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The Black Cat (2007)
Director: Stuart Gordon
Screenplay: Stuart Gordon and Dennis
Paoli
Based on the short story by Edgar
Allen Poe
Cast: Jeffrey Combs as Edgar
Allan Poe; Elyse Levesque as Virginia Poe
A Night of A Thousand Horror (Movies) #23
The Black Cat, Stuart
Gordon's second turn at helming a Masters
of Horror episode, is a little disappointing considering its reputation as
one of the best of the second season. It's an episode whose main draw is arguably
one of the best performances of the entire two season run, where Jeffery Combs steps out of Herby West's
shoes in the Re-Animator series, and
knocks out a credible flesh and blood version of who Edgar Allen Poe could've been. As someone who holds biopics the
lowest of all cinema genre, scrapping even below the barrel in quality in spite
of their large budgets, the swerve that this is both an adaptation of one of Poe's most famous stories but also
encompasses biopic details of the author's life is pretty inspired, bucking the
trend of all the other episodes and standing out in tone completely. The issue
is entirely that, even under an hour, it could've taken more of a risk than it
eventually did.
The story of The Black Cat, a parable on the dangers of alcoholism which went on
to become one of Poe's most iconic
stories, where a black cat is a personification of guilt and a wall is built to
hide something, is done by Stuart Gordon
here with Poe himself as the central
figure using autobiographic details. His marriage to a younger cousin
(Elyse Levesque), played here at the point
of succumbing to consumption. With Poe
a known author but in significant money troubles, with writer's block and a
crippling alcoholism, all of which in this version of his life leading to a nightmarish
delirium the moment he lashes out at their pet black cat. The strengths of the
episode is sustained by how idiosyncratic to the others. A gothic chamber piece
which has the right melancholic vibe for what is. One that, despite its moments
of gore, is actually a drama masquerading as a horror story an played as such. It's
entirely the Jeffrey Combs show as he
is the centre carrying the weight of the entire episode on his shoulders. His
performance does bring up the question, like so many of these horror
personalities, why he never got more roles in and out the genre.
The issue is that, outside his performance,
it's a solidly done drama but could've done more. Not necessarily drastic
rewritings of the material but just a change in little pieces of dialogue,
tidying and expanding the structure of the plot further for more risk, evoking
more the bleakness of Poe's
literature. This is especially the case as this plays with reality being up to
question to an entirely clichéd ending, leaving an interesting episode on a
sour. It dampens The Black Cat
somewhat especially as its meant to be the crown jewel of the season.
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Valerie on the Stairs (2006)
Director: Mick Garris
Screenplay: Mick Garris
Based on a short story by Clive
Barker
Cast: Tyron Leitso as Rob Hanisey;
Nicola Lipman as Nancy Bloom; Jonathan Watton as Bruce Sweetland; Christopher
Lloyd as Everett Neely; Christine Barrie as Anna; Clare Grant as Valerie; Suki
Kaiser as Patricia Dunbar; Tony Todd as The Beast
A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #24
In a series which has been pretty
strong, Garris' second episode for
the two series is in an awkward position out of its control. Chocolate (2005) was not a great
episode, with a great multi-sexual edge underused but rewarding, but in a first
season full of major directors failing badly it was a higher quality entry.
Here, it's in the same level of quality, Garris'
reputation as a director never particularly high, but the general quality of
the episodes around it was more consistent, where even a dark horse like Rob Schmidt's episode stood out more, Valerie on the Stairs was kicked down
the episode rankings significantly. The problem is really how long Garris' episode takes to set up a
premise. The idea of every idea a writer had, especially those never published
to book and lost in memory, gaining form is intriguing. Here wannabe author Rob
Hanisey (Tyron Leitso) moves into a
motel where unpublished writers like him can live, for even their entire lives,
until they publish a book and then have to leave. The potential material from
this, of desperation mixed with weird (potential) hallucinations, is intriguing
as a beautiful woman named Valerie (Clare
Grant) keeps appearing to Rob. As does a horned demon (Tony Todd under heavy prosthetics) who keeps dragging Valerie off.
It has stuff to like. Christopher Lloyd appearing in these
grotty horror stories does jar against the childhood image of him as Doc Brown,
but even in Piranha 3D (2010),
there's this wonderful picture I have of him that's completely eroded the Back from the Future memories
completely from the mind, that of an older character actor who can appear in
these films and can, like here, play a foul mouthed cynic with aplomb. As an
author who has actually published before, and is hiding that fact so he doesn't
kicked out of the motel, he's an unused resource that the episode could've
lingered on more. As is the environment of aging, failing authors doomed to
never getting published which immediately gains sympathy from me as one of
those delusions individuals trying to write too, eccentrics who could've had
more screen time even in a limited time frame for the episode. And Tony Todd is always worth seeing even in
elaborate and ridiculous prosthetics. The problem is that its take all the
episode to get to the really interesting story. Where its revealed the episode
is a meta commentary on stories entirely in a subjected reality, with one of
the strongest last minute endings of the season wasted on an episode that
should've expanded the last ten minutes to the entire fifty minutes length beforehand.
Garris as a director, as with Chocolate, sadly tends to drown his
best ideas in ridiculous amounts of padding. (Which is why I don't like The Stand (1994) for example). Here the
problem, where the episodes before in season 2 have been better in quality, stands
out more to a detriment.
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