Horror fiction and horror movies have fallen on hard times in recent years. In the bookstores it's all Stephen King and Dean Koontz who are basically writing science fiction and fantasy masquerading as horror. In the movies it's still mostly slasher films, remakes and Japanese imports. Some of the entries in both mediums are still very good, but originality and variety are certainly lacking.
Things are going quite a bit better on television. On the broadcast networks there's the excellent Medium, the enjoyable and quirky Ghost Whisperer and Supernatural which started off somewhat weak, but is developing into something well worth watching. And now on Showtime there's Masters of Horror which has signed up notable horror directors and is putting them to work doing hour-long mini-movies with good actors and fairly high production values, and a new stand-alone episode every week.
The format is somewhat reminscent of the Amazing Stories series from some years ago, a much higher-end alternative to cable series like the new version of The Outer Limits, which had limited budgets and tended to rehash old ideas far too much. The emphasis in Masters of Horror is on originality, using stories from good writers and some of the best directors to produce superior movie-quality horror on the small screen.
Thus far 11 episodes have aired on a once weekly schedule, and with few exceptions they're better than most of what's on pay or commercial TV. An episode premieres every Sunday at 9 and is then repeated several times that weekend and several times the next weekend as well, so you can always catch one you missed. I assume they will eventually also rerun episodes in sequence as they have done with other excellent series like Weeds and Sleeper Cell, and ultimately release them on DVD for those sad souls who don't have cable. When that happens you might find these short reviews of the episodes helpful in figuring out which ones to watch and which to skip.
Incident On and Off a Mountain Road
Having now watched a double-handful of these mini-movies I think that this is one of the weakest ones. Despite being based on a Joe Lansdale short story and directed by Don Coscarelli, the director of the clever and amusing Bubba Hotep, this entry in the series is neither amusing nor is it terribly original. This somewhat predictable tale of a serial killer versus a survivalist borrows heavily from the tradition of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes and although Bree Turner does a good job as the heroine and it features horror veteran Angus Scrimm (the tall man from Phantasm), it's still just fancied up slasher fare and lacks the depth and inventiveness of some of the other entries. 7/10.
Dreams in the Witch-House
It's really great to see Stuart Gordon return to working with Lovecraft in this fairly liberal adaptation of the classic short story. The episode is strong on surrealism and sheer evil craziness, but it could be more faithful to the original story, which relied more on nameless dread than freakish villains. Gordon's reliance on the 'freakshow factor' detracts from the stronger supernatural underpinnings of the story. It's still well worth watching, but it's more Gordon than it is Lovecraft. It also features some excellent music by the incredibly underrated Richard Band. 8/10.
Article comments
1 - Chris Beaumont
Showtime announced that they will not be airing the Miike episode. It will make its debut on DVD next Fall.
2 - Dave Nalle
Wow, when did they make that announcement? Any idea what they''re going to air instead? Considering the extreme nature of some of the episodes they've already aired I can't imagine that it's just the level of violence.
Dave