Masters of Horror: Episode 1 Incident On and Off A Mountain Road

It's been years since I've watched Masters of Horror.. I enjoyed the show greatly back in college, even though I recall the episodes varying wildly in quality. I remember suspecting that some of the directors might have felt validated by simply being on the show and acknowledged as a Master, which could explain the abundance of talent, but lack of effort, some of the episodes seem to have.

This description fits Incident On and Off a Mountain Road like a glove. Don Coscarelli is an awesome director, and every single scene is well shot and well acted, but there isn't a lot to really set the episode apart. The set-up is that a woman named Ellen (Bree Turner) is in a car crash on the titular mountain road, set up by a serial killer credited as “Moonface” (John DeSantis), who then chases her around the woods until he captures her and takes her to his killing room.

Moonface is not an especially interesting killer. He's a deformed albino, and I'm not sure if he's incapable of speech, or just not interested in talking. He also has an overly-elaborate eye-gouging machine to kill his victims with, which just feels out of place for a killer who lives in the middle of the woods. He's pure Other, and I really wish they'd kept him simple. A big, strong, brutish killer would have been sufficient, especially lacking any backstory.

The episode is inter cut with flashbacks to Ellen's relationship with her husband Bruce (Ethan Embry). Bruce was a survivalist who became became increasingly disturbed over the course of their marriage. However, he also taught Ellen survival skills that assist her in combating Moonface. These scenes aren't bad, but they would be better if Ellen was a more effective protagonist.

Ellen is so ineffective against Moon Face until the very end of the episode that she still comes across like every other Final Girl in horror history, suddenly kicking ass once the story was ready to end. In fact, Ellen's main success is building a trap that captures another woman fleeing Moonface (Heather Feeney), and stabbing herself in the arm. Are we supposed to simply be impressed she was able to build the traps, even though they backfired? I know I couldn't do it, but I'm not supposed to be a badass horror protagonist.

The episode also throws in a twist: Ellen killed Bruce after he raped her, and was on her way to dispose of his body. She drills his eyes out and crucifies him, copying the killing style of Moonface to give the impression that he was another victim. This isn't really much of a twist, though. It's a story about an abusive husband in a horror anthology, how else would it end?

The episode's highlight is Buddy (Angus Scrimm), Moonface's long-term captive, who has become a gibbering lunatic. It's awesome to see Angus Scrimm being scary in a role that's the complete opposite of his quiet, reserved Tall Man. Buddy would actually have been a much more interesting villain for the episode. He's over-the-top and insane, with motivations that make no sense. In the conflict between Ellen and Moonface he seems to somehow be on both sides, helping Ellen to get free, then calling Moonface to tell him she's loose. My best guess is he simply wanted to escalate the conflict further. It's a shame he never gets to be more directly threatening.

The episode isn't “bad,” but for a series premiere, it's pretty weak. I'm actually kind of baffled that show runner Mick Garris looked at this episode, and said “I want this to be people's first introduction to our show!” As a standalone, though, I can take it or leave it.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #25 Phantasm

Phantasm is pure guilty pleasure. It’s the kind of movie that you enjoy, but you find yourself desperately trying to justify your enjoyment. The film was shot on a low budget with an outline instead of a script. Director Don Coscarelli mostly used his friends and acquaintances from previous films who he grabbed whenever they were available, since most of them had other projects they were involved with or other jobs.

This style of shooting creates a movie in which characters frequently spell out important plot points and events often seem to simply happen. While it’s normal for horror movies to open with an expendable character’s murder, in this film, the character is established in the next scene as a friend of the protagonist’s, and the film attempts to continue milking the death of this person we never knew for drama.

So then, what makes the movie good? I’d say it’s one of the few films to ever properly capture the logic of a dream. The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), a mysterious local undertaker, is an alien from another universe. He takes the bodies of the recently deceased (far more than a single funeral home should ever have access to), reanimates them, shrinks them down and sends them back to his home universe as slaves. It’s necessary to shrink them down because of the higher gravity of his home universe. Also, he uses flying spheres with blades to attack people, because his attack midgets aren’t sufficient. This is exactly the kind of bizarro stuff that I experience when I have bad dreams.

This sort of reality allows Phantasm to get away with giving the Tall Man the ability to do pretty much whatever is most convenient at a given moment. He can teleport when he’s off screen. He has super strength, except when he doesn’t. A door will magically open for him, but he has to punch his way through a window. Even beyond him, events within the movie can be undone, as characters die and come back to life because the story wasn’t done with them yet.

I’m not sure how to interpret the ending. This movie may have been the origin of the old “all a dream...or was it?” cliché. Only, there isn’t a question mark here. The main character, Mike (Michael Baldwin), wakes up to find that his brother (Bill Thornbury) died by means other than those depicted in the film, and he’s now the ward of his brother’s friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister), who’d also died. The final shot with the Tall Man returning and attacking through a mirror establishes that the events weren’t merely a dream. So then, what happened? Did he wipe their memories? If so, why bring back Reggie?

I understand that many consider Phantasm 2 an improvement over the first. But I have yet to see it, and I’m interested in how they even address the events of the first film. That said, I’m not sure I want my confusion at the ending of the first film to be resolved. It’s that atmosphere of the truly bizarre that makes the film enjoyable, not any story elements that could be carried over to the next movie. (You’ll notice how long it took me in this review to even mention any character’s other than The Tall Man himself).

I definitely recommend checking this movie out. It’s weird fun.