Masters of Horror Season 2 Part 6

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The Washingtonians (2007)

Director: Peter Medak

Screenplay: Richard Chizmar and Johnathon Schaech

Based on a short story by Bentley Little

Cast: Julia Tortolano as Amy Franks; Venus Terzo as Pam Franks; Johnathon Schaech as Mike Franks; Myron Natwick as Samuel Madison III; Esme Lambert as Nancy Arnold; Abraham Jedidiah as Jared Barkish

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #28

[Spoiler Alert?]

Peter Medak qualifies for the Masters of Horror directorial chair because of The Changeling (1980), a taut and slow burn Canadian production which is underrated, a haunted house story which works as a drama and as a chilling supernatural story which uses subtlety for its impact. (I presume not for Species II (1998), the only other horror feature in his career which I saw at a young age, to be honest, alongside Species (1995) for the titillation it promised, only for schlock and H.R. Giger creature designs instead). Medak in general has one of those fascinating filmographies I would like to see more of. Hungarian born, his career includes extensive work in the British film industry during the late sixties and seventies with recognisable movies. I'm thinking in particular of The Ruling Class (1972), an epic two-and-a-half hour long satire where Peter O'Toole plays New Age Jesus much to the horror of stuffy British upper class society, a farce which has been said to including anything from musical numbers to Nigel Green as The High Voltage Messiah. One of those careers that, whilst The Changeling is one of the best horror films of its era, is worth exploring in its own right in other genres.

Sadly I can't say The Washingtonians was great despite that introduction. It's premise is utterly silly but could've made an interesting farce - imagining whether the founder of the United States of America, George Washington, was a cannibal. It's a heavy handed idea but one with potential, that the history one hold as idealised is likely to soften the real historical events, even completely go against them for the sake of myth, "printing the legend" to quote The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Particularly with individuals like Abraham Lincoln, an idealised hero who represents his country's people centuries later contrasts the more complicated version who actually lived. However I'd argue, even though it's been ten years or more since I saw the episode, that The Simpsons episode (guest starring Donald Sunderland) about the founder of Springfield  actually being an arsehole and Lisa Simpson having to deal with this issue was a far more interesting depiction of this issue.

The Washingtonians instead is pretty obvious. A lot of the problems with these lesser episodes of Season 2 are the bland families you're meant to sympathise with in the leads, presuming that a mere happy family is enough to connect to when, in reality, they should have more to them than merely an innocent kid in potential peril and their parents being generically wholesome. Said family are pitted against creepy older locals in a small town who are clearly weird in their first scene, behaving so at the start during a funeral. It's kind of obvious they're in on something from the start, and there's an absurdity unused of lunatics in powdered wigs and wooden teeth trying to get into a house and threatening to eat the occupants inside. A lot feels missing as  result A whole level of satire that could've been crammed into less than fifty five minutes. A twist from the original short story that isn't used for a dated joke from the period the episode was made, which misses out another satirical spike.  A whole level that could've happened, thinking about it mid-viewing, if there was a plot twist that George Washington was actually innocent and the Washingtonians had based their flesh eating cult on a fringe delusion. That Ravenous (1999) is a more rewarding take on pioneer era American cannibalism when this was an episode that's not got a lot to say about.

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The Damned Thing (2006)

Director: Tobe Hooper

Screenplay: Richard Christian Matheson

Based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce

Cast: Sean Patrick Flanery as Sheriff Kevin Reddle; Marisa Coughlan as Dina; Brendan Fletcher as Deputy Strauss; Alex Ferris as Mikey Reddle; Brent Stait as John Reddle; Georgia Craig as Jodi Reddle; Ted Raimi as Father Tulli

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #29

[Major spoiler warnings]

The attempt with The Damned Thing was admirable. But I don't know what to say about Tobe Hooper's second contribution to the Masters of Horror series. The most noticeable thing is that it drastically alters an Ambrose Bierce's story and turns it into a curious mix between an environmental story and an apocalypse narrative. Sheriff Kevin Reddle (Sean Patrick Flanery), the central character, suffered trauma when his father on his birthday suddenly snapped for no explainable reason, killing his wife and trying to kill Kevin as a child before he was ripped to shreds by an invisible force. This force is a curse on the men in the family, one when it goes after the males over generations brings an evil influence on everyone surrounding them, local communities turned towards irrational insanity and violence, both self harm and aggression to others, that leads to destruction and mass death.

While its subtle in back-story, the "damned thing" accidentally woken up by oil drilling and a force which has hexed the generations of people in one family, it's vague without reward. There's too many pieces missing that could've added a greater impact to the material. Especially when the monster is revealed as a CGI oil slick creature, there's a sense of too many plot points being unfocused and lacking, a misbegotten narrative as a result which should've been feature length. It also feels pointless for this to have even adapted the Bierce story as whilst that tale has enough material of interest in itself, an invisible creature and the fall out of a death its caused, it feels utterly pointless to have kept this potentially evolved predator in this episode when it's trying to be more of a literal evil from the Earth.

I cannot argue that Hooper, an older man at this time, showed so much energy with his frenzied production style here, the violent editing and intensity much more controlled and effective here than in his season one episode Dance of the Dead (2005).  There's an aggressive mood which suits a director whose famous work always had a sense of the mad and dangerous to it, heightened still here after three decades of it before. Particularly as it means Ted Raimi, he of permanent cameos in his brothers films for me, plays a priest who eventually starts howling like a madman, I can appreciate the energy.The issue is that the plot is a jumble which doesn't gel, something I have to wonder is the fault of screenwriter Richard Christian Matheson, as he also wrote Dance of the Dead which was also failed in this area. The Damned Thing because of this is a disappointment. 

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