Until this month, I had seen 20 of the 26 episodes that were made over two seasons of the show from 2005 to 2007. I never managed to watch all of the broadcast episodes and set out to finish the series for the sake of completion. Perhaps I was too focussed on the "must see" episodes by the filmmakers I most revered or put off by some of the weaker entries. Having finally got through the whole set of episodes and with 20/20 hindsight I can see how the show went from being a major event to what some saw as a squandered opportunity.
I still remember the excitement I felt about the show when it was announced in 2005. At this point I was probably at the peak of my Horror fandom. Horror seemed alive and dangerous again after the genre had fallen out of favour with mainstream audiences in the early 1990s. There were exceptions of course, but while they didn't hide their gruesome side some of the more notable crowd-pullers of this time had been marketed with a classier sheen and big stars. The Silence of the Lambs was presented to audiences as a superior thriller and Bram Stoker's Dracula (tagline: "Love Never Dies") played up its gothic romance. Generally speaking it was a rather dormant stage in the genre's evolution. This was marked by diminishing box office clout and franchise fatigue, which was fairly evident in titles like Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. That all changed when 1996's Scream became a phenomenon that would lead to a significant revival of interest in scary movies and this was further cemented by two runaway hits in 1999 - The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project. Both of these enjoyed a cultural and commerical impact that confounded even the wildest expectations. At the start of the millennium, films like Ginger Snaps and May convinced me that Horror was once again entering an exciting phase. Working in a video store at the time I found a growing number of low budget, foreign and independent genre titles that grabbed my attention. I attended Frightfest screenings quite reguarly and showings of Freddy vs. Jason and Seed of Chucky from the same period were some of the best cinemagoing experiences I had at that time. The DVD market was unearthing obscure treasures as well as giving us better quality versions of certain classics and in the UK censorship on gory titles had eased up considerably since the 1990s.
The early years of the new century now looks like a thriving period in the genre's history. Asian imports were becoming more widely available to western audiences and the J-Horror boom churned out multiple gems. The "Splat Pack", which included the likes of Rob Zombie, James Wan, Greg McLean, Alexandre Aja and Eli Roth, was emerging and bought us a new generation of Horror auteurs. There was also "New French Extremity" films like Trouble Every Day, In My Skin and High Tension. A new wave of zombie films would follow on from the success of 28 Days Later... and Shaun of the Dead. Remakes of classics were in full swing, with new versions of House of Wax, Willard, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dawn of the Dead turning out better than expected. 2005 marked the return of George A. Romero after a long absence with Land of the Dead. We also got Tobe Hooper's last great flurry of activity with Toolbox Murders, Mortuary and his two episodes of 'Masters of Horror' all coming out over the space of a couple of years. Perhaps it was the timing of all this or a kind of nostalgia at work but I've not really felt that same buzz in the years since where Horror is concerned.
Having learned about several leading Horror directors taking part in a new series that was designed to give them a free reign over their respective episodes I was ecstatic to say the least. In addition to the filmmakers involved it would feature adaptations of stories by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, H.P. Lovecraft, Clive Barker, Richard Matheson, James Tiptree Jr., Koji Suzuki, and F. Paul Wilson. As a Horror fan it felt like a dream come true. I even made a special trip to Brighton to see a UK premiere screening of Dario Argento's first episode, Jenifer, at the Duke of York's Picturehouse in 2005. I still have the standalone DVD releases by Anchor Bay of Cigarette Burns and Dreams in the Witch House. Plans changed in the UK and each series was broken up in to 2 separate box sets with 6 or 7 episodes each instead of individual releases for each title.
There was a sort of precedent for this kind of project. In the past films such as Spirits of the Dead and Two Evil Eyes were Horror anthologies inspired by Poe stories that emphasised the directors of the different segments. Twilight Zone: The Movie had paid tribute to the legendary TV show with four segments made by hotshot directors of the time (including two future "Masters" - John Landis and Joe Dante). The most impressive example I know of filmmakers being showcased on televsion was a series made in France in the 1990s. 'Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge' was a set of 60 minute films about adolescence that gave us outstanding works by the likes of Chantal Akerman, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas and Andre Techine.
Among the participants, Don Coscarelli and Stuart Gordon made the most of the opportunity presented by the series, seeing it as a perfect chance to film previously unrealised projects. Dreams in the Witch House would end up being the last of five Lovecraft adaptations by Stuart Gordon. Coscarelli talks about the experience of making Incident On and Off a Mountain Road in his autobiography 'True Indie' and how the series was the ideal form for a relatively simple tale by Joe R. Lansdale that wasn't exactly feature length material. I wish that more episodes had been developed along the same lines. Too many episodes felt like random assignments rather than material the directors were engaged with but a personal stamp was sometimes in evidence. Cigarette Burns can be seen as a companion piece to John Carpenter's 1994 film In the Mouth of Madness* (many noted the similarities between the two) while Pro-Life** revisits his beloved siege scenario from earlier films like Assault on Precinct 13, Prince of Darkness and Ghosts of Mars. Although by no means the first person to bring humour to macabre fare, Deer Woman and Family continued the unique mixture of comedy and Horror that John Landis had developed in An American Werewolf in London, Something Scary and Innocent Blood. Both were very much of a piece with his earlier work and are among his better latter day efforts.
