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Lot 36 (A Cabinet of Curiosities short on Netflix)

18/12/2022

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Genre: Horror
Rating: TV-MA
Warnings: Gore, Nazis, some Racism, Body Horror

The characterisation is a little heavy-handed, with our unlikeable protagonist being quickly revealed as a racist, right-wing, bitter man who believes himself to be the only real victim of hard times. However, the other characters are more balanced and he's far from unbelievable.

The opening scene moves from a TV dinner to some unpleasant meat or taxidermy gore. Luckily, that's the last of it, and the body horror starts at a clear moment. The racism is spoken only, and the nazis only show up in photographs and conversation.
The setting, a sprawling storage unit building, is a maze-like collection of corridors and storage units: A dingy and confusing location that fits perfectly into the liminal spaces that are popular in horror at the moment. In parallel to the seemingly endless and identical corridors is the constant building of tension. With the protagonist's racism, each other character seems like a potential problem. Will the black storage building owner snap after what is clearly years of disrespect? Will the Spanish-speaking woman who openly curses him get her revenge? Will the mysterious and shady German collector of the arcane betray him?

When the reveal finally comes, and with it the body horror, it hangs in the air for a moment, letting the audience really savour it. As the opening short in an anthology, it brings strong promise. A balance of what feels like an age-old cautionary tale with a very current setting, strong acting and incredible quality visuals bodes incredibly well for the shorts that follow. It is curated and introduced by the body-horror (and scales-forward) Guillermo del Toro, so while he isn't the director of any or the writer of most of the scripts and short stories, he is happy to put his name and face centre stage. Lot 36 is his script and his short story, and is definitely well worth watching for any horror fan.
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By The Silver Water of Lake Champlain (A Creepshow short on SHUDDER)

2/12/2019

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Genre: Horror
Rating: TV-MA (M)
​Warnings: Abusive Relationships

Another not-so-much horror, this is a fantasy about a Loch Ness Monster like legend called Champy, the Lake Champlain Monster. An overall quite sweet story, the obsession that killed the father is taking over the daughter, much to the mother's upset.

There's an abusive, gold-digger step-father and a triumphant ending where Champy is revealed to be real, the family is saved and the dead dad is proven right. A great close to the series, it sums up Creepshow as a whole; not that scary, but fairly entertaining and well-made.
The repeated themes of depicting abusive relationships is annoying. Each story is fine and valid, but as a collection it's an uncomfortable trend. Likewise, the Creepshow tagline "12 terrifying tales of terror" is as inaccurate as it is cheesy. The scares are few and far between, and this short is almost devoid of frights.

Lake Champlain is a real lake, situated on the border of USian states Vermont and New York (and peeking up into Canadian province Quebec) and the monster, Champy, is a real legend. Familiarity with the area and the legend may improve or ruin the story, but looking it up afterwards makes for a nice bonus to the story.
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Skincrawlers (A Creepshow short on SHUDDER)

2/12/2019

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Genre: Horror
Rating: TV-MA (M)
Warnings: Gore, Body Horror

With strong criticism for the diet industry and inspiration from The Thing, this short sews seeds of suspicion from the start. The presentation is just too good to be true. The everyman protaganist wants to believe, but he just can't.

There are too many red flags, not enough answers, and we as the audience are intrigued. Such fast weight loss? Such dramatic weight loss? This unheard of creature? Where does the fat go? Is it for real? But we have to wait and see, as we skip forward in time.
Everything seems to have gone perfectly for everyone, and the protagonist gets a second chance to have a magic leech. Tension at max, just as he's seconds away from the treatment and the apparent perfection is at an eleven out of ten... the body horror comes in. On live TV.

If suspicious miracle cures and unexplained science aren't enough to give you the creeps, the idea of creatures growing inside you like the Alien chestburster is sickening. Well-executed, the horrifying chaos that ensues is full of obvious influences; The Thing, Alien, Scanners, to name a few. A little exposition and a little moralising later, and the everyman lands a triumphant end to the story. Overall, a much better short than some of the previous ones.
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Times Is Tough In Musky Holler (A Creepshow short on SHUDDER)

2/12/2019

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Genre: Horror
Rating: TV-MA (M)
​Warnings: Sexual Assault mention, Child Abuse mention

With enough world-building to make Tolkien proud stuffed into half a TV programme episode, this short is a waste of a bunch of good ideas. Cults, apocalypses and moralistic dives into human nature and modern entertainment are hurried and glossed over in an attempt to fit them all into one short film.

​Most of the actual story events are told in dialogue, with minimalist flashbacks. As well as squandering the visual possibilities, it makes it hard to actually follow and process the many plot points.
The sexual assault and child abuse are thrown in as rapidly and carelessly as everything else, leaving them as a bad taste shock tactic. Instead of a dark, real-life horror, it feels like it's just shoehorned in for the sake of being edgy. What could have been a few reasonable shorts is instead a confusing mess. The ending introduces zombies, confusing what could have been a plot pay off. Dropping its half of the episode, this one is not worth watching.
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Night of the Paw (A Creepshow short on SHUDDER)

1/12/2019

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Genre: Horror
Rating: TV-MA (M)
Warnings: Gore

You've guessed it, it's an adaption of the classic Monkey's Paw story. It even includes a set of wishes and consequences fairly close to the original story. Updated, though, with face to face consequences and adapted this time with an elderly mortician and a fugitive.

To freshen up what could have been a tired tale, the story of how each character got to their meeting is told a little at a time. The unravelling mysteries are intriguing and entertaining, but not what I would call scary. 

