April has been one awesome month at Shudder with their Halfway to Halloween celebration.  This included new seasons of Creepshow, The Last Drive In, as well as the return of the Shudder Hotline and 2021 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards.  And while The Last Drive In will continue on, season 2 of Creepshow is coming to an end this week with a really creative and fun season finale.

“Night of the Living Late Night Show”
Directed by Greg Nicotero, Written by Dana Gould

In an interesting twist, this story takes up the entire episode at about 40 minutes.  It features an inventor Simon (Justin Long), who has invented something that every movie lover would die for.  His immersion machine allows the user to enter any movie and interact with the characters.

Simon tests it by jumping into the 1972 gem Horror Express, starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.  It’s a lot of fun to see him interacting with these horror legends, and he fanboys pretty hard (but honestly who wouldn’t?).

For fans of the absurd early 2000’s parody film Kung Pow, the style will seem very familiar, with a modern day actor shooting on a green screen, and that background being filled in with a classic film (though this effect looks a lot better now than it did in Kung Pow, 20 years ago).  If anything, it will make you want to go check out Horror Express for yourself (which is currently streaming for free on Tubi).

Simon’s wife Renee (D’Arcy Carden) on the other hand is not so enthusiastic.  Their marriage is already on thin ice, with her (and her father) believing that Simon’s only using her for her family money’s, the same money he used to build his prototype.  She becomes increasingly jealous when he declines spending time with her to feed his obsession with going into his horror movie VR experience.

Without having to delve too deeply beneath the surface, one could find a metaphor for horror fans (or devoted fans in general) and the toll their extreme fandom takes on their loved ones.

On a more personal note, I can admit that running Halloween Year-Round requires a lot of time and energy, watching horror movies and writing up reviews/articles about them.

From time to time it does result in my fiancée getting a bit annoyed that I’m not doing something with her instead, and this Creepshow story serves as a cautionary tale to me (and others like me) to always try and maintain that balance.

We see that the more time Simon spends with this machine, living out his horror fantasies, the less time he’s spending in the real world with real people, and that rarely ends well for anyone.  So in a strange way “Night of the Living Late Show” celebrates horror fandom, while also warning fans to remember moderation.

What did you think of this finale?  How did you this season overall?  What do you hope to see if they do another season?  Let us know in the comments!

Creepshow is streaming exclusively on Shudder

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