Masters Of Horror – The ‘V’ Word (Ernest Dickerson/Anchor Bay DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: C- Episode: C-
Ernest
Dickerson is a great cinematographer (especially known for his work on Spike
Lee’s early works) who has gone on to a mixed directing career. At his best (see Juice,) he can handle narrative well, but has had a mixed directing
career. His installment of the highly
problematic Masters Of Horror
episode The ‘V’ Word starts as one
of the more promising, then veers off into repetition that hurts it.
Two
friends (Arjay Smith, Branden Nadon) are just hanging around having a good time
when they decide to have some sick fun and visit a bunch of dead corpses. Of course, this backfires and soon they are
both in danger. It gets worse when one
is killed, yet comes back to life. After
a promising start, the episode starts to quickly tank like the few shows that
began to work in all these seasons before imploding altogether. Part of the problem is that the story seems
more like a zombie tale than that of a vampire and that is just the beginning
of its many problems. Not even Michael
Ironside can save it and then it runs on and on, not knowing when to end.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is too flat, but since Dickerson was a
cinematographer at one time, we believe it is more a limit of the DVD format
that a performance issue with the footage shot.
Only the Blu-ray version will tell us for certain. The Dolby Digital 5.1 is lively enough with
good surrounds and ambient sounds.
Extras include stills, DVD-ROM PDF screenplay access, making of
featurette, make-up featurette and audio commentary by Dickerson and
writer/executive producer Mick Garris, who wrote this show. It is one of his best efforts by default.
If you
want to see the two good shows we’ve seen in about four seasons of this
disaster, catch The Washingtonians
and Sounds Like…, reviewed elsewhere
on this site.
- Nicholas Sheffo
