Music / Creature Feature

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and ghouls, step right up! Behind this curtain lies a ghastly concoction of delight, horror, fantasy, and terror! Your every wish is our command! Your every whimsical desire brought to life! But, I'm warning you, there's always a price. Welcome to the Greatest Show Unearthed!"

— "The Greatest Show Unearthed", The Greatest Show Unearthed

Creature Feature is a Halloween and Horror themed band from Southern California. The first two albums were the brainchildren of Curtis Rx and Erik X. Erik X decided to leave the band shortly after the release of the second album It Was A Dark And Stormy Night... to spend more time with his family. Since then, Curtis Rx has taken over the sole writing and performing duties of Creature Feature and released two albums and various singles on his own. Front man Curtis RX also composes and releases music under the name Curtis Rx and Rufus Rex.

Not to be confused with the album of the same name by Seanan McGuire, or the animal segments from Sesame Street.

Discography:

• The Greatest Show Unearthed (2007)
• Death of a Doll Maker (Single) (2009)
• It Was A Dark And Stormy Night... (2011)
• American Gothic (2015)
• Slashback Video (2017)
• Sometimes They Come Back (Single) (2018)
• Grim Grinning Ghosts (Single) (2018)
• The Greatest Show Unearthed Returns (2018)
• Bury A Friend (Single) (2019)

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The Greatest Tropes Unearthed:

