Masters Of Horror Season Two

Conceptually, the Masters Of Horror series is ingenious. Luminary genre directors are each given one hour of airtime to express their love of horror. With the plot and cast of their choice, they have carte blanche to see what sort of terror they can create on the small screen. In the case of season two, 13 episodes directed by the likes of Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), John Carpenter (The Thing), Dario Argento (Susperia) and more are on the table. Or chopping block, as the case may be. Apparently an hour isn’t quite enough time for people accustomed to having two full revolutions of the minute hand to develop characters, formulate sub-plots and generally entertain. The end results of these instalments, featuring such banal titles as "The Black Cat,” "The Damned Thing,” "Pro-Life” and "We All Scream For Ice Cream,” prove that even if these dudes created some of celluloid’s most respected pictures, they can’t get it together here. The scripts seem thrust together haphazardly, the plots are inane (Poe thinking he’s going nuts and killing his wife? A haunted ice cream truck? A Scooby-Doo-worthy tar monster exacting revenge for being awaken?) and the expediency of production results in stilted acting and an affirmation that these aren’t bona fide films but TV shows/movies of the week. Still, each episode is treated to its own extras, which follow the same format: "making of” documentaries, special effects documentaries, storyboards and director commentaries. Depending on the episode, some of these become enthralling when we find out the means by which the directors shaped their tales or how certain gruesome elements (generally CGI) were created during particularly effects-laden stories. While interesting and clearly eye-catching thanks to the cast-plastic human skull case the season is housed in, waiting for a tax bill induces more horror or fear than the majority of Masters Of Horror Season Two.