Masters of Horror

07:

This should have just been about that burly lumber jack deer man as ZK showed in that screenshot. That was like the only good part of the episode. Man, the comedy was fucking dire and those cheesy ass one liners made me physically gag. I was dying about half-way through this as it meandered around.

Yes, we MUST REPEAT HOW SMEXY the deer woman is a bunch of times. We really need to emphasize just how smexy she is. The ending then just kind of fizzles out randomly with nothing really resolved. And I'm just going, that's it?

Garbage.
 
Episode 8:
Cigarette Burns
Directed by John Carpenter

I'll give this episode credit for one thing and that's going all out on the production values. This was the first episode that actually felt like it had a movie budget behind it. Scoring both Udo Kier and Norman Reedus also means that the acting is a way above the poor standard of previous episodes. It's a glossy and nicely produced episode with some great acting. Cody Carpenter puts in a great sound track even if it's a quite derivative of other classic horror scores.

Which makes it all the more of a shame that all the good things are wasted on a derivative script stuffed with some fart sniffing pretentious and dumb dialogue about movies that had my eyes rolling to the back of my head. It seems like every time media wants to mock pretentious art house directors they have them say "traditional narrative is dead!" at some point and this episode drops that line verbatim.

The plot of the episode is a mishmash of The Ring, 8 millimeter and the Ninth Gate, with a good dollop of torture porn gore thrown in because the mid-2000s sucked donkey dick. Norman Reedus plays a former junky with a haunted past now hungry for money to pay back a loan. He's an expert at tracking down rare films and he's hired by Kier's eccentric billionaire that wants Kirby to track down a haunted film that makes people act out violently because it's cursed with angels blood or maybe the director just edited it with subliminal imagery that made people violent because he wanted his film to be a weapon to hurt all the critics that didn't like his previous films. It's not a bad premise, but the way it plays out is dumb. For such a hard to find film Kirby pretty much just has to call the director's widow, which seems like a waste of his skills. Despite the widow being in America Kirby wastes a trip to France to track down people that are probably dead instead of starting in the most obvious place so maybe he's kind of dumb too. In France he does manage to kill a bunch of guys making snuff films because they like totally need truth in their movies maaaaaaan. It's real deep and normies just don't get it. As Kirby's journey progresses he's affected by the haunted film and has visions of cigarette burns that appear in old films to let the projectionist know they had to change the reel. Then the whole thing in a nihilistic explosion of violence and gore.

This was a highly disappointing episode and just further proves that Carpenter lost his mojo post 2000. The episode is slick and well produced which puts it a cut above most of the other bad episodes, but this is still not very good.
 
My my, this is depressing. Not that I'm surprised anymore but still, it's hard to keep your horror enthusiasm just reading the reviews here sometimes. I was actually rooting for you guys regarding the Carpenter episode, too bad it turned out mostly the same.
 
I don't have very much hope for the Takashi Miike episode either honestly. Considering it's apparently infamous for how graphic it is that it was shelved for DVD later which makes me think it's really over the top exploitative torture porn/gorn.

This IS Takashi Miike we're talking about after all who's extremely hit and miss.
 
Schizm said:
My my, this is depressing. Not that I'm surprised anymore but still, it's hard to keep your horror enthusiasm just reading the reviews here sometimes. I was actually rooting for you guys regarding the Carpenter episode, too bad it turned out mostly the same.
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The really bad thing is this season has already went through its most notable directors. Other than Takashi Miike the rest of the episodes are directed by nobodies with poor resumes.

Gens said:
I don't have very much hope for the Takashi Miike episode either honestly. Considering it's apparently infamous for how graphic it is that it was shelved for DVD later which makes me think it's really over the top exploitative torture porn/gorn.

This IS Takashi Miike we're talking about after all who's extremely hit and miss.
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Yeah, he's scattershot, but at least he's not boring. However, this series does seem to have a way to make usually not boring directors dull. Even if it's bad I hope it's memorable in some way beyond the gore.

I am a bit worried about how gory the episode is going to be because there's one episode in the second season that is super gory and that made it on TV.
 
Cigarette Burns:

Imagine this, in the mouth of madness but shit! And Carpenter tries to do a cheap ring thing with the imagery while the soundtrack sounds like a derivative rip-off of Halloween.

Kirby also finds the film so easily by just asking around a couple of times. It's odd no one else got this far when it was this easy. Could this get any dumber? You'd think he'd ask the film maker's widow of all people firstly, but then this would be quite the short movie. It's a slickly produced episode but it doesn't really excuse the pretentious fart sniffing about the influence of cinema.

This was the highest rated episode? I can't believe this. Only a few more episodes left to survive at least.
 