Several long term star-director collaborators were reunited for the show - Angela Bettis and Lucky McKee (Sick Girl), Robert Englund and Tobe Hooper (Dance of the Dead), Michael Moriarty and Larry Cohen (Pick Me Up), Robert Picardo and Joe Dante (Homecoming), Jeffrey Combs and Stuart Gordon (The Black Cat). It was also something of an opportunity for father and son bonding - Richard Christian Matheson did the screenplay for Dance of the Dead, which was based on a short story by his father, Max Landis co-wrote John Landis's first episode, while Cody Carpenter provided the music for both of his father's entries in the series. The show was designed as an auteurist project giving filmmakers creative control in television, a medium where writers, producers and showrunners are the more dominant figures. In many ways, the true auteur of the series was show creator Mick Garris, who penned 4 episodes (two of which he directed) and who already had a well established history in television with his miniseries adaptations of Stephen King's The Stand and The Shining.
Unfortunately, certain names that would have been a perfect fit for the show's premise didn't get involved. At different stages early on both George Romero*** and Roger Corman were set to direct Haeckel's Tale before John McNaughton finally took the helm. While not shy of his genre association, David Cronenberg ushered in another phase of his career in 2005 with A History of Violence, one that was very much a step away from the Horror fare that made his name. In a 2005 interview John Landis stated that Sam Raimi and Hideo Nakata were both set to do an episode****, although neither were ultimately involved with the series and may have had to drop out due to other projects and commitments. It's tempting to think of other names who might have been called on had the series fared better. I would loved to have seen episodes by the likes of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Eric Red, William Lustig, Mary Lambert, Wes Craven, Ronny Yu and Bernard Rose, all of whom have the credits to justify the "Master" label.
The names attached to the series were its drawing card but also in some ways a hindrance.
The show was sold to audiences on the directors involved. By proudly boasting of exciting new works from the makers of such beloved titles as Halloween, Suspiria, Phantasm, Poltergeist and Re-Animator it may have created unrealistic expectations. These were after all fairly low budget one hour TV movies shot in roughy 10 days. The episodes have a nice variety in tone and story but many look and feel too similar stylistically, in part due to the same crews and locations being employed on several episodes.
The biggest letdowns for me were the two Argento episodes (Jenifer and Pelts) and Carpenter's Pro-Life, which is perhaps the worst film of his career. The satire of Peter Medak's The Washingtonians and Joe Dante's Homecoming felt clumsy and far too heavy-handed, very much dating the show to the George W. Bush/Iraq invasion era in which they were made. Several directors had been involved with struggles with censorship in the past, which may have indirectly caused them to overindulge here. The gore felt overdone in several instances, as though they felt a need to compete with the emerging torture porn craze of Saw, Hostel et al. and push the envelope given the lack of restrictions. A few trims were made to Jenifer before it was screened but Takashi Miike's episode Imprint evidently crossed a line as Showtime chose not to broadcast the episode in the US. Some of the younger talent fared well, with Lucky McKee and Brad Anderson more than holding their own against the veterans with Sick Girl and Sounds Like respectively. Ernest Dickerson managed to bring some of his trademark visual flair to The V Word and William Malone's Fair-Haired Child is arguably his best work to date.
Fewer prestigous names were attached to the second season, although some returned for a second outing. The poor reception of the later episodes may have led to the show being cancelled and later revived as 'Fear Itself' on NBC in 2008, which no longer had Mick Garris involved. I've only seen one episode of 'Fear Itself' (Stuart Gordon's final directorial outing Eater) so that series may be a viewing project for another time perhaps.
Several of the talents showcased were near the end of their careers or at least edging towards long inactive spells. Pick Me Up would be Larry Cohen's swansong in the director's chair. Stuart Gordon's two episodes were among his final works, sadly no longer making films after 2008. Tobe Hooper would make just one more feature before his death in 2017. Joe Dante has mainly worked in television or anthology shorts ever since. Besides 2010's The Ward John Carpenter has showed no signs of returning to directing features and Dario Argento's workrate has slowed down considerably over the past decade or so. If the show wasn't exactly a defining moment for many of them it was a nice way to recognise their earlier achievements, which had enriched the genre immeasurably.
The show had its share of disappointments but seen from a distance advanced hype and heightened expectations may have caused the series as a whole to be judged too harshly. Even the worst episodes are watchable and viewers accustomed to the Horror anthology format will feel very much at home with its highs and lows. I have a special fondness for Cigarette Burns, which begat the Willowy Being moniker for this blog. Along with Ghosts of Mars it's probably the Carpenter film that I revisit most frequently.
It was ahead of the curb in some ways with many established filmmakers (including Steven Soderbergh, Jane Campion and Park Chan-wook) choosing to work in television in the years since, and finding greater freedom there than in feature filmmaking. The show came along at the perfect time for me and I enjoyed it more as an event and for its individual highlights than I did for its overall quality. By my count, the show gave us at least 5 titles that were among the decade's finest Horror films and for that alone it was a worthwhile undertaking.
Footnotes:
*The mysterious film director Hans Backovic character feels reminiscent of the missing Horror novelist Sutter Crane in In the Mouth of Madness. For me, Cigarette Burns is more of a hybrid of Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate (1999) and Gore Verbinski's US remake of The Ring from 2002.
**There's a deliberate callback in Pro-Life to the infamous spider-head sequence from The Thing. It: Chapter Two (2019) also explicitly lifts from this sequence. Both instances seemed like ill-judged homages to me.
***Romero's involvement is inferred in the above 2005 trailer video clip when it mentions Night of the Living Dead among the credits of the "Masters" involved)
