"Butcher's Block": Creepypasta Cannibals and a Naked Killer

Channel Zero spins a tv series out of a creepypasta (an online story that pretends to recount an urban legend, but has actually been invented by the author.  If it works, people will "remember" other examples, and a real urban legend will be born,).

For Butcher's Block, they took a very intriguing creepypasta about staircases in the woods.  Regular staircases, like someone grabbed one from your house and plopped it down in the wilderness.  A park ranger seems them so frequently that they seem ordinary, although he's afraid to approach or touch them.

From that intriguing opening, they spun off a crazy story about cannibalism.

Two girls in their twenties, Zoe and Alice, move to the city, both to get away from their crazy mother (who did something horrible one night) and to hide from their creditors (Dave from Collections keeps calling).



They rent a room in a creepy old house from Louise, a retired journalist whose hobby is taxidermy (because it's creepy, I guess). Alice gets a job as a social worker, Zoe sits around semi-lucid from schizophrenia medication. And the weirdness begins:

1. The Crazy Scissors Lady ("Do you have any scissors?  I need to cut off my bandages.") warns them to stay away from the run-down Butcher's Block neighborhood, where people always disappear.
2. Alice has to go to Butcher's Block for her job.  The first family she is assigned to help, a mother and daughter, disappear in the middle of the interview.  Alice tracks the Missing Girl to an overgrown park, where:
3. She sees a gigantic, ornate staircase.   A dwarfish creature climbs down and chases her with a knife.

Louise reveals more details about the park.  It used to be the private residence of the Peach Family, whose meat-packing business was the sole employer of Butcher's Block (get it?).  One night in the 1950s, the whole family vanished.  Rescue workers found something in the basement so horrifying that they burned the house to the ground.

Louise helpfully shows Alice a photo of the family on the eve of their disappearance: Patriarch Joseph; his elderly mother; the oldest son Robert (Andreas Apergis, left), whose wife is about to give birth; Aldous ("the bachelor," Louise says with disapproval -- hey, lady, you're not married, either); and some miscellaneous kids.

The photo comes in handy, as Peach Patriarch Joseph starts hanging around, asking Alice (or Zoe -- I can't tell them apart) if she believes in a higher power (turns out he was quite the fundamentalist in life).  He offers to cure them both of their schizophrenia with homemade lobotomies.

Meanwhile Robert, dancing around like the Riddler, tazes the Crazy Scissors Lady, so Officer Luke (Brandon Scott, left) arrests him.  While in lockup, he kills and eats his cellmate.

But the police chief, who happens to be Officer Luke's father, lets him go!  (Robert doesn't actually have any mind-control powers; Dad just made a deal with the Peaches).

When Robert kills someone else, Officer Luke has had enough, and shoots him.

Wait -- the Peaches aren't ghosts?  No, but they're not living in ordinary time, either.  They made a deal with their god (spoiler alert: not exactly a benign god) to allow them to live on in their summer house at the top of the staircase., whence they send the dwarfish creatures or Robert down to kidnap people to eat.

The two teenage daughters of the family were murdered before they moved to Summerland, so the Peaches are very interested in having Zoe and Alice join them as substitutes.  All they have to do is climb the staircase and eat some people.

All that from a staircase in the woods?

There are a lot of disgusting scenes involving bloody this or that, and a lot of boring scenes of heart-to-hearts between Alice and Zoe, made even more boring by the fact that you can't tell them apart.  They could be identical twins (after Zoe is "cured," she dresses in bright colors, which help a little.)  I fast-forwarded, looking for gay characters or beefcake.
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Homophobia:  Officer Luke checks up on Robert in the lock-up and recoils in disgust.  Robert is reclining naked on the floor, giving his cellmate a blow job!  Wait -- no, he's pulling out his cellmate's intestines.  But for a moment you think Officer Luke is recoiling in disgust over a same-sex act.

Gay Characters:  Dad tells Officer Luke "You were always a sensitive boy."  And he never expresses any heterosexual interest, never mentions a wife or girlfriend.  The last scene shows a creepy family at dinner:  Officer Luke, Louise (the retired journalist), Izzy (the girl who disappeared), and Zoe or Alice (I can't tell them apart), but there's no indication that any of them are romantic partners.

Aldous Peach ("The Bachelor).  At least, Louise seems to think so.

Actually, no one expresses any heterosexual interest except for Alice's comic-relief coworker (Aaron Merke), who admits to being sweet on her.

Beefcake: Naked Joseph, if you don't mind the pool of blood.  A couple of cute guys, such as Dave from Collections (Adam Hurtig, top photo).

My grade: D.

See also: No-End House; Candle Cove