In, "The V-Word," Masters of Horror's second season gets it's most mainstream (and in some senses, the scariest...) episode yet. Tobe Hooper's "The Damned Thing" is a deeply disturbing look at the cycle of familial violence repeated from one generation to another, and John Landis's superlative "Family" gazes at the underbelly of modern McMansion suburbia. I don't think "The V-Word" sub-text is quite so deep or spot-on...though there's a running comparison in Ernest Dickerson's episode to video game violence and "real life" violence that is worth mentioning.
No matter. "The V-Word" is chill-inducing. I believe it to be the most beautifully filmed (and stylish) of the MOH 2.0 episodes I've seen thus far, almost literally a "haunted house" tour of darkness and terror (which makes it appropriate viewing for Halloween...).
The tale finds two college students, Justin (Branden Naden) and Kerry (Arjay Smith), at loose ends one night. They decide to alleviate their boredom with video games by visiting an ominous local funeral home, tellingly named Collinswood (a sideways reference to the vampire family in Dark Shadows). What they find in that ghastly, dimly lit funeral home is terrifying. A real life, yellow-toothed vampire (played with gusto by Michael Ironside...) has killed everyone inside, but is still hungry for more. Kerry gets bitten by the vampire (or, more accurately, he gets his throat torn out...) and then he turns Justin into a creature of the night. But Justin doesn't want to join this particular club, especially since the cost seems to be feeding on his family, specifically his young sister...
The finest element of "The V-Word" is not really the plot (we've seen stories about reluctant vampires before; in films as diverse as Fright Night, Near Dark and Lost Boys), but rather director Dickerson's splendid staging and mise-en-scene. He brings every scare scene to life in a joyous, go-for-broke fashion. The set design of the Collinswood funeral home is beautiful - appropriately ornate and gothic - and the impenetrable, pervasive darkness generates a nice anticipatory atmosphere of dread. Revealing he understands the tricks of the trade, Dickerson employs a number of subjective first person shots, or P.O.V. shots, to help the audience grasp the terrain of the battle. That's a necessity for good "jolts," and Dickerson delivers the goods.
I predict that mainstream TV audiences will enjoy this episode the best of the three I've previewed on the blog because it so brilliantly and effectively lensed. The episode's finest moment arises as Kerry and Justin stand in the darkness of the funeral home, frightened. In the distance ahead, the only illumination comes from an EXIT sign over a doorway. That's their escape route, but to cross it, they must navigate a long, dark hall...where anything could be waiting. As you might guess, this is the set-up for a spine-tingling scene in which "obstacles" appear in the darkness to prevent egress. Also to the good: I love the John Carpenter-esque, pulse-pounding score, and I deeply appreciated Dickerson's visual homage to Halloween. There's a scene wherein a hero stands in the foreground (in focus), while behind him - in the background and in more diffuse focus - a villain believed dead suddenly bolts up, unseen. Yep, it's a Michael Myers shot...and it always works!
I think "The V-Word" also marks the first time in horror films or television, that I've seen a bloody I-Pod as part of the carnage; proof positive that the technology has officially suffused our society since now it's showing up in a "teen" horror-type story. Otherwise, I'm kind of diffident about the validity of the theme which rests at the heart of "The V-Word." There's some unspoken, contextual criticism of "kids today" with "their video games," (I'm paraphrasing). The template here is video game violence and death versus real life violence and death, and the writer's seeming belief that a generation of young gamers don't understand the difference. Tp wot. when Justin and Kerry explore the funeral home, one says: "In a video game, this is the boring part." Okay, I get what the story is going for; it's interesting enough, but it doesn't quite work for me. Perhaps that's because I know some very nice young fellas who are consummate video gamers. I can state this about them with utter confidence: at their age (early twenties...) they have already run circles around me intellectually, professionally and philosophically. They're responsible, courteous young folk - scholars, really - who view video games as a valid art form. They're on the vanguard there. This is how I viewed television fifteen years ago...and the rest of the world has caught up with that perspective. So I don't really buy the theme of this story that our kids have had their minds muddled by the format of video games. And horror is a genre for the young.
