Stan Against Evil: Vampire Creek – review

Directed by: Robert Cohen

First aired: 2018

Contains spoilers


Stan Against Evil is a fun, short episode series starring John C. McGinley, Scrubs), as the former sheriff of Willard’s Mill, New Hampshire. After his wife died, he beat up an old lady at the funeral (who seemed to morph into a hag) and retired. With the new sheriff, Evie (Janet Varney), he discovers that there is a curse on all sheriffs of Willard’s Mill after a mass witch burning back in the day.

John C. McGinley as Stan

The reason he never died a premature death was due to his wife, who was secretly a demon hunter. Stan (who feels modelled on Ash) reluctantly has to work with Evie to overcome the demons. We looked at a succubus episode here but in Season 3 they finally did a full-on vampire episode but it seems to have little to do with the main arc.

Denise and Evie

The episode starts with an off-duty Evie round at Stan’s watching Vampire Creek with Stan’s adult daughter Denise (Deborah Baker Jr.). Vampire Creek is a teen vampire at high school show and both women are somewhat into it. Stan wanders in and makes a comment about real sexy vampires being Hammer ones and waxing lyrical about Ingrid Pitt. He answers the door and it is a package for Denise – as the delivery guy leaves we see it is Zach (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Fright Night), the vampire from the show.

into the mirror

Denise has won a prop from the show, a mirror, for her slash fiction about the show. However, she hears the mirror speaking to her, touches the glass and is pulled into the show. Zach wants her to go to vampire prom with him, as a vampire, but it is her own choice – he can’t force her. However Evie, Stan and Denise’s almost boyfriend Kevin (Dana Gould) are also pulled into the show and all are quickly turned against their will, Evie first.

vampire Evie

Evie ends up as a vampish vampire, who gets very drunk on blood at the prom. There is a sparkle comment but it is about what happens when staked. The comment comes from Stan who actually really seems to take to being a vampire. However being staked in show is the only way out for the three new vampires and Denise needs to work out whether she wants to stay, and if not how to escape…

Stan attacked

I really like Stan Against Evil and found this episode to be respectful to the vampire genre whilst generating its comedy. Ok it aimed squarely at the teen vampire scene but seemed to do so with deference to it as much as it took the mickey. The elements of grown women loving teen vampire romance and the vampires’ hairless chests (of course they are hairless, they want to get teen girls and so shave), were amusing but it was Evie as a vampire that made the episode for me. 7 out of 10.

The episode’s imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK