Quite a find – as always with tv productions, I am kind of two or more years behind, but that means I can catch up with two seasons in one go, which keeps one busy if the episodes are real 60 minutes such as with this one.
* Season 1-01: Incident on and Off a Mountain Road (by Don Coscarelli: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0181741/)
Ok, there is not so many people who watched Bubba Ho-Tep, the Curse of the Ass-Sucking Mummy, or whatever the working title was, but I did after continuous mention by some cinema weblogs. And now that director has the honour of opening one of the more uncompromising tv shows in history.
* Season 1-02: H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreams in the Witchhouse (by Stuart Gordon: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002340/)
For some reason, Stuart Gordon does not call it a day in his films before he had some eyes being popped out of their sockets with the necessary gush of blood to go with it. That’s actually quite entertaining. Lovecracft’s stories pose some challenges, however, because that guy obviously was crazy as a craphouse rat and hence the rats have human faces, which are a bit ridiculous to play in a low-budget production. But Gordon has Lovecraft experience aplenty, so he uses the blood-drenched version, which is rather convincing. Oh Abdul Alhazrad, mad Arab wizard – oh Necronomicon, oh unspeakable horrors from beyond, you entertainers of my innocent youth! Audience advice: contains full frontal female nudity, both fresh and rotten.
* Season 1-03: Dance of the Dead (by Tobe Hooper: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001361/)
Good fun, among the more convincing post-Apocalyptic visions of a depressing future, with nice backstory about the Blix that falls down occassionally and burns people to death, with Zombie-fluid and with Freddy Krueger as the Conferencier of the Doom Room Show that makes you want to swing along. Extremely disrespectful for a tv show. Audience advice: contains decent amounts of necrophilic blow-jobs and excursions into the ugly side of blood donation. And we wonder whether Richard Matheson the scriptwriter is Richard Matheson the author of gruesome esteem? Aha, just checked, it’s his son: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1075295/bio.
* Season 1-04: Jenifer (by Dario Argento: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000783/)
Iiiiek, well, ooooh. Both, I mean, the film is terrible, but you get rewarded for staying with it frequently by being exposed to the nice and nicely naked body of the title heroine. If she was only wearing a bag over her ugly face … Dario Argento may be one of the godfathers of modern horror movies, but this one was a bit uninspired and predictable. Plus the
* Season 1-05: Chocolate (by Mick Garris: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0308376/)
A bit dull of a starting point, with a guy having visions of being in somebody else’s body (I am absolutely sure the impules for writing this episode came from the author wondering "What would it be like for a man to dream to be be in a woman’s body – and then get laid?"). They are taking whatever is in this situation, but it’s not too much.
* Season 1-06: Homecoming (by Joe Dante: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001102/)
Some approach their attitude to war and politics with subtlety, some are more blunt about it. This episode can be counted into the latter category, with formerly deceased veterans coming back from their graves to take civil action against those who sent them into useless battle. While the initial idea is pretty funny, the episode is not, as the idea does only yield a handful of hilarious situations. Disliking the political establishment can be done better, see "Wag the Dog", even without zombie soldiers.
* Season 1-07: Deer Woman (by John Landis: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000484/)
The most important thing is of course the self-reference to that wold that showed up at Picadilly in the 1980s… yes, I remember what fun that werewolf theme was at the time, and for some reason, that’s one of the motifs that seems to be wearing off. You cannot do a serious werewolf flick anymore, you have to use it with irony and boobs. Both included here, and both very nice. The best part is the dream sequence where our hero visualises all the possible scenarios for those hoof prints on the poor trucker fellow.
* Season 1-08: Cigarette Burns (by John Carpenter: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000118/)
Udo Kier, formerly known as the Baby that came out of Lars von Trier’s crazy Kingdom dreams, … A nice episode for all film buffs, and are we not all on the quest for the ultimate movie experience. This would certainly be one to remember, even though the motives are well known from previous Carpenter films (what’s the one with the author whose books make people go mad and violent? Probably the last Carpenter film I watched apart from that whose name thou shalt not speak LA thing). The violence is pleasantly gory, if you are in that kind of stuff, and the creature that apparently was captured out of "the film" and chained to the living room door may well be remembered in one nightmare or the other.
* Season 1-09: The Fair-Haired Child (by William Malone: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0540532/)
Starting with this one (which I did, it was the first of the season I watched) is a bit misleading, as it is more weird than offensive or gruesome. The kidnapped girl shall be the twelveth one, but the fair-haired child’s plans are differing from it’s parents. So fortunes are reversed, and the devil gives a bargain, two for one, and she shall live and they together happily ever after. Audience advice: contains Gollum, but with teeth.
* Season 1-10: Sick Girl (by Lucky McKee: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1031246/)
The effort to be funny goes slightly awry, in this tale of a bunch of girls struggling with a bug infection. That bug is quite nasty, indeed, but in the end, they are all family.
* Season 1-11: Pick Me Up (by Larry Cohen: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0169540/)
I liked that one. The plot about two not very nice people taking their sports out into the woods and creating collateral damage on the way (with hitchhikers, punks, bus drivers, and paranoid travellers who see murder around every corner…) evolves nicely and slowly, the showdown is cracking and the final twisted in a way I savour it.
* Season 1-12: Haeckel’s Tale (by John McNaughton: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0573796/)
Based on a story by Clive Barker, the story of Ernst Haeckel is the one of Frankenstein (who is quoted, actually), with silly experiments on dead bodies. Hard to say whether there is anything of redeeming value, but now that I think about it, the only thing I actually clearly remember is the very nice and very naked body of Haeckel’s young wife, so I guess it is worth watching if you like that kind of thing (very nice very naked female bodies, I mean).
* Season 1-13: Imprint (by Takashi Miike: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0586281/)
Gory Japanese geisha variation, although I am not perfectly sure what it was about. Stretching audience patience to some limit with the torture scenes, but apart from this, there is not much interesting to be said about it.
IMDB Series overview: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448190/
thomas4cinema 