DVD Review: 'Masters of Horror: Season 2'

WHAT SCHOOL GRANTS this Master of Horror degree, and how recently was the institution accredited?

"Masters of Horror," the strangely popular Showtime series that ostensibly celebrates those filmmakers who have most profoundly impacted the genre, fails to live up to any part of its title with the possible exception of "of". Each self-contained episode showcases a different director, cast and crew telling a supposedly scary story, but judging from this second season DVD set, the show has only a tenuous grasp of horror and its purported masters are merely genre journeymen. Its cleverest idea seems to be packaging the eleven discs in a skull, which admittedly makes a great paperweight.

This type of serial concept has a long history in horror, dating back to the 1940s with EC Comics' controversial comic books and to the 1950s with "The Twilight Zone." More recently, HBO's long-running "Tales from the Crypt" and movies like "Creepshow" have revived the serial format, and NBC created its own horror franchise, "Fear Itself." The first season of "Masters of Horror" fit nicely within that sensibility; it was mostly pretty clunky, but there were enough inspired episodes (Lucky McKee's "Sick Girl," John Landis' "Homecoming") to prove that horror serials could still pack a few twisted scares in a "Hostel" world.

In this second season, however, there's hardly a single good scare, much less a sustained episode. Instead, we suffer through the not-at-all creepy tedium of "Sounds Like," the tired J-horror tropes of "Dream Cruise," the condescending political commentary of "Right to Die" and "Pro Life," and the sheer inanity of "We All Scream for Ice Cream." If I told you what that last one is about, you wouldn't believe me. For a genre whose flops can be just as entertaining as its successes, there's not even an episode that's so bad it's good. Not even "Pelts," which involves haunted raccoon hides. Seriously.

At least "The Washingtonians," directed by Peter Medak (best known for the obscure but worthwhile "Changeling," starring a truly haunted George C. Scott), has a good setup: To survive the long winter at Valley Forge, the father of our country was forced to eat his troops and became a practicing cannibal. That idea alone is rich with satirical possibility, potentially sending up the self-seriousness of David McCullough-style pop history, the "National Treasure" movies and "The Da Vinci Code." But the episode is ultimately damned by an incompetent script and haunted by so many missed opportunities.

There's just too little variety among these episodes, which all seem to center on the same upper-middle-class white family in the same candy-colored suburb and grieving for the same dead child. Even so, most are shot as if the filmmakers had never actually set foot in a big box store or talked to an SUV owner, which creates a curious disconnect from real life. "Dream Cruise" (about a haunted patch of water) and "The Damned Thing" (about haunted oil) are at least refreshing for being set in Tokyo and rural Texas, respectively, but neither Norio Tsuruta nor Tobe Hooper makes these surroundings seem forbidding or even specific. They could take place anywhere in the world.

The serial concept should give these filmmakers license to go off in all sorts of different directions, but for all its gore and noise, "Masters of Horror" proves altogether too traditional and timid. So maybe it's the whole idea of a master of horror that seems bankrupt. Traditionally, amateurs thrive in the genre: The most ground-breaking films were made not by seasoned filmmakers, but by unknowns working without any expectations or completely outside the studio system, where someone like Tobe Hooper or Sam Raimi could break rules at will. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Evil Dead" work because they thought up new and visceral ways to frighten us. Horror demands fresh meat, but all "Masters of Horror" gives us is rotting flesh.

Written by Express contributor Stephen M. Deusner

Photos courtesy Sue Procko PR