and buckets of blood (or shocking suspense).

Then, you’ve got the Creepshow reboot – helmed by The Walking Dead‘s Greg Nicotero – that flips the original films into an ambitious, totally unnerving and remarkable TV series. His work speaks for itself, but Nicotero manages to squeeze low budget constraints into engaging, bite-sized bits of horror, fleshy and slimy and spooky. It also helps that he’s backed with a smorgasbord of creative thinkers and innovators who are unafraid to go to places few others have the boldness to do; across the 12 segments, which are often paired with contrasting stories as palette cleansers before re-immersion into a story equally as disturbing, the series taps into the most macabre of the human brain.

Creepshow, which has officially been greenlit for a second season, is produced the Cartel and Monster Agency Production, Striker Entertainment and Taurus Entertainment. It is now streaming on Shudder.

Below, B-Sides & Badlands ranks each chapter, from worst to best.

Editor’s Note: There may be spoiler-y tidbits tossed in the mix. You’ve been warned.

12. By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain

Director: Tom Savini

Starring: Sydney Wease, Connor Jones, David Alexander Kaplan, James Devoti and Gena Shaw

A 2014 novella by Joe Hill, By the Water of Lake Champlain has an interesting and eerie premise. There’s no denying the terror of unknown, murky waters and a myth of a giant water creature. It works well on paper, but aside from some stellar camera work and mood-building, there feels to be a vital ingredient that someone forgot to toss into the recipe. Perhaps, the book might be a better story, but onscreen, there is not much to enjoy – aside from Sydney Wease’s emotional, captivating performance that renders the segment at least a middling piece of entertainment.

11. The Companion

Director: David Bruckner

Starring: Logan Allen, Afemo Omilami, Carey Jones, Voltaire Council, Dylan Gage and Addison Hershey

The 1995 short story – penned by Joe R. Lansdale, Kasey Jo Lansdale and Keith Lansdale – engages the senses with what creeps between the cornrows. It’s a sub-genre that has been mined for decades, and while The Companion boasts some heart-pounding special effects makeup and chilling cinematography, the execution largely misses the mark. A young boy, as portrayed by Logan Allen, contends with bullying in the home, and so, he turns to a local farm to find a bit of solace. But what he soon uncovers – a lanky strawman with only evil, murderous intentions – will test his will to live unlike anything before.

Photo courtesy of Shudder / AMC Networks

10. Bad Wolf Down

Director: Rob Schrab

Starring: Dave MacDonald, Callan Wilson, Kid Cudi, Nelson Bonilla, Jeffrey Combs and Kate Freund

The World War II setting and much of the special effects are pretty damn horrifying (in the best way, of course). It’s a slow-cooked gorefest set predominantly inside a dilapidated prison, which allows for an intimate, low scale setpiece that proves to be appropriately dangerous for the protagonists. You have to already buy into werewolf folklore to really appreciate what desperately needs a longer runtime – it begs to be an “experience.” As excellent as Jeffrey Combs and Kid Cudi are in their respective roles, there’s very little pop here to keep you engaged.

9. Gray Matter

Director: Greg Nicotero

Starring: Adrienne Barbeau, Giancarlo Esposito and and Tobin Bell

Trauma is explored to compelling effect with this creepy-crawler. Armed with such onscreen talent as Tobin Bell and Adrienne Barbeau, how could it go wrong? The character analysis, particularly of a young boy whose father spirals out of control after the death of his wife, feels a bit deflating and undercooked – the short runtime doesn’t quite give enough breathing room to delve into each story beat. But the gruesomeness and absurdity of the story hooks you in, nonetheless, and Nicotero’s frightful special effects work is absolutely killer. If only we had a bit more time to immerse ourselves within the town and that stormy, fateful night.

8. All Hallows Eve

Director: John Harrison

Starring: Connor Christie, Madison Thompson, Jasun Jabbar, Andrew Eakle, Michael May, Julia Denton, Scott Daniel Johnson, Tom Olson and Erica Frene

Revenge is a dish best served cold. When a group of teenagers pillage their hometown for tricks (and very little treats), it’s evident quite immediately that their intentions go far beyond what a commercialized holiday can offer. It’s a slicker entry in this batch than most, but there’s a sinister cauldron gurgling beneath the story. The cast does their best in layering the script with a bit of weight, even if it doesn’t always work. Self-described as the “Dragons,” the angsty group make their way house-to-house, and it’s fashioned as a slow-burn with little bite. It’s only with the big backstory reveal that its potential is explored, which is, honestly, too little, too late.

