Creepshow 2019, Ep 3 (Patreon)

Spoilers. Forever. 

All Hallow’s Eve

Some kids go tormenting the neighbors on Halloween, but everything is not as it seems. (Insert evil laughter.)

They’re ghosts. The episode does a good job of teasing it without giving it away. I was busy looking for any clues. They had reflections, nobody walked through anything, and their costumes hid any dated clothing or other signs of being phantoms. They only nods were subtle references to this being the “last time” they would be together and the terror in the faces of the parents they visited. 

The Ghost Kids were the victims of bullying gone too far when the local dickweeds set their treehouse on fire, burning them alive. They have come back every Halloween to exact revenge on a bully one by one. Anyone who’s been bullied can’t help but let out a “hell yeah!” when the Ghost Kids turn into horrific skeletons and set the final bully ablaze. But that joy should be met with pause. This is a horror movie, after all. We are not meant to feel good here.

The last movie I watched was The Love Witch which got me thinking about restorative justice. “All Hallow’s Eve” does something similar. Throughout the episode, our Ghost Kids torment the parents of these bullies. There’s even an extended scene where one of them threatens the Ghost Kids and gunpoint, desperate to save her son. Much like the Ghost Kids, the bullies have parents. The horror here is that the Ghost Kids rekindle the cycle of violence as they claim the lives of these bullies and torment their parents. 

Like The Love Witch, “All Hallow’s Eve” invites us to do the terrifying and unsettling work of trying to imagine a future that not only saves the living, but redeems the dead. 

Man in the Suitcase 

There was one fatal flaw preventing me from taking Man in the Suitcase seriously. 

Creepshow has such a great way of making me shout at the screen. “Man in the Suitcase” is about a washout stoner who finds, well, a man in a suitcase. This man is contorted beyond belief and happens to cough up gold coins when in pain. While the Man in the Suitcase begs to be released, it also causes him too much pain to actually be freed. The entire time I was screaming "Just free him you dolt! He's clearly some kind of Djinn!"  Our protagonist is left with the moral ambiguity of harming another for fast cash, but also having the obvious realization that this is immoral. 

His friends, however, lack this conscience. They ultimately kill our main character and then the man in the suitcase. As it turns out, the Man in the Suitcase isn’t a man but a Djinn (Called it.) and the friends are stuffed into suitcases of their own while our protagonist is rewarded by being revived at the hospital and, presumably, getting some kind of wish. 

There is a clear socialist strain in this story. We are all each other’s “man in the suitcase.” Capitalism requires us to abuse each other for money and only solidarity in the face of temporary gain can make us free. We see this every time unions strike in solidarity or when your mechanic buddy takes a look at your car for free. 

The magic has been in us the whole time, we just need to stop pulling our own teeth to feel it.