Creepshow – Season 4 Episode 1 “Twenty Minutes with Cassandra; Smile” Recap & Review

Twenty Minutes with Cassandra

In Creepshow Season 4 Episode 1, Lorna Snell has just returned home. She pours herself a glass of wine, orders a pizza from her regular pizza place, and puts on a classic record, ready to unwind. Within seconds into her unwinding time, there is a thunderous knock at the door. At first, she thinks about ignoring it, but the knock becomes more frantic.

Giving in, she walks over and looks through the peephole to see the face of a panicked woman on her doorstep, who asks for help. Lorna lets her in. The woman says her name is Cassandra, “Cassie,” and she is being chased. Lorna tries to call the police, but Cassie explains that she can’t. If she calls for help, the monster that is chasing her will kill anyone who comes to help her. She further explains that because Lorna helped her, the monster is after her now, and she only has twenty minutes before the monster comes and kills her.

Lorna believes it’s a joke, that’s until she asks a delivery driver to give her her phone (Cassie threw it outside to prevent her from calling the police) and he is instantly killed by a monster.

Cassie pulls Lorna inside and closes the door. Lorna begins to arm herself and Cassie so they are ready to fight if they need to. When Lorna approaches the window in order to make another escape attempt, the monster is revealed to be a grotesque and mutilated humanoid mouse.  Lorna stabs it, driving it back out the window.

Now, seeing how big the monster is, Lorna decides to make another weapon. Cassie tries to get to know her, trying to get her to sit down, to have a glass of wine and something to eat. Lorna remembers that she ordered a pizza before Cassie’s arrival. She goes out to the balcony and tries to explain to the Pizza Delivery driver named Okwe that he needs to leave, but the optimistic Okwe proves to be difficult and doesn’t leave until he delivers the pizza. However, this results in his death, since he helped her by providing her food and comfort.

Distraught by her inability to save Okwe, Lorna takes the pizza inside and begins to share it with Cassie. But upon opening the box she sees the words “Meet Me In The Back” written in blood. Startled by this but wanting to learn more, she leaves Cassie in the living room and excuses herself to go to the bathroom.

Lorna meets the monster by the backdoor, where it’s revealed that he can talk. He overheard her conversation with Okwe, and the tender moment between the two made him feel bad about killing Okwe and the task of killing Lorna. He explains to her that this has happened before. Cassie intentionally seeks people out and puts them in harm’s way, knowing this would be their outcome.

Furious about her being involved in Cassie’s game, she confronts her, asking why her. She realised she had seen Cassie before in a coffee shop earlier that day. Cassie refuses to answer any of Lorna’s questions.  Instead, she cries, saying that all she wants is to make Lorna’s last moments on earth something that they both can cherish. But Lorna wants to focus on surviving instead of getting to know Cassie and sharing the moment with her.

Upset, Cassie leaves, and the monster enters the house. Overwhelmed by the situation, Lorna asks the monster for another minute, and the monster agrees. The two sit down and have a meaningful conversation. Lorna learns more about the monster and his relationship with Cassie, and in turn, the monster learns about Lorna. It is revealed that Lorna has her own monster, which she has locked in a trunk in her living room. She has a healthy relationship with it and states that it is in the trunk because it prefers to be there. It feels safer there than out in the world. And with that, Lorna decides she’s ready to die.

Touched by Lorna’s love for her monster, the segment ends with Cassie’s monster telling Lorna to sit down so they can have another minute together.

The Episode Review

What a fantastic segment. Creepshow started Season 4 very strong. At first, it seemed as if this was going to be a run-of-mill survive-the-night segment. However, it’s soon clear that Lorna seems to be the only one interested in fighting for survival. There is a pretty hilarious scene of Lorna trying to make a weapon (out of sticky tape and several kitchen knives), while Cassie just asks her personal questions about her life. Cassie is dead-set on making Lorna’s final twenty minutes as comfortable and as cherished as possible.

There were some great scenes that had fantastic interactions with characters, such as Lorna’s complimentary conversation with Okwe the Pizza delivery guy, which was probably the most wholesome thing in a horror show. 

The acting was superb and jumps between being horrifying, tense and genuinely funny.

Of course, it is still a horror segment, which means it has its fair share of blood and dismemberments, but there is heart in this segment. Well worth watching.   

Smile

In the second part of episode 1, Sarah and James emerge from an award ceremony for one of James’ photographs with a Photojournalist Humanitarian Award.

After talking with their son over the phone, Sarah takes her husband to celebrate at one of their favourite restaurants. At the end of dinner, a stranger approaches the couple and tells them to smile while taking a picture of them.

However, upon seeing the photograph, James is a little disturbed by the outcome. They see the stranger come close to them, but the photograph shows that the picture was taken from across the street.

Convinced it’s a trick, they decide to investigate, finding another photo that shows them in their next spot. They continue to follow the trail, discovering photographs that are the same distance away from them. One under the sign for San Miguel, and in front of a plaque with a Bible verse from the book of Daniel (Daniel 8:16). A verse referencing a man calling from a river. A guilt-ridden James confesses that the photograph he won an award for is the cause of the photographs.

He explains that, while taking photos during a firefight just outside the border of San Miguel, he saw a father and son struggling to get out of the water and escape. The father saw him and called for help, but instead of helping them, James saw the opportunity to get the perfect photo, and when he looked up again, they disappeared, drowned.

As Sarah reassures her husband, they stumble onto a final photograph: a close-up of their son Max. Frightened, they rush home, and frantically search the house, only to find Max in the living room unharmed.

With the family reunited, the house begins to shake, cracking all of the picture frames on the wall, and a camera appears behind them, taking one last photograph. During the confusion, Max disappears, and James becomes frantic after seeing the final photograph. He begins to look for him, only to see a boy’s body in the pool. He jumps in to save him, but the body disappears.

Max appears, calling his father, but a disoriented James sees the dark figure who transforms into the man from San Miguel. He pulls James into the water and begins to drown him. Sarah rushes out screaming at James to stop, but it’s too late. As James stares on in horror, Max stops breathing. The segment ends with James holding his son, and as Sarah cries, the last photograph from the camera is revealed. James holding his dead son by the pool.

The Episode Review

Smile, unfortunately, didn’t hold a candle to the segment that came before it. While the story itself was intriguing, the mystery behind the photos (its ability to keep one step ahead of the couple) was intriguing but quickly became predictable.

While the acting was good and the relationship between Sarah and James was adorable, this wasn’t enough the hold up the episode. This segment felt like a by-the-numbers scary story, with a predictable ending and twist. Unfortunately, it’s probably going to be one of the segments that will be forgotten.