Recap / Creepshow S 1 E 6 The Man In The Suitcase

Creep: This next creepy carry-on has a lot of baggage - and it's a great reminder to be careful what you, ahem, slash for! Hahahahaha!

The Man in the Suitcase

Directed By: David Bruckner
Written By: Christopher Buehlman

Justin (Will Kidrachuck) is a college student who has just returned from a trip back home to ask his dad for money, which didn't go well. At the airport, he grabs a mysterious black suitcase that he believes to be his luggage, then heads back to his dorm house to unwind. After spending a good amount of time watching porn, snacking on leftovers, and getting high, Justin begins to hear muffled sounds from his suitcase. When he opens the suitcase to investigate what the trouble might be, he finds something particularly strange inside it: a Middle-Eastern man (Ravi Naidu) who has been painfully and impossibly contorted inside. The man tells the scared Justin that he ended up this way after "offending someone [he] ought not have offended". He also refuses Justin's attempts to get him to a hospital, claiming that not only can no Western hospital help him, but the people who did this to him will find him. While trying to help the man with his predicament, Justin watches him fire a gold coin out of his mouth. The man explains that the gold coins are a reaction to pain; a side effect of an "unfortunate condition". That night, Justin falls asleep, and has a nightmare where he himself is trapped in a suitcase before being shot dead by a trio of men in black.

The next day, Justin takes the coin to a pawnbroker (Big Boi), who recognizes it as a historical antique. Justin also notifies his roommate Alex (Ian Gregg) of the discovery, who chastises him for not negotiating with the broker for a higher price. Returning to the house, Justin's ex-girlfriend Carla (Madison Bailey) nervously confronts Justin for supposedly being a murderer, having seen the man's hand coming out of the suitcase while getting her stuff. When Justin answers her concerns by introducing them to the man, they are initially confused and frightened, but they soon become captivated by his gold producing abilities, especially since he produces more gold with the more pain he is put through. They persuade Justin into agreeing to hold onto the man for 48 hours before letting him go.

With that, the trio proceed to mercilessly torture the man to produce a treasure trove of coins, which they exchange for money to spend on various luxuries. Eventually, Justin has enough of the torture and tries to call the police, but Carla smashes his phone with a monkey wrench and nearly bludgeons him to death with it, watching as he falls down the stairs and is rendered unconscious. As Carla and Alex prepare to hit one last jackpot before they flee somewhere, the man cryptically chastises them for being so wicked. In a blast of purple smoke, the man reveals himself to be a monstrous Djinn. As punishment for their greed, the Djinn presents Alex and Carla with a pair of matching suitcases.

Meanwhile, Justin is revealed to have survived his injuries and is currently recovering in a hospital. He glances at a vase full of flowers next to him. The vase also has a note inside, apparently written by the Djinn, who thanks Justin for his attempts to help him and promises his assistance whenever Justin might need it. Back at the airport, the Djinn, who has returned to human form and is also revealed to be a loyal customer of the airline, is seen boarding a flight to Istanbul as he has his bags checked. Alex and Carla, trapped inside the bags, scream futilely to be let out as they are loaded onto the conveyor belt.

This episode contains examples of:

