Masters of Horror: Difference between revisions

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The series ran for two seasons on Showtime. ''[[Fear Itself (TV series)|Fear Itself]]'', another [[Genre Anthology]] in the same format and created by the same team, premiered on [[NBC]] in 2008, and was cancelled after its first season. Another similar show called ''Masters of Science Fiction'' (again from the same creators) premiered on ABC in 2007, but only ran six episodes before being cancelled. ''Masters of Italian Horror'' is also in the works, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|focusing solely on Italian directors]]. IDW Publishing is also adapting several of the episodes as comic books.

* [[Shout-Out]]: [[The Shining|The witch acquires the image of an attractive naked woman to seduce the protagonist, and reveals her true old, hideous image when she has done it while laughing her ass off]]. Also, the [[Ominous Latin Chanting]] heard during this scene contains the line [[Cthulhu Mythos|"Iah! Iah!"]]

* [[Tome of Eldritch Lore]]: The Necronomicon.

 

 

* [[Our Zombies Are Different]]: In this case, only vaguely reanimated corpses.

* [[Phlebotinum Dependence]]: The Doom Room's zombie dancers need to be regularly injected with fresh blood in order to "dance", preferably from older people who are unlikely to have ever done drugs or have an STD. Additionally, the MC keeps a private stash of blood [[I Do Not Drink Wine|for his own purposes.]]

* [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]]

* [[The Unfavorite]]: Anna.

 

 

Directed by [[Dario Argento]] and based on a comic by Bruce Jones and Bernie Wrightson. While parked with his partner for a different assignment, Detective Frank Spivey (Steven Weber) shoots a deranged homeless man as he is attempting to kill a gorgeous, but hideously disfigured and apparently mentally retarded woman, Jenifer (Carrie Fleming). When informed that she will be interned in a mental asylum, Frank takes pity of Jenifer and brings her home instead, something that his family doesn't take very well. [[It Got Worse|It only gets worse after that]], as Frank obsesses with Jenifer's body while she begins to show her true colors.

 

* [[Boy Meets Ghoul]]: A quite brutal [[Deconstruction]]. {{spoiler|Boy warms to Ghoul first out of pity, then becomes ''sexually'' obsessed with it. Ghoul pretends to love Boy to provide for it while Ghoul keeps murdering people.}}

* [[Butter Face]]: The eponymous Jenifer, possibly to the point of [[Exaggerated Trope|exaggeration]], in that her face looks downright monstrous while still having a model's body.

* [[Fan Service]]: Everytime they show Jenifer's body.

** [[Fan Disservice]]: Everytime her face can also be seen.

* [[Gorn]]: Jennifer's hunger fits.

* [[Idiot Ball]]: Frank, when a lady {{spoiler|eats your cat alive in front of you}}, it's time to kick her out of home.

 

 

Directed by Mick Garris and based on his own short story. Jamie (Henry Thomas) works in a laboratory that develops flavors for a food company. One day, he begins to suffer a series of apparent hallucinations until he realizes that he's actually living the experiences of a woman in another city as if they were his own.

 

 

 

Directed by [[An American Werewolf in London|John Landis]]. In a small town, disgraced detective Dwight Faraday (Brian Benben) and his friend Officer Jacob Reed (Anthony Griffith) are given the opportunity to investigate a series of mysterious deaths where the victim was apparently trampled by an unknown animal. All the victims were male and were last seen while in company of a mysterious, beautiful Native American woman (Cinthya Moura).

 

 

 

[[In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It|Directed by]] [[John Carpenter]]. Kirby (Norman Reedus) is the owner of a run-down cinema whose girlfriend Annie (Zara Taylor) committed suicide recently. In order to pay a debt he owns to Annie's hateful father Walter (Gary Hetherington), Kirby accepts the request of excentric millionaire Bellinger (Udo Kier) to locate the only surviving copy of ''La Fin Absolue du Monde'' (The Absolute End of the World) for him, a film [[Shrouded in Myth]] that is said to be the ultimate [[Brown Note]]. It's sort of a contemporary version of William Chambers' anthology ''[[The King in Yellow]]''.

 

* [[Artifact of Doom]]: ''La Fin Absolue du Monde'' of course.

** {{spoiler|Annie is covered head to toe in blood when she emerges out of the theater screen at the end.}}

** Downplayed with Dalibor after he decapitates {{spoiler|the taxi driver}}.

* [[Dead Little Sister]]: Annie, Kirby’s dead girlfriend. She killed herself for reasons that are never quite explained, but her copious drug abuse seemed to have sent her in a downward spiral.

* [[Decapitation Presentation]]: Dalibor creates a [[Snuff Film]] by filming himself decapitating {{spoiler|Kirby's taxi driver}} right in front of Kirby, and presenting the severed head to him.

** Annie killed herself years before by [[Bath Suicide|slicing her own wrists in the bathtub]].

** {{spoiler|Kirby later [[Ate His Gun]] under the effects of ''La Fin Absolue Du Monde''.}}

 

 

Directed by William Malone. 13 year-old Tara (Lindsay Pulsipher) is kidnapped by a couple of retired musicians, Anton (William Samples) and Judith (Lori Petty), and imprisoned in their run-down basement. While in there, she learns that she is to be sacrificed as part of a [[Deal with the Devil]] in exchange of resuscitating the couple's teenage son, Johnny (Jesse Hadock).