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Gens said:
Cigarette Burns:

Imagine this, in the mouth of madness but shit! And Carpenter tries to do a cheap ring thing with the imagery while the soundtrack sounds like a derivative rip-off of Halloween.

Kirby also finds the film so easily by just asking around a couple of times. It's odd no one else got this far when it was this easy. Could this get any dumber? You'd think he'd ask the film maker's widow of all people firstly, but then this would be quite the short movie. It's a slickly produced episode but it doesn't really excuse the pretentious fart sniffing about the influence of cinema.

This was the highest rated episode? I can't believe this. Only a few more episodes left to survive at least.
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Does that mean you're not sticking for the second season? This is going to be one of the saddest ends to a buddy group ever. At least I hope we'll make it to my favorite memory of the series. The episode Family.
 
ZetsubouKaiji said:
Does that mean you're not sticking for the second season? This is going to be one of the saddest ends to a buddy group ever. At least I hope we'll make it to my favorite memory of the series. The episode Family.
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Alright ZK, just for you. I'll see if it can at least make it that episode.

Just for you, this episode better be goddamn amazing, so fucking awesome it blows my socks off! lol
 
Gens said:
Alright ZK, just for you. I'll see if it can at least make it that episode.

Just for you, this episode better be goddamn amazing, so fucking awesome it blows my socks off! lol
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It's been years since I've seen it. Let's just hope it actually lives up to my memory. @randomredneck is right it has Norm from Cheers in it and it's a pitch black comedy.
 
Schizm said:
Ok, so if there's one episode from this mess that you could actually recommend it would be this one? Pitch black comedy has me intrigued.
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Well, considering how much of a shit show the series has been so far trusting my impression from years ago might not be the best move. I want to believe the episode holds up, but at this point who knows?
 
ZetsubouKaiji said:
Well, considering how much of a shit show the series has been so far trusting my impression from years ago might not be the best move. I want to believe the episode holds up, but at this point who knows?
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Right? I mean I remember thinking "Sick Girl" was awesome. But now I'm wondering if I just thought that cause lesbians and boobs clouded my teenage perception.
 
I'm gonna save myself some pain this weekend.

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Fair Haired Child - 09:

God was this some ol bullshit of the most generic and predictable horror ever without a single bone of suspense in it. When the director is the same man who was behind feardotcom, you know you're in for a massively rough time. He gives the monster some of those stupid annoying ass jerky motions that it's more unintentionally funny to me. You know exactly what I'm talking about here. THAT SHIT IS NEVER GOING TO BE SCARY. A few too many flashbacks as well, that just feel like they're padding out the run time and of course cheap jump scares.

Malone, get the fuck out man. Master of horror my ass, this guy can't direct for shit.
 
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Episode 9:
The Fair Haired Child
Directed by William Malone

I don't have much to say about this. It was an overlong middling episode of Tales From the Crypt. It went for a dreamlike atmosphere and hit cheesy B movie instead. If the run time had been shorter and the monster design been less silly I probably would have had a better time. The only really good thing about this episode is at least it was straightforward and didn't try to be something more complex than a dumb exploitation story. This series has been try to find a more philosophical voice and failing pretty hard due to Mick Garis's shitty writing. A story that was a straight forward tale about grief and loss was a little refreshing. I also enjoy Lori Petty haming it up as evil mom.

Overall, not a great or memorable episode, but still better than a lot of the others for being an unabashed b movie. It felt like more of a throw back to trashy straight to video horror movies of the 80 which is almost always better than what the mid 2000s horror scene and the bulk of this series has been giving us.
 
Sick Girl:

Fuck this show man, FUCK THIS SHOW HARD. GIVE ME A FUCKING GOOD EPISODE FOR ONCE INSTEAD OF A BORING SLOG. YOU DO NOT ROMANCE GOOD. YOU HEAR ME SHOW? CUT THIS SHIT OUT.

It is so annoying how meandering this was, very little horror at all and it takes forever to get to the point with little pay off. I didn't fucking care about the relationship at the center of this story they spend so much time on. It was like watching a mop and bucket getting along. It also doesn't really make sense either that you send this deadly bug, but then you send an apology letter. What the hell kind of half-assed bullshit apology is that?

Look, I'm the biggest scaredy cat towards insects but this couldn't even elicit anything but a yawn. How sad is that? I'm just going to re-watch the Fly to wash the awful taste out of my mouth after this episode. Some actually good bug horror shit.
 
Oh, it gets worse. I've been reading up on this show. No one knew if they would even get a second season, so the directors stuffed season 1 with all their best stuff. Yes, you heard right. This is the good stuff from this show according to the directors. Apparently season 2 isn't even bad in a good way.
 