• Adults Are Useless: In "Such Horrible Things", the narrator's parents don't seem to do anything about him doing things like shoving his sister down a well and burning the house down.
• Alien Invasion: "Look to the Skies", as an homage to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and "Fodder for the Elder Gods", detailing alien Eldritch Abominations descending from space to destroy humanity.
• And I Must Scream: The narrator's fate in "One Foot in the Grave", in which he's stuck for eternity in an unnatural state between living and death after being Barred from the Afterlife.
  I've got one foot in the grave
  And in its shackles I'm enslaved
  But here I lie
  With opened eyes
  The pearly gates turned me away
  In this sarcophagus I lay
  No longer dead
  But I am void of breath
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: The narrator of A Feast For the Worms was so evil that his death was a cause for celebration. Even Satan was happy when he died.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • In "Such Horrible Things", the narrator's crimes include getting another boy lost in the woods where he died, burying his brother alive, throwing his sister down a well, and pretending to drown so he could laugh at people when they came to rescue him.
  • "A Gorey Demise" lists various gruesome deaths, like "Greg, who died in the womb," "Larry, who bled and bled," and "Zack, who simply went insane."
• Bad Powers, Good People: The coven from Wake the Dead try to stop a Serial Killer by resurrecting his victims. It's implied to go poorly for them.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: "The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth" is an homage to Them!, a film where giant ants become a national threat. The song talks of hidden underground creatures climbing up to terrorise humanity, and there's a spoken broadcast segment stating that they've established a nest in the storm drains.
• Big Damn Heroes: At the end of "The Unearthly Ones" an angry mob with Torches and Pitchforks appears to chase the Unearthly Ones away after the beasts approach and threaten the children.
• Black Comedy: "A Gorey Demise" spells out the alphabet... with each letter for the name  of a child who died. The singers treat it as a joyful reciting of obituaries, including the various causes of death.
• Bookends:
  • From "American Gothic", "If there's nothing in the darkness, then why do you lie awake? Something in the shadows is keeping you from sleep."
  • "Buried Alive" begins and ends with a Heartbeat Soundtrack.
  • In "A Gorey Demise", the first thing you hear is a character's laughter. The last thing you hear in the song is also a character's laughter.
  • "Grave Robber at Large" begins and ends with a crow cawing and an Evil Laugh.
  • "The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth" begins and end with sound clips from Them!.
  • "The House of Myth" begins and ends with thunders and a hooting owl.
  • "Dem Bones" begins and ends with instruments played to sound like rattling bones.
  • "The Greatest Show Unearthed" begins with a record starting and ends with a Record Needle Scratch.
  • "A Corpse in My Bed" begins and ends with the audience cheering and the announcer speaking.
  • "Aim for the Head" begins and ends with clips from Night of the Living Dead (1968)
  • "Nearly Departed" begins and end with the zombies moaning.
• Bound and Gagged: The song of the same name, detailing the story of a kidnapped daughter.
• Burn the Witch!: "Here There Be Witches" is about the various tortures inflicted on "witches" during a massive witch hunt.
• Buried Alive:
  • "Such Horrible Things" has the narrator do this to his brother (who gets better).
  • "Buried Alive", where the narrator wants this to happen to him after reading too much Poe.
  • "A Gorey Demise", E is for Erik who was buried alive.
• Card-Carrying Villain: In the chorus of "Such Horrible Things", the narrator tries to deny that he's a bad person who does awful things, until he gives up and says, "Ah, hell...it's exactly what it seems!"
• Circus of Fear: "The Greatest Show Unearthed" and its sequel "The Greatest Show Unearthed Returns" is about a travelling carnival of fantasy and terror, where your every wish can come true (for a deadly price) and the sights will drive you to insanity.
• Creepy Circus Music: "The Greatest Show Unearthed" has this as a primary part of the tune.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Wake the Dead is about a necromancy cult resurrecting the bodies of people who fell victim to a Serial Killer in an effort to stop him.
• Death of a Child:
  • The song "A Gorey Demise" is mentioned in the album's description as "an alphabetical list of children who met their untimely demise", and is a reference to "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" by Edward Gorey, an alphabetical book detailing the deaths of a group of children. The lyric that's the most blatant about this is about letter G, Greg, who was miscarried.
  • In "Such Horrible Things", the narrator gleefully recounts when he was six and playing hide-and-seek with the neighbor boy. He deliberately got him lost in the woods, where he presumably starved to death or was eaten by a wild animal.
• Death Seeker: The narrator of "Bad Blood" says: "I am not one for this world / And I long for the day that my life snuffs out" and proceeds to give advice on how to put him in the ground for good.
• Dem Bones: The song of the same name, about a person who collects a lot of Creepy Souvenirs, mainly sketelons.
• Dirty Coward: In The Unearthly Ones the titular monsters flee as soon as an angry mob shows up to fight them.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The "protagonist" of "Such Horrible Things" burned their house down... Why? They didn't like it's color.
• Drugs Are Bad: While it doesn't outright say it, a lyric in "A Gorey Demise" is "O is for Olive who lived life too fast", while the sound of someone snorting cocaine can be heard in the background.
• Early Personality Signs: The narrator of "Such Horrible Things" boasts of being a terror since he was born, biting the nurse as a baby, putting superglue in his father's hair when he was two, and stabbing the mailman when he was four.
• Eldritch Abomination: "Fodder for the Elder Gods" is about the titular creatures coming down to earth to bring about the end of humanity.
• Enfant Terrible: The narrator brags about "Such Horrible Things" he did since he was two.
• Eye Scream:
  • "A Gorey Demise" lists the deaths of 26 people in alphabetical order, including F, for Frank who was stabbed through the eye.
  • The collector of "Dem Bones" thinks his new guest has got lovely eyes and wants them in a display jar.
• A Fate Worse Than Death: The song of the same name. While the trope is brought up, the song is more about how there are so many gruesome ways to die, but even then, it could be worse.
• Flaying Alive: "Dem Bones" is about a madman with a collection of body parts doing this to the latest poor schmoe to end up in his Torture Cellar.
• Genius Loci: "Mad House", which is about a house that's absorbed all the anger from its inhabitants and terrorises them.
• Grave Robbing: "Grave Robber At Large" is about this topic.
• Goth
  • Perky Goth: Their music certainly gives off this vibe... If you can get over the lyrical content...
