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Category:    Home > Reviews > Horror > Thriller > Comedy > Satire > TV > Masters Of Horror: The Damned Thing/Sounds Like…/The Washingtonian (DVD-Video/Anchor Bay)

Masters Of Horror: The Damned Thing/Sounds Like…/The Washingtonian (DVD-Video/Anchor Bay)

 

Picture: C+/B-/B-     Sound: B-     Extras: C-/B-/B-     Episodes: C-/B-/B-

 

 

We have made no secret of our unhappiness with the cable Horror anthology series Masters Of Horror, but three different installments now out on DVD show that maybe the pretension and low standards of package deals finally might be breaking away.  Not that we are optimistic that this will hold, but the three definitely show what is wrong with the series and what could go well with the right risks, effort and ambition can produce.

 

Tobe Hooper’s The Damned Thing is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the series, stuck in bad 1980s mode over-impressed with makeup effects and other gore than has no solid storyline (id monster comes to life and kills from spirit world and haunts/destroys family; a tired cliché beyond belief) showing Hooper has not been able to find anything new to say for decades since his Invaders From Mars remake.  That is unfortunate, as this wastes Sean Patrick Flanery, the cast and a Richard Christian Matheson teleplay that could have worked with a different approach.

 

Brad Anderson’s Sounds Like… is a solid entry by the director of The Machinist and the interesting, too often Session 8, about a father, husband and supervisor at a software company’s customer service department (Chris Bauer in an impressive performance) who quality checks hundreds of phone calls a day.  His world is shattered when his son dies and as a bizarre side effect, he starts to develop super-hearing, which goes from manageable to a nightmare.  It also parallels the increased pain he is feeling form the loss of the boy he so loved.  Anderson and his teleplay (based on Mike O’Driscoll’s story) is skillfully handled and is the kind of heart and soul tale this series has been embarrassingly missing.  It is graphic, yet suspenseful, dark, yet has a payoff that some might actually miss.

 

Then we have the great Peter Medak with The Washingtonians, the best social and political satire in any TV series since before The X Files sold its fans down the river by abruptly abandoning their conspiracy web.  A good father/husband (Johnathon Schaech) takes his family to a nice old neighborhood and discovers a rare letter that just may have been penned by George Washington.  At first, one of the townspeople he (mistakenly, as it turns out) tells wants it, then he, his wife and emotionally damaged daughter start to become the target of threats and intimidation, including men on horseback with powdered wigs and more wackiness.

 

To say more would ruin it, but it is by far the best episode two painful seasons have turned out.  The series needs hire more talented directors not as known to slasher fans if it is going to have any legacy worth speaking of.  Hope we see more good shows like the later two.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 looks good on all the shows, except Hooper’s which looks too tampered with, has more motion blur than it should and is just not too memorably shot.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 mixes on all titles are more lively and similar in fidelity, something the usually poorer shows have tried to rely on to save themselves.  However, when the shows do work, the sound can be a plus as two of these demonstrate.  Extras on all three include director commentary tracks (with Medak and Schaech, who co-wrote the show, being the best), DVD-ROM script reproductions and making of featurettes.  Thing adds a piece about making the monster, Sounds adds stills & a sound effects piece and Washingtonians adds bloopers and a make-up effects featurette.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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