• Agony of the Feet: The Djinn's pain, and coughing up coins, first occurs when someone tries pulling out his foot.
• And I Must Scream: Alex and Carla end up being forcibly trapped in suitcases as punishment for their greed. The episode's ending narration says that while their future is uncertain at this time, it will be no less unpleasant.
• Big "NO!": The Djinn utters a couple of them when Justin prepares to take him to a hospital, then back to the airport.
• Big "YES!": The Djinn also utters a few of these as he prepares to reveal his true self and punish Alex and Carla.
• Bookends: The story begins with Justin having just got off a flight at the airport, and ends with the Djinn checking into a flight at the same airport.
• The Cameo: Big Boi plays the pawnbroker who gives Justin money for the first coin he receives. He also provides a song for one of the montage scenes.
• Catapult Nightmare: Justin has a nightmare in which his bed turns into a suitcase that slams shut on him. All he can do is struggle before a trio of men in black shoot him repeatedly.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Justin, Alex, and Carla put the man through absolute agony to get him to produce a fortune of gold coins. Among other things, they proceed to put his fingers in a mousetrap, rip out his teeth, and electrocute him with a car battery.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: It's clear to see that Justin could've spared himself the events of the episode if he had just waited another minute for his actual luggage to come off the carousel. Of course, that would mean not finding a solution to his problems, or at least having to complain to someone when he saw the wreckage that it became.
• Creature of Habit: The Djinn regularly goes after people who seek easy riches to punish them for their greed. The attendant who takes his ticket at the airport exchanges a smile with him that establishes how he's done this for years, and how the airport allows him to do so because he's a loyal customer, giving them plenty of business.
• The Dog Bites Back: Alex attempts to persuade Justin into continuing the man's torture by invoking one of these moments, telling Justin that he can buy his father's business and force the man to work for him. It backfires when Justin is too pure-hearted to allow such a thing.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After spending the whole episode as a bong-breathing loser who is easily browbeaten by his so-called friends, Justin discovers that the Djinn, as thanks for his attempts to help him, promises to come to his aid whenever he thinks of him, establishing that his problems with both money and school are soon to be resolved.
• Electric Torture: The last form of torture that the trio perform on the man involves shocking him with a car battery.
• Everyone Lives: This is the first episode of the series to have all the main characters live, albeit with the hero sustaining painful injuries and the villains enduring a horrific, self-inflicted punishment. The only death in the episode is revealed to be a nightmare that Justin has.
• Exact Words: Whenever he is asked where he found extremely valuable gold coins, Justin answers that he "found it in some luggage".
• Extreme Doormat: Alex notes that Justin has a tendency to let others walk all over him, including Carla. Ironically, when Justin does put his foot down on upholding their end of the deal, Carla nearly kills him for doing so.
• Fatal Flaw: Alex and Carla's greed. They just had to give the Djinn one last zap before they planned to run off, even when they had more than enough money to never work again.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Justin watches a cartoon about a man who finds a genie in a bottle. He also watches a brief snippet of an old movie that features man counting stacks of money.
  • Justin and Alex have lunch from a Middle East-themed fast food joint called "Ali Baba Burger", hinting at the reveal of the Djinn.
  • During their meeting, Alex nonchalantly tells Justin that Carla is "something", hinting at their future affair.
  • On his drive back to the house, Justin gets a text from Carla telling him that she's coming by the house tomorrow to pick up her stuff. She makes good on this promise the next day, when she discovers the man in the suitcase and his gold producing abilities.
• Gold Digger: Carla becomes one of these when the gold starts piling up. She begins fooling around with both Justin and Alex behind each other's backs, not giving a damn about either one of their feelings so much as they keep the money rolling in.
• Gold Fever: Carla and Alex quickly grow addicted to getting all the gold coins they can get their hands on, no matter how long they have to torture the man who produces them to do so.
• Good Is Not Nice: The Djinn presents himself as helpful and polite when he's in human form, but in his natural form, he's a punisher of the greedy by way of stuffing them in magic suitcases.
