Ah, Masters of Horror. Remember those? You should, they were all over the horror press and every magazine you could think of. And why shouldn’t it? It featured some of the best and most prolific horror directors in the genre, they were played in cable TV and the content was filled with gore and nudity. Showtime ran it until 2007 when they decided they didn’t want anything more to do with it, although God knows why since it was no. 2 in the ratings. Some were brilliant, most sucked. This one is of the latter.Two doctors who work at an abortion clinic pick up a pregnant young girl named Dominique (Caitlin Wachs), who is desperate to have an abortion, since she feels her baby is ‘evil’. The two doctors take her to the hospital, but soon they have some problems. First, the woman’s father, Dwayne (Ron Perlman) is none too pleased with what’s going to happen to her daughter and decides to shoot up the place in order to get her back before the abortion starts. Not only that, but the baby might actually be somewhat ‘demonic’, and the real father might show up at any moment.
This episode was directed by John Carpenter, the man who gave us Halloween and The Thing, but you wouldn’t know it based on this. It has none of the touches that gave the director his famous name: for starters the cinematography is very made-for-tv, surprising since Carpenter is one of the most cinematic filmmakers today. And the cast has little to no chemistry, and it’s only Ron Perlman as an insane Christian man who makes the show bearable. Not even the huge demon and tiny baby demon save the film or make it scary, they just look like typical effects. The ending sucks too, I wonder why they decided to give it a happy ending, considering that the story itself is so dark. Yes, there are a lot of political elements that could have made for some interesting viewing, but sadly, the small running time does not allow the story to develop properly and so, it suffers. With better actors and a longer running time, this could have been a better horror film. So here’s to remaking the film, just keep Ron Perlman!
John Carpenters first Masters of Horror episode (Cigarette Burns the one about the movie that makes people crazy) was excellent!
ResponderEliminarToo bad this one sucked, I never got to see most of these..I only saw the Don Coscarelli one (Incident on and Off) the first John Carpenter one and the first Stuart Gordon one (Dreams in the Witchhouse) which was also excellent.
Any other that you might recommend of these Masters of Horror that are actually worth the time of day? Argento directed a couple of them (dont know if they were any good) and I was curious for the one directed by Joe Dante called Homecoming. Ill get to these eventually...