‘Creepshow’ (2019) Recap: ‘The Companion’ & ‘Lydia Layne’s Better Half’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

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'Lydia Layne's Better Half'

It is the human condition, and all the good and the bad that comes with it, that compels us to bury ourselves within stories. Because there’s something quite powerful about getting lost within words or images that more or less teach us something about humankind, and the world that we live in. But what continues to amaze me about storytelling as a whole, is the sheer fact that there is one genre that manages to pull of this particular feat in magnificent fashion on a regular basis. Because horror always seems to find new ways to educate us on the ills of mankind and the consequences that come forth from indulging our darker side.
 
Which quite frankly makes for some powerful storytelling, the kind that hammers home a lesson in solid and bold fashion because what the characters do in these tales of terror instantly gives one pause, allowing for us to wonder if we should perhaps make a few changes to our own lives in order to avoid the pratfalls these fictional fools have made. If anything, life lessons in horror are on my mind today, simply because the next episode of Creepshow dove deep into the human condition with a pair of vignettes that focused heavily on the darker side of our species and the end result of feeding into it, and that made these particular set of tales bleak to say the least, since they truly did put the worst parts of us on display.
 
Take for example, ‘The Companion’, a story which introduced us to a young man named Harold who quite frankly, had a rough life. For Billy, his brother, took to beating Harold on a regular basis, something that left our main character afraid and isolated as often as possible. But in this particular tale, an ugly encounter between the two, wherein Harold fought back, found the young man on the run as he desperately worked to find a safe place to catch his breath. Thankfully he found a farm, one that was unfortunately complete with a creepy scarecrow, and it didn’t take long for Harold to learn that this guardian of the fields was in fact a terrifying and bloodthirsty monster, one created out of loneliness and one that could help him with the problems in his life and I love how this story showed us what isolation can do to a mind and more importantly, the evil we are capable of when we are pushed too far. 

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'The Companion'

​Which allowed for this story to stand in stark contrast to the second tale present in this episode. For ‘Lydia Layne’s Better Half’ took the time to examine how power and influence can corrupt people to a point of no return, since the world-famous Lydia Layne couldn’t stand the thought of having her appearance and her empire, shattered over the fact that she manipulated her girlfriend’s career for selfish reasons. But while that sounds more like a morality tale in the making, the horror element in this story came about from the anger and jealously between these two lovers, since an argument quickly led to a physical altercation between the two of them, one that ended with the death of Celia, Lydia’s girlfriend. Which prompted Lydia to do everything within her power to keep Celia’s death a secret, and unfortunately for Lydia, an earthquake left her trapped in an elevator with the rotting corpse of her former darling and her eternal spirit, which just so happened to be hungry for revenge…
 
If anything, I truly appreciated the fact that this second tale was more or less the age-old parable of an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force since Celia wasn’t having any of Lydia’s crap and expected to be treated better. Which allowed for both characters to let the darkness and greediness within them flow, providing the audience with the always satisfying, ‘everyone gets their just desserts’ ending and truly, this was a powerful set of vignettes through and through. Because it really did offer wonderful juxtaposition between the stories and it really did demonstrate the evil, we are capable of. Since, minus the scarecrow aspect, it gave us tales that could be ripped from everyday headlines. For revenge and murder pop up often when it comes to people who are drunk with power and excessive ambition or when people are tragically abused beyond belief.
 
Yet while the commentary on these darker aspects to our world were brilliant in their own right, we would be remiss to not talk about all the wonderful homages to the Creepshow franchise present within these tales. Because the look, with its hard colors and angled lightning made this episode feel as though it was extension of the original film and the homages didn’t end there. For there is a shot in ‘The Companion’ that is a love letter to the 1982 movie, and the soundtrack on multiple occasions had echoes of John Harrison’s original score and I think I even caught a little piano tribute to Dawn of the Dead as well in the second vignette. Either way, this was just an incredible episode through and through, and it’s quite amazing how this series continues to impress by offering up unique and thoughtful stories week in and week out, which leads me to believe that even more powerful stories await us down the line and I cannot wait to enjoy every single second of what they will have to offer. Until next time, kiddies. 

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