• Gotta Pass the Class: To further establish him as a struggling young man, Justin is briefly revealed to be failing school. This isn't given much focus after he discovers the man in the suitcase.
• Greed: Alex and Carla's driving motivations through the story.
• Hate Sink: Alex. From his very first appearance, all he's concerned about is money. He has no problems torturing the man in the suitcase to get more, and when Justin informs him that there's a time when people need to ask themselves what they want to be, he says right to Justin's face that he wants to be rich, not caring about how what he's doing is wrong.
• Ironic Hell: Alex and Carla, after torturing the titular man in the suitcase for the gold he produces, are trapped in suitcases of their own.
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople): Near the end, Alex, listing a number of places he and Carla can flee to, accidentally refers to Istanbul as Constantinople. The Djinn, despite (falsely) being in unbelievable pain, manages to correct him.
• Jackass Genie: While he's kindly and polite in his human form, the Djinn's true form is revealed to be a punisher of those who suffer from excessive greed.
• Jerkass: Carla didn't initially seem too unlikable during her first appearances, merely voicing her (entirely justified) concern with Justin's lack of motivation to plan their future together. After meeting the man in the suitcase and seeing him produce gold, she quickly degrades into a Gold Digger who sleeps with both Alex and Justin behind each other's backs. It doesn't help that she gets so money-drunk that she nearly bludgeons her ex-boyfriend to death with a monkey wrench.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Despite how loathsome Alex and Carla turn out to be, they do raise valid points about Justin's status as a loser with very little money and failing grades, and how he needs to be more assertive with his life.
• Karmic Jackpot: For actually trying to help the Djinn and stop Alex and Carla from "torturing" him, Justin finds a letter by the entity in question in the hospital, telling him that he can think of him whenever he wants and he'll be there, providing an easy solution to his problems with money and school.
• Kick the Dog: Or rather, "kick the suitcase", since that's exactly what Alex does to the poor Djinn. Down the stairs, no less. It only ramps up from there.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Alex and Carla are painfully trapped in suitcases of their own for almost killing Justin.
• Lazy Bum: Justin has definite shades of this, spending more time snacking on fast food and getting high than studying or getting a job.
• Literal Metaphor: Whenever the Djinn experiences pain, he literally "coughs up cash".
• Loser Protagonist: Justin is a stoner who is failing school, low on cash, isn't on good terms with his dad, ends up losing his girlfriend, and is generally treated like a doormat by his roommate and friends. That quickly changes once he meets the man in the suitcase.
• The Men in Black: Three of them show up in Justin's nightmare, shooting him when he's trapped in a suitcase of his own.
• Money Fetish: Alex and Carla succumb to one of these, big time. One scene even has the former eating coins off the latter's stomach during an intimate moment.
• Mouse Trap: The trio put the man's fingers in one and snap it to get him to cough up coins.
• Nice Guy: While he's trapped in the suitcase, the Djinn presents himself as a courteous and helpful individual, even when he's being tortured. He quickly turns vicious when Carla and Alex brutally injure Justin.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: It's pretty clear that the man is a Djinn in disguise, but none of the characters ever really refer to him as such.
• Oh, Crap!: Justin has one when the voice coming from his suitcase, whom he believes is Alex pranking him, tells him "There is no Alex here."
• Our Genies Are Different: The Djinn isn't the kind that grants wishes to whoever finds him, but rather one who preys on people willing to torture him in the name of greed so he can bestow a similar punishment upon them.
• Product Placement: Justin seems to be a fan of Fangoria. His wall is covered with Fangoria stickers, and an issue of the magazine (signed by director David Bruckner) is seen on his nightstand.
• Properly Paranoid: Justin tells Alex and Carla that he feels that something bad will happen if the man is kept prisoner for too long. He proves to be partially right when the man reveals his true self and punishes the latter two, after they nearly kill Justin for trying to stop their racket.
• Satchel Switcheroo: Justin brings the Djinn to his house by mistaking the suitcase he is stuck inside for luggage. When he leaves the airport, his actual mysteriously-wrecked luggage appears on the belt.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Alex and Carla gain this mindset once they gradually become filthy rich. They attempt to pressure Justin into going along with them after their 48 hours are over by telling him that he can buy his dream car, a vacation home, and his father's business, forcing the man to work for him instead.
