Masters of Horror Season 2

[slayrrr666]

The V Word, and so far, it's still a decent watch but it's the best of the three. The gore is quite nice, the opening, while a bit overlong, is home to some creepy moments, and the ending isn't all that bad. Great to see Ironside back in films.

Not a whole lot else to say. It entertained me for the hour, which is a good thing, but still found several things (the use of vampires in general, the opening walk through which takes far too long and several moments during the middle act aren't that great) but good enough.

1. Dickerson
2. Landis
3. Hooper

[frankenjohn]

slayrrr666 said:

The V Word, and so far, it's still a decent watch but it's the best of the three. The gore is quite nice, the opening, while a bit overlong, is home to some creepy moments, and the ending isn't all that bad. Great to see Ironside back in films.

Not a whole lot else to say. It entertained me for the hour, which is a good thing, but still found several things (the use of vampires in general, the opening walk through which takes far too long and several moments during the middle act aren't that great) but good enough.

1. I think it was Garris, I missed the opening credits.
2. Landis
3. Hooper

It's not Garris, it's Ernest Dickinson. Garris's entry is entitled Valerie on the Stairs.

[slayrrr666]

Thanks, I missed the full credits. I'll make the change.

[Bartwald]

I think Garris wrote the script for this. But Dickerson directed, yeah.

My opinion: the beginning was boring and predictable, and I think I can say that the episode was saved the moment Mr. Ironside left his coffin: great OTT-acting from him, some nice gore from then on and even a short musical moment that seemed to be a tribute to Italian zombie movies of the old. The rest of the film was a constant mixture of the highs and the lows, and the ending left me cold. 5/10

So far:
1. Landis - 7/10
2. Dickerson - 5/10
3. Hooper - 5/10

[slayrrr666]

Episode 4-Sounds Like by Brad Anderson

A man tormented by the ability to hear anything slowly goes crazy.

The only thing positive I can say about this one is that the premise was nice. That's it. This was a heap of crap.
The fact is, this shouldn't have been here for two reasons: where's the horror, and who is Brad Anderson and why is he on the show? There's not one scary scene in here, and the premise is played out the wrong way to illicit fear. Ooh, he can hear things no on else can, scare me with it. Have a series of sudden noises spring up out nowhere. Make him paranoid by what he hears, not a loser family man who thinks he's going crazy. Really wrong. And what has Anderson done to deserve this honor? I don't even know if I've seen any of his films, if he even has mnore than one, and it's(they're) certainly not a master work as I would've known about it.

Suffers from several of the problems that arose during the crap from the first season: an unwarranted director coupled with a non-horror film. 1/10

1. Dickerson
2. Landis
3. Hooper
4. Anderson

[Bartwald]

So finally we disagree strongly in this thread!

I liked Anderson's episode quite a bit: not through and through horror film, sure, but damn creepy nevertheless. The acting was superb, the sound effects unnerving and the ending chilling. The middle part dragged a bit, but then again - I'm not saying it's perfect.

And by the way, Anderson did Session 9 and The Machinist before this, so I wouldn't say he doesn't deserve a Masters of Horror spot.

Now it's:

So far:
1. Landis - 7/10
2. Anderson - 6/10
3. Dickerson - 5/10
4. Hooper - 5/10

[slayrrr666]

Wow, you liked it? That's weird.

I've never heard of any of those films, so my claim still rings true.

[slayrrr666]

Episode 5-Pro-Life by John Carpenter

A woman is taken to an abortion clinic, while her religious zealot father and three brothers try to take over the clinic to prevent her from having it done.

Finally, one that gets the series back on track after the disappointment of a week ago. There's for once a pretty worthy plot here that deserved to be on here, with the tale of a puritanical father wreaking vengeance on an abortion clinic to save his daughter's child. There's tons of potential there and this plays it up to most of the possibilities. The torture scene in the middle is perfectly gruesome, and it wonderfully keeps the gore off-screen which makes it all the more powerful. The ending is a surprisingly fun cheesefest that makes it a nice watch. The entire concept of the devil's child isn't new, but the way it's added to the other elements gives it a new spin.
Again, however, there really isn't any horror here. The fact that the Devil appears in here should've made this a supernatural spookfest, but it's appearance is so ho-hum, almost treated like it was a normal everyday thing to have the Prince of Darkness pop up out of the floor of an abortion clinic and take his demonic off-spring away with him. That really should've been played more for scares, but it isn't and it really doesn't seem all that scary at all. The gore in here is also really unbelievable, mostly being relagated to some CGI bullet hits. Really didn't impress me here.

1. Dickerson
2. Landis
3. Carpenter
4. Hooper
5. Anderson

[slayrrr666]

Episode 6: Pelts by Dario Argento

A cursed placed on sacred animals causes those who come into contact with them to violently kill themself.

An excellent way to get the series back on track! Man, was this one gory for a TV show, as we get a man cutting his skin off on his chest and peeling it off like a t-shirt, a head caved in with an aluminum baseball bat, an arm ripped off at the wrist, and sticking their face into a bear trap and crushing part of the face off, among more. Not only was it brutal, but it was gory and prolonged as well, which is pretty new. There is also a very, very, very welcome return to nudity, which had been absent so far and which is greatly welcomed. The curse is nicely handled, and how it plays out gives some scenes a little suspense. It's also very upbeat and very watchable, which I felt a lot hadn't been so far.
There's only one small downside, which was that the ending was a little too over-the-top compared to the rest of the story. It had been a controlled, tight suspense story with some gore thrown in, yet the ending comes in and is just a little ridiculous to get into.
Otherwise, I really have nothing wrong to say about this one. So far, the best one of the season, but not of the two overall.
9/10

1. Argento.
2. Dickerson
3. Landis
4. Carpenter
5. Hooper
6. Anderson

[slayrrr666]

Episode 7-The Screwfly Connection by Joe Dante

A group of scientists race to stop a deadly virus that turns men hostile and violent towards women.

