Creep: Welcome, my ravenous readers, to a new issue of Creepshow! I see by your leering faces you are eagerly awaiting a deep dive into a chilling tale that will make your skin crawl. This devilishly delicious drama follows a small-time thug whose bark is much worse than his bite.
Survivor Type
On a deserted island somewhere in the middle of the open ocean, a man prepares to amputate his injured foot. Through a flashback, the man introduces himself as Richard Pinzetti (Kiefer Sutherland). Over glimpses of his childhood, Richard narrates that growing up, all he ever wanted was to be a surgeon.
Despite having grown up poor and living with an abusive, alcoholic father in the slums of New York, Richard notes that, present circumstances excluded, he's always had luck on his side. He also would regularly utilize his experience in making connections on the street to ensure things went his way. He was easily able to get into college on a football scholarship (where he slipped a classmate ten bucks to make a bully's mouth "disappear"), attended and graduated from medical school (where he ran football and baseball pools to make easy cash), and went on to work in one of the biggest hospitals in New York City (where he would sell prescription blanks and doctors' signatures to eager dealers on the street). One day, on the advice of an old friend, Richard flew to Thailand to pick up some hard drugs, then booked a room on a fancy cruise ship so he could deliver the drugs when the ship docked. Out of nowhere, an explosion caused the ship to sink, Richard himself barely escaping a watery grave.
In the present, Richard has now been left stranded on a tiny island in the heart of the ocean, the only supplies he has on hand being an emergency kit, a pocket knife, a journal (which he uses to document his time on the island and write down his life story), and approximately $350,000 (New York street value) worth of heroin. He isn't alone on the island, as he has the corpse of a woman that he has named "Gloria" which he uses for companionship. While on the island, his only source of food are the seagulls that regularly come to the island to peck at Gloria. He throws rocks at the birds to cripple them, after which he breaks their necks and eats them raw. One day, Richard notices a plane passing overhead, and as he attempts to signal it, he gets his ankle caught between a pair of rocks and horrifically twists it. When the injury begins turning infected, Richard is forced to amputate his foot to save himself, using the heroin as a crude painkiller.
When Richard eventually runs out of rocks to throw and a storm washes Gloria away, Richard is forced to amputate his other foot so he can eat it. As time goes on and Richard's sanity drains, he also amputates and eats his right leg below the knee, then his left. Weeks after he first arrived on the island, Richard has nothing left below the groin, and his ears and nose have since been eaten. After seeing hallucinations of his abusive father, Richard finally goes completely insane and begins eating his hands... while they're still attached.
A closing illustration features the Creep lounging on a different island with a dead woman of his own, stating that he prefers a deserted island with plenty of coconuts and joking that Richard doesn't have "palms".
This episode contains examples of:
- Academic Athlete: Before he became a surgeon, Richard got into college on a football scholarship, and proved himself to be quite an effective quarterback on the field. His football skills also prove useful for hurling rocks at seagulls to cripple them.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The original short story ends with Richard deciding to work out which of his body parts to eat next, though it's heavily implied that all he has left is one hand. In the episode, he goes straight for both hands, chomping on them without any further care.
- Agony of the Feet: Richard gets his foot caught between a pair of rocks and horribly twists his ankle trying to free himself. When the wound begins turning gangrenous, he is forced to amputate his foot for his own survival. He is also forced to amputate the other foot and eat it when he runs out of food.
- Alcoholic Parent: Richard's father, who would usually force Richard to pour him another glass of wine while laughing at his dreams of being a surgeon and died at the age of 46. Richard notes that whenever he got drunk, he would "lose all his English", but also mentions that he never had anything good to say. As we see in an old family photo, Richard's mother and younger sister are shown to have suffered under the man as well.
- Amoral Attorney: Ronnie Hanelli, Richard's former football teammate, had gone to law school and set up his own practice. He's the one who gives Richard the tip that sends him to Thailand, then arranges for a boat to pick up the heroin Richard collects when his cruise ship docks.
- Anti-Villain: Richard is a greedy and crafty drug-pushing doctor with heavy ties to New York's criminal underworld, but he's not a true villain by any means, as he clearly cares about his old friends and his fellow doctors.
- Apocalyptic Log: Richard uses a journal to write down his life story and record his time on the island. As the weeks go on, his writing becomes more and more illegible, to the point where it's reduced to scribbles.
- Arc Words: "How badly does the patient want to survive?"
- Artificial Limbs: Richard is confident that he'll survive being stranded on the island by believing he can always get a pair of artificial legs.
- Autocannibalism: When he runs out of seagulls to catch, Richard is slowly-but-ultimately forced to eat his legs to survive. At the very end, he begins eating his hands as well. Before that, it's shown that he's also eaten his nose and ears.
- Born Lucky: Richard boasts about how he's had luck on his side for a good chunk of his life, to the point where his old friend Ronnie Hanelli selects him for a dangerous job by citing his uncanny ability to always land on his feet. When he gets stranded on the island, the luck finally runs out.
- Broken Tears: Richard pitifully cries as he tries to work out how he can amputate and eat what's left of his legs without severing the femoral artery.
