Television series

Creepshow

Other titles called Creepshow: the 1982 film.

Creepshow revives the 1982 film's comic-book horror-comedy formula: two lurid, self-contained stories per half-hour, framed by animated panels, each one gleefully committed to a single sick joke or gruesome idea. Practical effects, garish colour, gross-out gags, and a wink at the camera throughout. It's for people who want their scares fast, funny, and a little trashy — not for anyone hoping for slow dread or prestige polish.

TVMaze rating3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love short, lurid horror stories told with comic-book bite, where each self-contained chapter gets a splash of gore and a punchline.

Skip it if you want a single story that builds steadily, since each vignette arrives and leaves quickly, and the gore-heavy stretches can feel more juvenile than frightening.

What it asks of you: Short, roughly twenty-five-minute chapters with little build-up; it wants you to switch gears from one story to the next and take its cartoonish logic without fuss.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Tales from the Crypt1989

The template Creepshow is remixing: the Crypt Keeper's puns, the vicious twist endings, and the gleeful nastiness, all backed by HBO's budget and star-studded guest casts.

But The gore and casual misogyny of some episodes haven't aged gracefully; a few stories are meaner than they are clever.

Tales from the Crypt poster

Trick 'r Treat2007

Multiple Halloween-night stories braided together rather than boxed into episodes, with the same comic-book glee and a genuinely iconic mascot in Sam.

But It's one feature-length sitting rather than bite-sized episodes, so the anthology structure is tighter and less disposable.

Trick 'r Treat poster

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities2022

Trades Creepshow's cartoon splatter for gorgeous, unsettling production design — proof the anthology format can be prestige television and still land a gut-punch.

But Episodes run nearly an hour and lean slow-burn atmospheric, a different pace from Creepshow's quick, punchy segments.

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Creepshow

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Dead of Night1945

Same anthology-with-a-frame structure Creepshow borrows, decades before EC Comics existed — the ancestor of the ancestor, with all the camp stripped out.

The British anthology that arguably invented this whole game — five ghost stories folded into a dreamlike frame narrative, ending on one of horror's great final images.

But Black-and-white, stately, and dialogue-heavy — no gore, no jokes, nothing like Creepshow's comic-book pop.

Dead of Night poster
More like this (7)

V/H/S2012

Found-footage anthology with the same anything-goes structure, stacking wildly different directors' nightmares into one runtime.

But Shaky-cam aesthetics and rougher production values will grate if you love Creepshow's polished comic-panel look.

V/H/S poster

Tales from the Darkside1984

Created by George Romero himself, this is the direct ancestor — cheap, weird, and unmistakably the sensibility that birthed Creepshow's stories.

But Low-budget 80s TV effects and pacing show their age far more than the show they inspired.

Tales from the Darkside poster

The Twilight Zone1959

The anthology format at its most disciplined: every episode a tight moral trap with a twist, proving the structure works without a drop of gore.

But Black-and-white, talky, and morally earnest — a very different rhythm from Creepshow's splatter-comedy.

The Twilight Zone poster

Into the Dark2018

A monthly horror anthology tied to real-world holidays, each entry a different feature-length story swinging from slasher to sci-fi.

But Quality swings wildly between entries; some are genuinely great, others feel like padded-out shorts.

Into the Dark poster

American Horror Stories2021

Standalone horror stories each episode, unshackled from its parent show's season-long mythology, closer to Creepshow's grab-bag format.

But Uneven writing and a reliance on shock over craft; several episodes feel rushed or half-baked.

American Horror Stories poster

The Simpsons1989

Explicitly spoofs EC Comics horror-hosts and Creepshow-style framing devices, taking the same structural bones and turning them into family comedy.

The same three-story-anthology, comic-panel-into-motion trick, played for laughs instead of nerves — an annual special that borrows Creepshow's whole aesthetic outright.

But It's a cartoon parody with zero real scares, and you'll want some patience for decades of Simpsons in-jokes to land properly.

The Simpsons poster

Inside No. 92014

Runs on the identical short-story anthology structure as Creepshow, aimed at the opposite register: less gross-out punchline, more exquisitely cruel final line.

British anthology with the same self-contained-story-per-episode engine, but swaps splatter for exquisitely engineered twists, black comedy, and real emotional gut-punches.

But Understated and dialogue-driven — no severed heads, no cackling ghouls, just quiet dread and very clever writing.

Inside No. 9 poster

People

Production

Recommended by

Inside No. 9, Tales of the Unexpected, Goosebumps, Ghost Stories, American Horror Stories, Bite Size Terror, Theatre of Darkness: Yamishibai