 

 

 

Originally going to be directed by [[Roger Corman]], who was later replaced by Lucky McKee, and based on the short story ''The Feather Pillow'' by Horacio Quiroga. Shy Dr. Ida Teeter (Angela Bettis) is a lesbian entomologist that can't find a companion that also shares (or merely tolerates) her love for bugs before she meets the weird artist Misty Falls (Misty Mundae). Unfortunately, Ida also receives that same day a package from Brazil containing a newly-discovered insect that parasites warm-blooded animals. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

 

* [[Soundtrack Dissonance]]: The happy music at the end.

* [[Strawman Political]]: The landlady.

 

 

Directed by [[Larry Cohen]] and based on a short story by David J. Schow. A bus containing a small number of passengers breaks down in the middle of nowhere. They are soon visited by a trucker, Wheeler (Michael Moriarty) and a hitchhiker, Walker (Warren Kole). Both of them are [[Serial Killer|serial killers]]. When the passengers are reduced to only one left, Stacia (Fairuza Balk), the hunt also becomes a feud between the two.

 

 

 

Directed by John McNaughton and based on a short story by [[Clive Barker]]. At the end of the 19th century, a man who has just lost his wife comes to the house of Miss Carnation, the Necromancer (Micki Maunsell) and begs her to take his love [[Back From the Dead]]. She hesitates, but at his insistence she proposes to revive her if he still wants her to do so after hearing the tale of medicine student Ernst Haeckel (Derek Cecil), that happened 50 years before.

 

 

 

Directed by [[Takashi Miike]] and based on a novel by Shimako Iwai. In 19th century Japan, an American journalist named Christopher (Billy Drago) arrives at a remote island looking for Komomo (Michie), a woman he's in love with that was sold to a brothel by her adoptive family. While in there he comes across a disfigured prostitute (Youki Kudoh) that tells him the story of her life. This episode was filmed in Japan by Kadokawa Pictures and was never broadcast unedited due to its ridiculously high [[Brain Bleach]] quotient.

 

=== Season Two ===

 

Directed by [[Tobe Hooper]] and based on a short story by [[Ambrose Bierce]]. In 1981 a peaceful family man resident in a small Texan town went crazy the night of his 40th brithday and killed his wife before being killed himself by an invisible force. Twenty four years later his still traumatized son Kevin ([[The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles|Sean Patrick Flannery]]) is sheriff of the same town and nearing 40 himself when the same unknown force seems to appear again and turn his fellow countrymen against each other.

 

 

 

Directed by [[John Landis]]. On the surface, Harold (George Wendt) is a friendly man that lives alone in a quiet Midwestern neighborhood. But underneath, he's a crazed [[Serial Killer]] obsessed with forming the perfect "family"... and he has set his eyes on the new young couple, the Fullers (Meredith Monroe and Matt Kesslar) that has moved across the street.

 

* [[Fate Worse Than Death]]: {{spoiler|The Fullers keep Harold alive for two weeks, torturing him from beginning to end before they kill him.}}

* [[Imagine Spot]]: Harold has several when he talks to Celia. He also has full conversations with his "family".

* [[Mommy Issues]]: Harold.

* [[Replacement Goldfish]]: The Fullers argue if they should have another child, while Harold sees Celia as a better "wife" than the one he has now.

 

 

Directed by Ernest R. Dickerson. Two bored teenagers, Kerry (Arjay Smith) and Justin (Branden Nadon), sneak into a morgue one night and are attacked by a vampire, [[Shout-Out|Mr. Chaney]] ([[Michael Ironside]]).

 

 

 

Directed by Brad Anderson, the director of ''Session9'' and ''[[The Machinist]]'', and based on a short story by Mike O'Driscoll. Larry Pearce (Chris Bauer) is a supervisor in a tech support company that begins to descend into madness as his fine sense of hearing only gets [[Gone Horribly Right|better]].

 

* [[Half-Human Hybrid]]: The baby.

* [[Space Whale Aesop]]: "Support abortion, or else Satan's child will be born."

* [[Strawman Political]]: Dwayne.

* [[Virgin Power]]: Subverted. {{spoiler|All the survivors are non-virgins}}.

 

 

Directed by [[Dario Argento]] and based on a short story by F. Paul Wilson. Sleazy small time fur trader Jake Feldman ([[Meat Loaf]]) gets his hands on some priceless raccoon pelts that might be his ticket to win a fortune and with it the attention of sexy stripper Shanna (Ellen Ewusie). Too bad the furs are not just priceless, but cursed...

 

* [[Batter Up]]: Jeb teaches Larry to kill the raccoons this way. {{spoiler|Then Larry kills Jeb in the same manner.}}

* [[Bear Trap]]: Used by Larry {{spoiler|to [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|commit suicide]]. [[Gorn|Head first]].}}.