- Brooklyn Rage: Richard was born and raised in New York, so the accent illustrates the emotional turmoil he goes through.
- The Bully: Richard's primary bully was Howie Plotzki, a "big, zit-faced asshole" who usually rallied the other players on Richard's team into ragging on him. Richard got back at him by paying another teammate 10 bucks to "make Howie's mouth disappear".
- Call-Back: In his flashback to Phil Hammersmith's house, both Phil and Richard are seen drinking bottles of Harrow's Supreme.
- Companion Corpse: Gloria is the closest thing Richard has to talk to, and he does so a couple of times throughout the story.
- Contemplating Your Hands: Richard does this several times throughout the story, boasting that he always takes good care of them since "a doctor's hands are his life". Throughout his time on the island, he continuously remembers that he needs to keep protecting them, since he may need them for catching seagulls or for future operations. By the end of the story, he goes insane to the point where he eats them.
- Creator Cameo: Stephen King himself plays Richard's friend Phil Hammersmith.
- George Romero also has a posthumous role as Mockridge, Richard's professor of Basic Anatomy.
- Dead Person Conversation: Richard has a conversation with Gloria's corpse after building his "HELP" sign. Her ghost later has one with Richard, inviting him to eat her corpse.
- Death Seeker: The longer Richard stays on the island, the more fond of death he becomes.Richard: "How badly does the patient want to survive?" Lemme answer with a question: How badly does the patient wanna live?!
- Deserted Island: A particularly unforgiving island is where Richard ends up. It's small, has no trees, and is full of rocks that a person can get trapped in, which is what happens to Richard.
- Despair Event Horizon: The hallucinations of his abusive father are what finally drives Richard to complete insanity, after which he begins eating his hands, which he spent the whole story protecting.
- Determinator: Richard manages to stay alive for at least 18 days on that island, even noting that the shock trauma from his "operations" would've killed any other person by now.
- Downer Ending: Richard, succumbing to insanity, ultimately realizes that he's never going to be getting off the island, and decides to devour his hands while waiting for himself to die.
- Facial Horror: Gloria's face as the gulls eat away at her is not a pretty sight. Richard even passes out right next to what was her face when he strikes his head on a rock, giving the viewers a good look at it.
- Fatal Flaw: For Richard, it's his greed, as he basically got himself stranded on a desert island after not being satisfied with the huge amount of money he already had as a doctor and a drug dealer.
- Fate Worse than Death: By the end of the story, Richard will have wished he went down with the ship.
- Fingore: When Richard begins to eat his hands, he strips nearly all the skin off of one finger with a single bite, envisioning them to taste like ladyfingers.
- First-Person Smartass: Richard, even as he goes insane. It helps that he's got the thick New York accent.
- Foreshadowing:
- As a kid, Richard glimpses at an advertisement for Elysium Cruise Lines, the ship that he will end up boarding as an adult that ultimately sinks and gets him stranded on the island.
- During his residency, Richard watches an injured man missing a foot being wheeled down the hall on a gurney, hinting at the fate that will ultimately befall him.
- When meeting with Ronnie, an aquarium seen behind Richard features a large rock in the shape of a ship inside it, further hinting at Richard's eventual fate.
- In basic anatomy class, Richard idly sketches an illustration of a human foot. The ink of his pen results in a large red blot covering the foot. After this, we return to Richard severing his injured foot to lower the risk of infection.
- Formula-Breaking Episode:
- This story, along with the next one, is completely animated in a limited-motion, comic-book style.
- This is also the first story that features no supernatural elements. Unless you count Gloria's hallucination as being a ghost.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Richard had this reputation among his football teammates, usually with Howie Plotzki serving as the prime instigator.
- Genius Bruiser: Richard shows that he's got quite a bit of strength for a doctor, since he got into college by playing football. While reminiscing about his old bully Howie Plotzki, Richard notes that he could've easily busted his face himself, but paid another teammate to do it for him, not wanting to risk damaging his hands for his career in medicine.
- Greed: Richard primarily gets stranded on the island thanks to his gradually increasing sense of greed:
- During his interrogation, Richard notes that despite having enough money to set up his own practice, he still didn't entirely give up the prescription blanks that he used to deal when he first started his residency. He even brings up how he didn't really need those blanks anymore, but it's "hard to give up the extra sugar".
- His meeting with Ronnie at the Fish Bowl came about because Richard wanted to try and double, perhaps even triple, his earnings, which is ultimately what got him stranded in the first place.
- Growling Gut: After he loses Gloria and runs out of rocks to throw, Richard's stomach growls whenever he stares at a seagull, and later, his own legs.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Richard gradually eats the lower half of his body to stay alive.
- Helpful Hallucination: Gloria's ghost (or possibly how Richard is hallucinating her if she was alive), points out her own corpse and invites the starving Richard to eat her, asking what else he could possibly do at this point.
- How We Got Here: The first half of the segment is largely spent detailing Richard's life story, how he went from college football player to surgeon to drug mule, and how he ultimately ended up on the island.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Richard is forced to eat his legs to stay alive, then his nose and ears, and finally his hands. He's also tempted to eat the rotting corpse he calls Gloria, but is very hesitant to do so.