One of the better entries, if only for the first half hour. the threat of the virus coming closer and closer and then they mystery of how it's coming along are pretty frightening, and the first discovery of where the virus is traveling is pretty nice. The gore is nice and fun, and is nicely kept to a nice minimum. The strip club sequence is really fun for this reason and not the obvious one. The kills throughout are pretty brutal and quite mysoginic.
Once the half-hour mark rolls through, though, it falls apart. Once the sequence where the scientists are testing the effects of the cure is the start. The earlier parts of the film were quite mean-spirited, and then the film starts to get jokey out of nowhere, and it completely drops off and stops being a real horror film. The whole ten minutes is such a pain to sit through that it lowers the film substantially.
For only being a half-way good entry, it's fine for what it is, but the last half-hour is quite painful and stupid.
6.5/10

1. Argento.
2. Dickerson
3. Landis
4. Carpenter
5. Dante
6. Hooper
7. Anderson

[Bartwald]

Saw Carpenter's and Argento's episodes. And I agree that the latter is best so far - but not as good as his Jenifer from Season 1. You're right that they went a bit over the top near the end. And since we're at it - there was no real conclusion here, was there? Great soundtrack, though (Simonetti again!), nice acting (Meat Loaf - who could have thought?), and the bear trap face/off was as gritty as it gets! Oh, yeah - and the nudity was welcome, too. Most of it purely gratuitous, though...

Carpenter's episode had a very good start but then became just a cheesy matinee monster show... which was not unpleasant to watch, mind. I liked the soundtrack and the acting (Perlman!) but the CG effects were overused here.

So far:
1. Argento - 7/10
2. Landis - 7/10
3. Carpenter - 7/10
4. Anderson - 6/10
5. Dickerson - 5/10
6. Hooper - 5/10

[slayrrr666]

Agree totally on both views for both stories. Pelts was great until he showed up at the apartment to giver her the coat, and then it becomes this comically over-the-top piece that sticks out as being so different in tone. And love that Saxon role, always great to see him.
Pro-Life was good, and then there's the CGI shot of the security guard with half his head blown away, which was great, but thben the quick shot afterwards of the guard on the ground with a minor make-up wound on his face and it kinda went south from there. But that torture scene with Perlman and the doctor was aces and kept it up above water.

[Bartwald]

I saw The Screwfly Solution finally. And totally agree that the first 30 minutes was great: gripping, well-paced, well-acted and even quite sexy here and there... But the rest of the movie? Come on, this was a total disappointment! It's 5/10 then 'cause it ultimately left me cold and bored. Still - I liked it better than Dante's previous entry, Homecoming.

So far:
1. Argento - 7/10
2. Landis - 7/10
3. Carpenter - 7/10
4. Anderson - 6/10
5. Dickerson - 5/10
6. Dante - 5/10
7. Hooper - 5/10

[Bartwald]

Watched Garris's "Valerie on the Stairs" and had tons of problems with it. Casting Chris Lloyd and Tony Todd was a nice touch, the nudity was welcome, the setting creepy enough and there actually were several jump scenes in it but - the tension? the plot? the twists? Oh, you can bet I didn't find any of these there.

As usual for Garris it's 50% a fine movie and 50% crap of the WTF?!-kind. And I'm not a fan of uneven horror films.

So far:
1. Argento - 7/10
2. Landis - 7/10
3. Carpenter - 7/10
4. Anderson - 6/10
5. Dickerson - 5/10
6. Garris - 5/10
7. Dante - 5/10
8. Hooper - 5/10

[slayrrr666]

Episode 8-Valerie on the Stairs by Mick Garris

A writer moves into an apartment house and begins to see a strange woman none of the other tenets say exist.

Well, the nudity was nice, the breasts looked good, and that was a really nice ass. The gore was pretty good, especially that heart ripped off. Tons of great blood-letting in that one. The building and the later scenes inside the secret tunnels were pretty creepy and did have some nice suspense built up in them.
The story, though, was a complete rip-off of Dreams in the Witch House. Man comes to strange building to work on [insert art project here] finds a strange woman no one says exists and uses the anonymous help from one of the tenets and his intellect to save her from a [insert horrible creature/society/maniac here] before it's too late. There wasn't anything else to differentiate this one from the first season's episode, and many ideas, scenes and themes are repeated. Also, I didn't really find this one all that scary at all, beyond just looking slightly creepy. And once again, where's the pace that forces a viewer to stay alive watching it? There's nothing in here in the first half hour that is really all that interesting, and the lack of being a scary film really hurts it. A nice concept, but nothing to it.

The gore and nudity makes this one a little better than being disposable, but that's still not all that great a compliment. Really could've been better.
4.5/10

1. Argento.
2. Dickerson
3. Landis
4. Carpenter
5. Dante
6. Hooper
7. Garris
8. Anderson