Episode 10:
Sick Girl
Directed by Lucky McKee

This episode was a last minute addition to the series after George Romero backed out of the series. Whatever you think about this episode a 2006 episode from Romero would have been awful. The guy hadn't made anything worth watching since Day of the Dead. That being said for a show titled Masters of Horror the fill in for a legend like Romero ends up being a guy that's only made one indie horror film and has no other strong connections to the genre otherwise. Lucky McKee's only contribution to the genre is a film called May. May is a solid dark comedy about how difficult it is for awkward people to make connections and it ends up being an interesting play on Frankenstein. It's not a film that's going to appeal to the typical horror crowd, but it is a decent dark comedy for indie horror comedy fans looking for something with a bit of thematic complexity. It's not the best film, but something for one of those afternoons when you're looking for something slightly different.

McKee plays with some of the same themes as May in this episode and while it doesn't totally work it's still one of the better episodes in I've watched so far. Like Fair Haired Child this episode plays like an extended episode of Tales from the Crypt, but unlike the previous episode Sick Girl is very aware of its camp and plays it up for comedic effect. The best part of the episode is the absolutely dorky performance by Angela Bettis as Ida Tetter. She's clearly hamming it up and playing on all the nerd stereotypes.

Unfortunately the rest of the limited cast is pretty damn bad. Ida's romantic counterpart is played by a soft core porn actress that some baffling boring porn parodies in early 2000s. She doesn't have much acting ability and when she's not playing a mousy nerd she sucks at everything else. She's not menacing or funny and when the episode shifts over into body horror in the last third she's just kind of going along with the ride. However, the absolute worst character was Ida's coworker as the douche bro that struck up a relationship with a tragic lesbian despite telling her that he wanted to masturbate to her lesbian adventures in the shower. That's not funny, it's just gross.

The plot of the episode is simple enough with Ida an obsessed bug loving entomologist that receives a strange specimen from an unknown source. It turns out the bug has rather insidious origins and some very strange abilities. At the same time Ida meets a potential romantic partner that won't reject her for her weird love of bugs. Romance blossoms a bit too quickly and then everything goes to shit when the evil demon bug brings out the worst in Ida's new romantic partner. The whole thing is a rather on the nose metaphor for rushing into a relationship without really knowing the other person.

The central metaphor really comes second to the camp and humor with the couple going through an adorkable compressed courting period that of course involves the soft core porn star pulling out her tits in a drawn out sex scene,but the rest of the courtship is at least amusing. For most of the episode I wanted to give it props for portraying a toxic lesbian relationship without emphasizing the gay aspect, but then the episode had to ruin that by having the landlord turn out to be a complete homophobe for no other reason than to push the plot along. It's after this point where homophobia becomes a major plot point and the episode loses focus with the last two scenes being pretty damn cheesy and terrible.

Despite be criticizing this episode a lot I enjoyed the majority of it. It's campy, dumb and reminds me of a horror exploitation movie from the 80s with an aesthetic straight from the 90s and a soundtrack from an early 2000s hipster indie flick. It's the kind of thing I imagine Frank Henenlotter would have made if he'd become unstuck in time. It doesn't have the frank absurd fun of something like Frankenhooker or Basket Case, but it's got a bit more thematic complexity than those films even if it stumbles on dealing with lgbt issues. It was probably my second favorite episode behind Homecoming so far.
 
Episode 11:
Pick Me Up
Directed by Larry Cohen

Well, holy shit that was fucking fantastic. A full on B movie premise executed by a veteran writer/director. Strange that we're watching this now because Larry Cohen passed away a little less than a month ago. He's had a history of writing and directing for TV since the early sixties. Most of it wasn't horror, but he has been involved with his fair share of B movie schlock and he's just the kind of director a tongue in cheek episode like this needed.

The premise for the episode is terrifically goofy. Two serial killers with opposite approaches come into conflict over territory and they leave a trail of unmemorable nobodies in their wake as they have charismatic clashes of goofy dialogue. The episode nominally stars Fairuza Balk as the survivor girl, but I don't even remember the characters name and don't care about her at all. She's just something for the two serial killers to clash over. Also, the serial killers are named Wheeler and Walker because one drives a truck and the other walks, and that just puts a fuckin' goofy smile on my face.

Of the two killers redneck Hannibal Lecter Wheeler was by far my favorite. He had a silly accent and his cadence reminded me of a mix between William Shatner and Christopher Walken. He liked to psychologically fuck with his victims before he killed them. It's a lot more interesting than Walker more sadistic approach. The two make for a pretty funny duo when they're together, though.

There's not a ton else to say about the episode without spoiling the whole thing. There's no deeper themes or meaning here. It's just a fun story with one really entertaining character. The humor is dark and the dialogue is suitably clever with just enough metahumor to let the audience know that it is in on the joke.

This is probably my favorite episode. It's also an episode I remember pretty vividly from the first time I watched the series. I liked it back then and I liked it now.
 
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