- In Medias Res: The episode starts just before Richard amputates his injured foot.
- Irony: Richard boarded the Monrovia carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of heroin. It manages to survive the sinking ship and ends up on the island with him, but other than him using it as a crude painkiller during his "operations", Richard notes that it's worthless in his current predicament.
- Island Help Message: Richard manages to spell the word "HELP" out of rocks. It's washed away by a storm sometime later, so he rebuilds it. Either way, it doesn't do him a lick of good.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Richard spent years dabbling in illicit activities from gambling to drug smuggling, but he finally gets his just desserts when he's stuck on an island for weeks without food or rescue.
- Laughing Mad: Richard emits deranged laughter as he traces the spot where his feet should be in the sand with a stick.
- Madness Mantra: Richard's continuous counting backwards from 100, which he does to help steel his nerves during an extraordinarily tough decision.
- There's also his "ladyfingers" rant at the end of the segment, as he's snacking on his hands.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Richard used to work in one of the biggest hospitals in New York City, where he would sell prescription blanks and doctor's signatures to dealers on the street. He eventually worked his way up to smuggling heroin across international borders.
- Ngo, the Thai doctor who Richard went to see as a tourist, similarly engaged in questionable activities. He pronounced the heroin Richard was carrying as "very high-grade stuff", and then arranged for a pair of customs officers to allow Richard on the Monrovia with the drugs.
- Mythology Gag: Kiefer Sutherland, who previously played Ace Merrill in Stand by Me and now plays Richard, once again portrays a character in an adaptation of a Stephen King story.
- Furthermore, to save himself from starving to death, Richard takes Teddy's hypothetical "eat our feet" suggestion from the above film literally.
- Neck Snap: Richard pulls this off on any seagulls he catches to finish them off.
- No Honor Among Thieves: During Richard's narration, he mentions that an accomplice of his named Lowenthal had gotten pinched and squealed on him, prompting a pair of federal agents to interrogate him. To protect himself from being thrown in prison, Richard himself ratted out some associates. He does, however, take the time to assure us that every person he "threw to the wolves" was "a real son of a bitch."
- No Name Given: The woman's corpse who Richard names "Gloria".
- Plot Hole: Early in the story, Richard mentions that the island has no driftwood or vegetation to start a fire, but when he cuts off his right leg, it is inexplicably seen cooking over a fire. It could be that some timber did eventually wash up on the island, but it still can be seen as a pretty big oversight.
- Prefers Raw Meat: In Richard's case, he has no other choice, since his island has no driftwood to start a fire at first.
- Riddle for the Ages: It's never revealed what caused the explosion that caused the ship Richard was on to sink. The only indication is a mysterious fire on the sinking ship as Richard clings to a piece of debris.
- Running Gag: Whenever Richard finds himself in a stressful, life-or-death situation, he steadies his nerves by counting backwards from 100.
- Sanity Slippage: Richard goes pretty crazy as he's stuck on that island. Being stuck on an island with barely any food will do that to a person.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Richard is noted to have made several connections with different people on the street, which he would use to help make himself money or escape from a tight situation.
- Self-Surgery: Richard is forced to amputate his foot when he injures it, and then gradually amputates the rest of his legs so he can eat them.
- Shout-Out:
- The slip that Richard's friend Ronnie gives him has the name "Nicotero" written on it.
- The Fish Bowl, the bar that Richard goes to, has a neon sign in the window that says "Just Keep Swimming."
- Richard's luck suddenly turning sour could be the result of how he initially got his food, since it's established that it's bad luck to kill a seagull.
- A closing illustration has the Creep holding a bucket of chicken with the letters KNB on it. This is a reference to the special effects company founded by Greg Nicotero that provides special effects for the series.
- Much like Chuck Noland, Richard spells the word "HELP" out of materials he finds on his island.
- Skyward Scream: The scream Richard emits upon amputating his foot echoes throughout the island and surrounding ocean.
- Slasher Smile: Richard flashes one at the space where his feet used to be, showcasing his growing insanity.
- Stopped Caring: After several weeks without rescue, left with nothing to eat but his own body parts, and enduring hallucinations of his abusive father, Richard gives up on trying to preserve himself and begins eating his hands. The parts of his body that he spent the whole story protecting.
- Street Smart: Richard spent much of his childhood spending time on the street, "getting to know people". His ability to adapt to the setting so quickly allowed him to make connections with different groups, ensuring that things went smoothly throughout his difficult youth.Richard: Any asshole knows how to die. The thing to learn is how to survive.
- Tastes Like Chicken: When he eats his severed foot, Richard brokenly describes the taste as similar to cold roast beef.
- The Tooth Hurts: To get back at Howie Plotzki, his bully, Richard slipped one of his teammates 10 dollars to make his mouth "disappear". The guy did what he was told, and is shown bringing Richard three of Howie's teeth in a bloody paper towel.
- Richard's two front teeth fall out after he spends weeks on the island.
Creep: Well, there he goes, biting the hand that feeds him. I prefer desert islands with plenty of coconuts, don't you? Richard doesn't even have palms.