• Gory Discretion Shot: In "Such Horrible Things", the singer mentions cryptically "that one time" when he was 14. This goes directly into a guitar interlude under which screaming can be heard and which ends with the singer chuckling happily, implying that the events of age 14 were too graphic to describe in words.
• Haunted House: "The House of Myth"
• Hide-and-Seek Horror: In "Such Horrible Things," when the narrator is six, he plays hide and seek with the neighbor boy and gets him lost in the forest, never to be found.
  When I was six
  I used to trick
  The next door neighbor's son
  In the woods we would run
  Time for fun
  Hide-and-seek has a cost
  He would be forever lost!
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: In the end of "The Unearthly Ones", an angry mob attempts to hunt down the Things That Go "Bump" in the Night.
• I Love the Dead / Mummies at the Dinner Table: "A Corpse In My Bed".
• I'm a Humanitarian: "How to Serve Man" is about cannibalism.
• It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The song of the same name.
• Insane Equals Violent:
  • This appears to be the case in "Such Horrible Things".
  • And in "Dr. Sawbones".
  There is this longing for blood
  That I am trying to quench
  There is this yearning for pain
  That is forever entrenched
  There is this spot on my soul
  And it will never come clean
  There is this flaw in my brain
  That is far from serene
• Jack the Ripper: Though it's never specifically addressed, it's heavily implied the song 'Dr. Sawbones' is about Jack the Ripper.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: In "Such Horrible Things", the narrator terrorizes everyone in his life starting from the moment of his birth and keeps getting away with it. Until, at 16 years old, he finally gets caught after burying his brother alive and is sentenced to life in an insane asylum.
• Lesser Star: Erik X. Poor Erik.
• Lyrical Dissonance: A lot of their stuff has a fun, bouncy beat.
• Monster Mash: "A Gorey Demise" starts with an undead dinner party before the host begins singing "the annual obituaries”
• Noodle Incident: According to the narrator of "Such Horrible Things", nothing happened when he was fourteen...except "that one time", followed by the sounds of people screaming and a car crash.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: "Aim For the Head" uses the word "ghoul" instead. "If you kill the brain, then you kill the ghoul." Fitting, as the song is based on Night of the Living Dead (1968).
• Ominous Music Box Tune:
  • The beginning of "Mommy's Little Monsters".
  • Also prominently featured in the instrumental "Death of a Dollmaker".
• Our Werewolves Are Different: "Primitive State" is all about a werewolf attack, using classic horror movie portrayals with the werewolves as hungry destructive monsters that turn every full moon.
• Pun-Based Title: "The Greatest Show Unearthed," for the song and the first album.
• Puppeteer Parasite: "Look to the Skies" is about aliens who have come to earth to take over the bodies of people while they sleep, and is heavily modelled on Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
• Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain:
  • "Aim for the Head"
  • "Bad Blood" includes the line, "Remove my head to make sure I don't get up!"
• Shout-Out: See Whole-Plot Reference, below.
  • Grave Robber at Large has the lyric "Death is my business, and business is good!," in reference to "Killing is my Business and Business is Good" by Megadeth.
  • Aim For the Head samples news reports from Night of the Living Dead (1968).
  • Bound And Gagged samples lines from Carnival of Souls and The Brain That Wouldn't Die.
• Song of Song Titles: As noted above, "Buried Alive" is mainly Shout Outs to Edgar Allan Poe, starting with A Dream Within a Dream, and ending with The Raven.
• Spell My Name With An S: "A Gorey Demise". R is for... is it Reina, Reyna, Raina, Rayna, or Rena?
• Tampering with Food and Drink: "The Art of Poisoning"
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Death Seeker narrator of "Bad Blood" gives this advice on how to put him in the ground for good:
  Cut me down
  In a hail of bullets
  Remove my head to make sure I don't get up
  To be safe just burn my body
  Before they consecrate me
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Creature Feature features such creatures frequently.
  • "Mommy's Little Monsters" is about bloodthirsty creatures hiding inside the closet, in the walls, behind the curtains, in the basement, in the attic, everywhere.
  • "The Unearthly Ones".
    Beware the bumps in the night
    The shadows on your wall
    The nightmares of your youth
    Believe in the bogeyman
    Hiding beneath your bed
    Just waiting to break loose
  • "American Gothic" is about foul things lurking unseen in the darkness.
  • "Lights Out".
    By day they hide and cower in the shadows
    Waiting for the darkness to come
    By night they shamble through the dark empty world
    Yearning for a single drop of blood
  • "The Creeps" asks if these things are real or just in your head.
    Growing in the dead of night
    Giving you the creeps
    Darkness, figures in the darkness
    Wandering just out of sight
• Torches and Pitchforks: In the end of "The Unearthly Ones", an angry mob with pitchforks and torches attempts to hunt down the Things That Go "Bump" in the Night.
• Villain Song:
  • "Such Horrible Things". The narrator was a right terror from birth to 18, when he's finally tossed in the madhouse for the rest of his life.
  • "The Unearthly Ones" is sung from the perspective of the Things That Go "Bump" in the Night, about them sneaking up on their victim.
  • "Bad Blood" is about a character who is pathologically driven to evil, although this guy is a bit more of an Anti-Villain, torn between trying to control himself and the comforting certainty of just being himself.
  • Billie Eilish's "bury a friend" is heavily inspired by the singer's experience with sleep paralysis, and has the line "I wanna end me." The Creature Feature version, however, uses a more jaunty performance with the line changed to "I wanna end you," giving this vibe.
• We All Die Someday: A few songs bring this up.
  • "A Fate Worse Than Death": "No need to worry/We all meet our end someday."
  • "Six Foot Deep": "Someday we all shall die."
  • "A Gorey Demise": "One by one we bite the dust/We kick the bucket and begin to rust/Give up the ghost when your number's up/We all fall down."
  • "Spill Your Guts": "Why all the fuss?/We'll all be dust/And soon we'll spill your guts!"
• The Witch Hunter: "Here There Be Witches" is about a witch hunt, with historically accurate tortures for whomever they decide it is (according to doctrine, the Bible doesn't tell us enough about what witchcraft actually is, therefore there's no such thing as a witch. "Witches" were really just people with some combination of extraneous nipple, pet cat, odd birthmark, and Loners Are Freaks.)
• Whole-Plot Reference:
  • "Look to the Skies" for Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
  • "Aim for the Head" for Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Night of the Living Dead (1968).
  • "The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth" for Them!.
  • "Buried Alive'' for the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
  • "A Gorey Demise'' for Edward Gorey; specifically, "The Gashlycrumb Tinies".
  • "Haunted" for Beetlejuice.
  • "The Greatest Show Unearthed" for Something Wicked This Way Comes.
• Zombie Apocalypse: "Aim for the Head" and "Nearly Departed"

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