* [[Billing Displacement]]: John Saxon gets top billing along Meat Loaf on the DVD cover, despite playing a very minor character.

* [[Bi the Way]]: Shanna.

** Larry Jameson isn't all that disturbed about all the blood on his face and arms.

** {{spoiler|Feldman, the twist being that ''it is all his own blood''. He skinned himself, leavin his insided open.}}

 

 

Directed by [[Joe Dante]] and based on a short story by James Tiptree Jr.. A Michigan family tries to survive while a pandemic of unknown origin expands through the world turning the male population into woman-murdering psychopaths.

 

 

 

Directed by Mick Garris and based on a short story by [[Clive Barker]]. Rob Hanisey (Tyron Leitso) is a young man just gone through a terrible break up that is struggling to publish his first novel when he is accepted in the Highberger House for aspiring writers. Soon after moving there, he begins to have repeated encounters with a mysterious woman, Valerie (Clare Grant), who pleads him to save her from the demon-like creature known as The Beast ([[Tony Todd]]). However, [[You Have to Believe Me|none of the other residents believe him and think that he's just crazy]]... although a small group led by the oldest resident, Everett Neely ([[Christopher Lloyd]]), seems to know more than they say.

 

 

 

Directed by [[Wrong Turn|Rob Schmidt]]. The marriage of Cliff Addison (Martin Donovan) and his wife Abbey (Julia Benson) is going through dire times when the couple suffers a dramatic car accident. Cliff only gets minor wounds but Abbey is burned alive completely, losing all her skin and senses and falling into a coma. Resolute to end his wife's suffering, Cliff decides to disconnect Abbey's life support, only to discover that her ghost has come back with a vengeance.

 

* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]: It's hard to watch this episode and not think on the Terri Schiavo case.

* [[Eyes Are Unbreakable]]: Averted.

* [[Grey and Gray Morality]]: None of the characters is genuinely good.

* [[Hidden in Plain Sight]]: Cliff is carrying {{spoiler|Trish's dismembered corpse}} in a bag on top of his car when some pieces fall off. He stops to pick them and a police car immediately appears... only [[Crowning Moment of Funny|for the driver to scream him to get off the way and disappear as quickly]].

 

 

Directed by [[Childs Play|Tom Holland]] and based on a short story by John Farris. Layne (Lee Tergesen) returns to his childhood neighbourhood just as his former friends begin to disappear one by one, leaving nothing but their clothes soaked in a milky substance. The reason seems to be linked to an ice cream delivery clown, Buster (William Forsythe), who died around that time.

 

* [[Back From the Dead]]: Buster is back... [[The Un-Reveal|somehow]].

* [[Batman Gambit]]: {{spoiler|Buster is defeated by making a [[It Makes Sense in Context|voodoo ice cream]] of him.}}

* [[Depraved Bisexual]]: Virgil.

* [[Ghostly Goals]]: {{spoiler|Buster wants to kill the children (now grown men) that killed him.}}

 

 

Directed by Stuart Gordon and based on a short story by [[Edgar Allan Poe]]. Set in Philadelphia around 1840, [[Edgar Allan Poe]] (Jeffrey Combs) is going through a bad case of [[Writer's Block]] as he begins to hit the bottle more than usual and his young wife Virginia (Elyse Levesque) caughts tuberculosis. To make things worse, their pet black cat Pluto begins to act a lot [[Cats Are Mean|meaner than usual]].

 

 

 

Directed by Peter Medak and based on a short story by Bentley Little. Mike Franks (Johnathon Schaech) moves with his family into his late grandmother's house in rural Virginia. There he finds an ancient portrait of [[George Washington]], and hiding behind it a fork [[Human Resources|made of human bone]] and a letter where the first president of the United States declares his love for [[Child Eater|eating children]]. Soon they are the target of [[Title Drop|The Washingtonians]], a secret society devoted to keep alive and hidden the "[[I'm a Humanitarian|tradition]]" set by their founder father.

 

* [[Ancient Conspiracy]]: Parodied.

* [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy]]: [[George Washington]] was a cannibal. Also, the secret clique he founded ate [[John Adams]].

* [[Cannibal Clan]]: A whole village of them.

* [[Child Eater]]: The Washingtonians price children as a meal.

 

 

Directed by [[The Ring|Norio Tsuruta]] and based on a short story by [[Dark Water (film)|Koji Suzuki]]. Jack Miller (Daniel Gillies) is an American lawyer in Tokyo who is deadly afraid of water and has recurrent nightmares about the death of his brother Sean by drowning when they were children. He also has an affair with Yuri Saito (Yoshino Kimura), the wife of his colleague Eiji (Ryo Ishibashi). When Eiji invites Jack to a cruise on his yacht, he finds soon that Eiji already knows about the affair, but that's not the biggest of his and Yuri's problems.

 

* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: {{spoiler|Jack's undead brother only wants to protect him from the actual vengeful ghost he stumbles upon later}}.

* [[Drowning Pit]]: Yuri is trapped in the yacht's bathroom as it fills with water.

* [[Translation Convention]]: Averted. The Japanese characters only speak Japanese between themselves.

* [[Undead Child]]: Sean.