Masters of Horror - Don Coscarelli’s Incident On
& Off A Mountain Road + Mick Garris’ Chocolate (Anchor Bay DVDs)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: B- Episodes: Coscarelli: C-/Garris: B
The
concept that lies behind Masters Of Horror is an excellent one - which is
basically taking the Tales From The Crypt/Tales From The Darkside/Monsters
premise, and cutting out all the fat by comprising the show's creative pool
entirely of marquee-quality directors. I
never had the opportunity to witness these shows as they unfolded on TV, so I
had to sit back and wait for the whole deal to make its way to DVD. Now that the anticipation is over, I'm left a
little bit stunned by how badly they've gone about releasing these things. Granted, purchasing the "movies" is
fairly cheap, at only 10 bucks a pop.
But we're talking a TV show here, with television-length episodes of an
hour apiece. I know that each director
deserves a showcase for their work, but unlike purchasing theatrically released
films of DVD, the purchaser is less aware of what the product is going to be
like.
Admittedly,
none of the episodes I've seen thus far have even come close to touching each
director's best work. So why not just
throw all this into a boxed set and be done with it - no special features, save
one commentary per movie, then move on and let everyone judge the worth of the
episodes in one clip and move on?
Instead this is going to be dragged out for a while, and you'll have to
pick up each movie two at a time, until all thirteen have been released. That's a decent chunk of change just so
you'll have some lame bonus features and individual cases for each episode,
each with a slipcase, insert, and... trading card of the director. Ah, well, it's Anchor Bay's mistake... but I
don't doubt that many will be buying all of these in the fashion they're
currently being released anyway.
As
for the episodes we've got here, my biggest surprise came from which episode
I've enjoyed the most thus far. Out of
the four that have seen release, Mick Garris' Chocolate has been the
most original and outstanding presentation yet.
I was genuinely interested by it, and it was paced well enough for the
shorter format - something the other directors have seemed to struggle with
slightly, as they try to cram a little too much into a short space. Perhaps his familiarity with the television
medium helped him out, but I definitely recommend this as the first episode to
catch if you're new to the series.
The
biggest disappointment, however, has been Coscarelli's attempt with Incident On & Off A Mountain Road. This is coming from a huge fan of his, who
cherishes all but the third chapter of Phantasm, and was an early
anticipator of Bubba-Ho-Tep (reviewed elsewhere eon this site) before it
saw release. To be told that Joe R.
Lansdale wrote this little story - and that Angus Scrimm, the Tall Man himself,
makes an appearance in this episode, I was clearly looking out for this one
first and foremost. What results
however, isn't anything to be overly proud of.
It's about an off-the-shelf slasher character, terrorizing a girl who is
familiar with the ways of survival - as is demonstrated by her questionably
MacGyver-like approach to the whole ordeal.
The logic of the whole thing is flimsy at best, and it becomes hard to
dispel the fakeness of the situation in order to suspend disbelief long enough
to gain interest. This one is best left
forgotten, but I don't discourage you from checking it out to sate your
curiosity.
As
for the two prior episodes released to DVD - both Stuart Gordon and John
Carpenter's episodes were so-so affairs that missed the mark a bit. Had they both been given an extra half-hour
to let everything unfold, the results might have seemed fuller and satisfying.
However, as they are, it's not much more than your average horror-anthology TV
episode, only now granted reception with a full ticker-tape parade.
The
picture quality for both episodes being covered here is average for 1.78 X
anamorphically enhanced widescreen, but clean.
Also, despite being framed in a theatrical aspect ratio, it's somehow
difficult to shrug off the made for TV look of the shows. There's something shallow about the feel and
look of these, but the transfers seem to be done well so it likely all stems
directly from when these were shot. Is
it too much digital work?
The
sound quality is decent, and the episodes are presented in Dolby Digital 5.1
surround sound that isn't bad. Nothing
extraordinary, but it gets the job done well enough.
Extra
features seem plentiful when listed on the back of the box, but despite the
variety of these features, there aren't any that exceptionally stand out, and
many are rather short, with most of the "over 3 hours of bonus
features" being filled up by the inclusion of multiple commentaries. Personally, that seems a little bit lavish
for something of this type. For example,
there are many special edition DVDs of classic films that don't seem to warrant
the need for more than one viewpoint on the proceedings of the movie.
When
buying these, keep in perspective that if you go about collecting them now,
you'll be adding a lot of dead weight to your shelf space, and spending roughly
$130.00 on this little investment.
Personally, I'd sooner wait things out, as they're likely to re-release
these as a full set in the near future, albeit without most of the extra
features.
For
a look at the entire first season, try this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6792/Masters+Of+Horror+–+Season+One
We
instead recommend The Washingtonians
and Sounds Like… as covered in this
review instead:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6088/Masters+Of+Horror
-
David Milchick
