Episode 1: Gray Matter / The House of the Head
Directors: John Harrison, Greg Nicotero
Writers: Byron Willinger, Philip de Blasi
Stars: Adrienne Barbeau, Giancarlo Esposito, Christopher Nathan
Run Time: 46 Minutes
A creature, the Crrep, opens a locked box. It resembles “The Box” from the original film, but it’s full of Creepshow comic books. Credits roll.
Synopsis: Gray Matter
Hurricane Charlie is approaching, and people are preparing. Richie comes in for a case of Harrow’s beer for his father. The shopkeeper gives him a moldy old box of beer, but the boy doesn’t want to go home; he says his father is changed. Ever since his mother died, his father’s been drinking a ton of Harrow’s.
We see in flashbacks that Richie’s father became an alcoholic, but that was just the beginning. Sticky goop started appearing everywhere and his father got addicted to soap operas. Then he started to physically change…
The sheriff and the doctor go out to see the father, and the sheriff knows there are some weird things out there. They get to the house, and everything is sticky and covered in goop, but they can’t find Richie’s father. They hear something upstairs, and go up to investigate. They soon regret their decision…
Commentary
The first episode has Adrienne Barbeau, Giancarlo Esposito, and Tobin Bell, so they clearly went all out for casting for this initial story. They’re all three a bit old for any kind of action scenes, so we get the real horror of the story through Richie’s flashbacks. The creature effects are really good, but the story is pretty short and basic. I am already concerned that two stories in 46 minutes is going to be awfully shallow.
Synopsis: House of the Head
A little girl has a very nice dollhouse. When she gets home from school, she finds a miniature severed head on the dollhouse’s coffee table. The dolls have moved as well, and they look concerned.
Later that night, she finds the little head on the little couch in the living room, and the dog doll has been shut out of the house. She thinks the dollhouse is haunted.
They go to the dollhouse store, and the girl buys a policeman doll to watch over the house. The head isn’t there. After dinner, she opens the dollhouse to find the policeman searching the attic. The later, the policeman is decapitated. She never sees anything move, but they obviously are doing things while she’s not looking.
She buys a Native American Warrior doll next, but that also doesn’t last long. Then things start getting really weird…
Commentary
This one didn’t have any star power like the first one, but it was far more creepy, since it wasn’t obvious what would happen. Nothing is ever explained, but it’s still a really good story.