• Secret Test of Character: The Djinn is revealed to have been giving one to Justin, Alex, and Carla. Justin, who wanted to try and help him out of the suitcase, is spared, and even given a note indicating that the Djinn will be willing to help anytime he needs. Alex and Carla, who mercilessly tortured him for gold, end up failing and are locked into suitcases of their own.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: When Justin offers to take the man to the hospital, the man says that Western medicine can't help him with his condition. Justin tries to persuade him that Western hospitals can do pretty much anything, and in the process... gets off track.
  Justin: Are you kidding? Uh- They c- they can do anything, I mean, there's this kid at my school who wrecked his motorcycle, he lost his legs, and so now he uses these pogo stick things that they made for him, and now he's, like, good at basketball, which is WEIRD because he sucked before. And now he's some sort of unstoppable cyborg, which, I think is going to his head, really, because now he's mopping up the court with everybody and talking smack about it around with everyone, but not in a funny way.
  Man: (interrupting) Excuse me, please! I... do not mean to interrupt but, I am in a great degree of pain, and I cannot give your schoolyard drama the attention I am certain that it deserves.
• Seven Minute Lull: As detailed above, when he learns about how the man can't be helped out of his dilemma by a Western hospital, Justin tells him that said hospitals can do anything, and in the process, gets sidetracked by delivering a long-winded story about a kid who got in a motorcycle accident and had his legs replaced with pogo sticks, and about how he used them to become good at basketball.
• Shapeshifter Baggage: Clever wordplay aside, the Djinn's true self appears gigantic, nearly touching the ceiling of Justin's bedroom, despite the fact that he was disguised as an average size human man (who was admittedly twisted in ways not humanly possible).
• Shopping Montage: A partial one occurs as the trio torture the Djinn, with them getting new clothes, paying the rent, and indulging other assorted luxuries.
• Shout-Out:
  • A flag from Tropical Cop Tales can be seen hanging on the wall of Justin's bedroom.
  • The pawnbroker's office contains what appear to be crystal skulls around it. His desk also has a cup that resembles the Holy Grail on it, and a placard that reads "Everyday I'm Hustlin'."
  • Alex claims that Justin saying he found "$500 gold pieces" sounds like "some Dungeons & Dragons shit".
  Alex: What'd you do, roll a dwarf?
• Stealth Pun: Justin briefly watches scenes from a real-life porno called A Touch of Genie.
• The Stoner: Justin is a stoner in every sense of the word. He has no cares, no goals, and no drive to do anything in life other than lounge on his couch, watch TV, snack on fast food, and get high. This total lack of ambition is what causes Carla to break up with him.
• Stopped Caring: Carla thinks that this has happened to Justin, believing that he wouldn't care if he was expelled tomorrow.
• Supernatural Aid: According to the airport's ticket-taker, the Djinn is a highly loyal customer of the airline, and they allow him to make numerous trips around the world with greedy people magically trapped in suitcases because he brings them a plethora of good business.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: The Djinn's true form gives him bright, shining, golden eyes.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: Upon hearing screaming from the Djinn's suitcases, the airport staff don't bother calling security. This is because they are implied to be in cahoots with him, and regularly allow him to do this because he's one of their most loyal customers.
• Time-Passes Montage: Justin spends the night after returning from the airport watching TV, smoking a bong, and snacking on leftover fast food. The suitcase containing the Djinn flashes throughout his mind during the montage.
• Token Good Teammate: Between the trio, Justin is the most pure-hearted. Even when given an endless supply of gold coins, he uses the money he gets from them for more mundane things like paying his rent.
• The Tooth Hurts: The man has his teeth ripped out during his torture.
• Two-Timing with the Bestie: After finding out about the titular man's ability to uncontrollably produce gold while he's in pain, Justin's ex-girlfriend quickly comes back to him. And she just as quickly begins sleeping with his roommate behind his back.
• Visual Pun: When it's made clear that the Djinn is able to produce gold coins from his mouth, one can say that he's able to "cough up cash".
• Wrench Whack: Carla nearly kills Justin by bashing him in the head with a monkey wrench.

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