No matter. "The V-Word" is chill-inducing. I believe it to be the most beautifully filmed (and stylish) of the MOH 2.0 episodes I've seen thus far, almost literally a "haunted house" tour of darkness and terror (which makes it appropriate viewing for Halloween...).
The tale finds two college students, Justin (Branden Naden) and Kerry (Arjay Smith), at loose ends one night. They decide to alleviate their boredom with video games by visiting an ominous local funeral home, tellingly named Collinswood (a sideways reference to the vampire family in Dark Shadows). What they find in that ghastly, dimly lit funeral home is terrifying. A real life, yellow-toothed vampire (played with gusto by Michael Ironside...) has killed everyone inside, but is still hungry for more. Kerry gets bitten by the vampire (or, more accurately, he gets his throat torn out...) and then he turns Justin into a creature of the night. But Justin doesn't want to join this particular club, especially since the cost seems to be feeding on his family, specifically his young sister...
The finest element of "The V-Word" is not really the plot (we've seen stories about reluctant vampires before; in films as diverse as Fright Night, Near Dark and Lost Boys), but rather director Dickerson's splendid staging and mise-en-scene. He brings every scare scene to life in a joyous, go-for-broke fashion. The set design of the Collinswood funeral home is beautiful - appropriately ornate and gothic - and the impenetrable, pervasive darkness generates a nice anticipatory atmosphere of dread. Revealing he understands the tricks of the trade, Dickerson employs a number of subjective first person shots, or P.O.V. shots, to help the audience grasp the terrain of the battle. That's a necessity for good "jolts," and Dickerson delivers the goods.
I predict that mainstream TV audiences will enjoy this episode the best of the three I've previewed on the blog because it so brilliantly and effectively lensed. The episode's finest moment arises as Kerry and Justin stand in the darkness of the funeral home, frightened. In the distance ahead, the only illumination comes from an EXIT sign over a doorway. That's their escape route, but to cross it, they must navigate a long, dark hall...where anything could be waiting. As you might guess, this is the set-up for a spine-tingling scene in which "obstacles" appear in the darkness to prevent egress. Also to the good: I love the John Carpenter-esque, pulse-pounding score, and I deeply appreciated Dickerson's visual homage to Halloween. There's a scene wherein a hero stands in the foreground (in focus), while behind him - in the background and in more diffuse focus - a villain believed dead suddenly bolts up, unseen. Yep, it's a Michael Myers shot...and it always works!
I think "The V-Word" also marks the first time in horror films or television, that I've seen a bloody I-Pod as part of the carnage; proof positive that the technology has officially suffused our society since now it's showing up in a "teen" horror-type story. Otherwise, I'm kind of diffident about the validity of the theme which rests at the heart of "The V-Word." There's some unspoken, contextual criticism of "kids today" with "their video games," (I'm paraphrasing). The template here is video game violence and death versus real life violence and death, and the writer's seeming belief that a generation of young gamers don't understand the difference. Tp wot. when Justin and Kerry explore the funeral home, one says: "In a video game, this is the boring part." Okay, I get what the story is going for; it's interesting enough, but it doesn't quite work for me. Perhaps that's because I know some very nice young fellas who are consummate video gamers. I can state this about them with utter confidence: at their age (early twenties...) they have already run circles around me intellectually, professionally and philosophically. They're responsible, courteous young folk - scholars, really - who view video games as a valid art form. They're on the vanguard there. This is how I viewed television fifteen years ago...and the rest of the world has caught up with that perspective. So I don't really buy the theme of this story that our kids have had their minds muddled by the format of video games. And horror is a genre for the young.
But this is a minor quibble, and ultimately beside the point. I don't have to "buy into" the theme to note that it is well handled as a leitmotif. And my reaction doesn't mean that "The V-Word" isn't a splendidly-shot show which horror fans will enjoy. And - oh yes - it's gory to the max. There's one scene where Ironside gets a syringe in his eyeball, and another moment whereon a victim's torn up neck looks to be holding on by a thread...or a sinew.
Trick or treat!
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