The moral sits awkwardly, ignored in the plot and not overly relevant outside of it.
Well acted, it holds up it's half of the episode, but not much more. There are an abundance of horror tropes seemingly for the sake of it. A mortician, a stormy night, a film noir filter... these do not a scary short make. 
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Lydia Layne's Better Half (A Creepshow short on SHUDDER)

1/12/2019

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Genre: Horror
Rating: TV-MA (M)
Warnings: Some Gore

With some interesting twists and an unsettling elevator sequence, this short also has a creepy vibe rather than a scary one. Unless, of course, you have a fear of elevators. This one was absolutely terrifying for me because of that.

Including a same gender relationship without that being a plot point is a refreshing element. While it falls into the dead lesbians trope, the story could work almost the same with any gender pairing. It's a simple enough set up, but a quick exposition conversation adds a more complex.
Corporate drama becomes relationship drama becomes stealth plot becomes trapped plot; Lydia's attempt to sneak the dead body out of the building ultimately fails when the lift breaks down. The portrayal of the corpse is good, giving a strong sense of possibility. Either Lydia's escalating panic makes her so paranoid she worries the dead body is moving, or Celia's dying rage empowers her corpse to move and cause Lydia's own demise.

The double edged sword of being stuck in a lift with a dead body but not being able to wait to be rescued (because of the dead body) gave me an ever-increasing horror factor. Elevator problems do happen, and whether or not it's an urban legend, the door decapitation feels possible. Once again, Creepshow doesn't live up to it's "terrifying tales of terror" tagline, but definitely lives up to it's name. Lydia Layne's Better Half is a really creepy short.
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The Companion (A Creepshow short on SHUDDER)

1/12/2019

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Genre: Horror
Rating: TV-MA (M)
Warnings: Mild Gore, Child Abuse

With his abusive older brother chasing him down, the protagonist takes refuge in a dilapidated farm. Trying to defend himself, he stumbles across a scarecrow that comes to life and the tragic yet scary story behind it. Loneliness spawned the beast, and both horror and guilt locked it away.

An interesting take on a Frankenstein tale, the viewer is saddened, shocked and scared along with the characters. The pairing of a horror monster with the real life horror of abusive family could be a metaphor for modern horror. 
Again, Creepshow isn't a nightmare-inducer, but does give you... well... the creeps. The monsters visuals are eerie and the balance between realism and fantasy gives it a continual scary feeling. There's a good sense of era setting, the characters are well-rounded and the ending is both surprising and satisfying. 
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The Man in the Suitcase (A Creepshow short on SHUDDER)

1/12/2019

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Genre: Horror
Rating: TV-MA (M)
​Warnings: Body Horror, some Gore

A very dark and disturbing tale, very well told. The man in the suitcase is twisted and tangled to fit, which gets more and more horrific the more you try to think about it, so my advice is don't.

The horror is, once again, the terrible things normal humans are capable of. The man who finds the case is not the awful one; it's his friend who convinces him to torture the suitcase man for his coins. It's his friend and [ex] girlfriend who ramp up the torture and shun his worries, all the way up to the Aesop's Fable style moral at the end.
This feels more like a dark fantasy, especially due to it's moral ending, but is still an enjoyable little short. The main character is more believable than the easily-evil friend and girlfriend, or the too-nice man in the suitcase. A little over the top, for sure, but it doesn't ruin it. The mysterious man is so apologetic and kind, which makes you wonder why. Who is after him? How did he get in the case? It all comes together in a very neat ending, even if the moral learned seems like something you wouldn't have to teach people.
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All Hallows Eve (A Creepshow short on SHUDDER)

1/12/2019

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Genre: Horror
Rating: TV-MA (M)
Warnings: Brief Gore

Such a brilliant idea; I'm surprised it hasn't been done to death. Luckily for this short, it hasn't and is a fresh and interesting concept. It was even far from obvious what was happening from the beginning, letting each point be a nice reveal.

Rather than relying on jumpscares or shocking horror, this is another story that just builds up layers of creepiness and trepidation. As the teens go from house to house the sheer terror of the homeowners is unsettling. "What did they do?" you wonder, "What are they going to do?"
Despite being like mobsters shaking down people for protection, the main characters have a strong sense of sadness and anger; they aren't two dimensional baddies and you have to wonder... why? At the end, when the whole story is finally revealed, the true horror can set in. Now we know who they are and what happened, and what is it that the people were afraid of them doing... now the fantastical elements can fade out and we can be afraid of what human beings are really capable of.

The direct fear of being in that position and the adult fear of losing a child in any way makes this a damn good horror story. It's not the surprises or things like zombies and ghosts that really keep us up at night, its the stories that make us think, what if that happened to me? This hits that place, at least for me. Fair warning, its a bit of a gory event.
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The Finger (A Creepshow short on SHUDDER)

1/12/2019

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Genre: Horror
Rating: TV-MA (M)
Warnings: Gore

This really feels like an original and interesting concept, and although it does rely on some tired mental health tropes it doesn't vilify mental illness in itself. A man recounts the events of a finger he found growing into a malevolent creature.

The protagonist is part understandable, and part a mean and bitter person. It's a difficult balance done fairly well; he's not offputting but the viewer still sees him as deserving of the negatives. This is especially important, as he's the only voice and almost the only actor. He carries the short well.
Another thing this short has which is unusual in horror is that the fear for the viewer is not that we find ourselves in the protagonists position, but in an unseen one. While he has the horror of witnessing the creature and getting the consequences, the real danger is being someone else. If he's right, the monster's out there, and his rant lists all kinds of people who might find themselves in it's sights. Though the mental health aspect implies he's hallucinating it all, there is the classic cliffhanger idea that it might just be true.
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