7. The Man in the Suitcase

Director: Dave Bruckner

Starring: Antwan Patton, Will Kindrachuk, Ravi Naidu, Madison Bailey, Ian Gregg, Nasim Bowlus and Carey Jones

We all starve for fame and fortune. The folklore of the leprechaun is one of great mystique and wanderlust. As legend has it, if captured by a human, they grant you three wishes in exchange for their freedom. That allure has become a linchpin to much of modern cinema’s interpretation (see: 1993’s Jennifer Aniston-starring Leprechaun for a slasher-centric interpretation). The Main in the Suitcase calls upon a similar template: a young boy returns from the airport with the wrong luggage, only to discover a pretzel man lodged inside. Causing the bedeviling man-creature pain results in untold fortunes for the boy and his friends – but what will the inevitable price be? It’s a charming little tale of greed, indeed, if even some of the acting is a bit rough around the edges.

6. Lydia Layne’s Better Half

Director: Roxanne Benjamin

Starring: Tricia Helfer, Danielle Lyn, Michael Scialabba and Jordan Patrick

One of the more polished tales here, Lydia Layne’s Better Half plucks, and then snaps, the strings of work dynamics between two women. Lydia Layne, as played by Tricia Helfer, has just been promoted to CFO, and her lover (Danielle Lyn) quickly becomes contentious. The two engage in a bit of a scuffle, leading to Lyn’s character being impaled by Lydia’s Woman of the Year trophy. Emotional and distraught, Lydia attempts to dispose of the body but becomes trapped in the elevator on her way to ground level. Her reality begins to blur with her imagination, and in her attempt to escape, she just might get what’s coming to her.

5. Night of the Paw

Director: John Harrison

Starring: Bruce Davison, Hannah Barefoot, Susannah Devereux, Grace Toso and Ryan Clay Gwaltney

English author W.W. Jacob’s 1902 short story called “The Monkey’s Paw” gets a necessary update that is truly an exemplary piece of folklore all its own. Bruce Davison grounds the segment with an emotionally-wrought, strangely-addicting performance as a mortician who is seeking his own way out of existence. As with the original outline, the new iteration explores wishful thinking and the heavy price that must always be paid in such story of fantasy; what you think you want is not always what can actually or will ever happen. When Davison’s character wishes for a murderer to arrive on his doorstep, hoping the individual will put him down, a few unexpectedly swerves are exactly what the doctor ordered.

4. The Finger

Director: Greg Nicotero

Starring: DJ Qualls, Antwan Mills and Jake Garber

An absurd obsession with the weird and abandoned, DJ Qualls’ Clark collects random objects and turns them into cherished treasures. On a lonesome walk home one cold and dark evening, he comes across a gnarled, shriveled finger on the sidewalk. Of course, his fascination won’t let him just walk on by, and he pockets his latest discovery. The finger soon grows into a whole being he names “Bob,” and “Bob” likes eating popcorn on the couch. The two strike up quite a co-dependent friendship – but things soon go awry when “Bob” starts murdering everyone who causes Clark any kind of pain. It’s a twistedly humorous and playful grim excursion into creature features, sometimes heartwarming and other times dangerously troubling.

3. Skincrawlers

Director: Roxanne Benjamin

Starring: Dana Gould, Chad Michael Collins, Hina Kahn, Melissa Saint-Amand, Beth Keener, Jason Graham and Darin Toonder

We all carry self-doubts over our appearance, and in desperation, we’ll do whatever it takes to change who we are. A true slice of nauseating body-horror, this nail-biting epic explores the idea of unobtainable beauty standards as presented through the lens of mass media and marketing. It’s a smartly-written and troubling reflection of much of modern society, and through the eyes of Dana Gould’s character, who seeks out a miraculous new weight loss treatment, we get a glimpse inside a deranged, perhaps quite naive, hive-mind hellbent on sucking the lives out of its participants.

2. The House of the Head

Director: John Harrison

Starring: Cailey Fleming

The first season’s most unexpectedly delightful and chilling entries is the very definition of a slow-burn. Cailey Fleming, known for her work as Judith Grimes on The Walking Dead, is an absolute superstar. Her performance is both wrought of true emotional grit and nuanced complexities – she plays a young girl whose innocence is being tormented by a bedeviling force, a head that randomly appears within the walls of her dollhouse. The setpiece operates as a bizarre, yet compelling, metaphor for growing up, a play on the classic haunted house tale, and the punch comes from accepting the unknown.

1. Times is Tough in Musky Holler

Director: John Harrison

Starring: David Arquette, Dane Rhodes, Karen Strassman, Tommy Kane, Tracey Bonner, Kermit Rolison and Connor Hammond

Very clear current sociopolitical implications make this 22-minute segment the best of the bunch. A previous administration’s many wrongdoings are finally coming back to bite them in the… face, quite literally; the comeuppance is not only appropriately gruesome and stomach-turning but wholly satisfying. The story dances between the past and the present, leaving the viewer to slowly put the puzzle pieces together. Surprisingly, David Arquette is not the central player here, and that’s quite alright as the ensemble cast all work overtime to explore humanity at its worst and how karma always finds its way home again. In the final five minutes, you’ll be both cheering and pretty grossed out – just like we love it.