Masters of Horror Season 2: Five Episode Reviews

Masters of Horror Season 2, Episode 1: The Damned Thing

Inspired by Ambrose Bierce's classic short-story. Tale of a monstrous force that devastates Sheriff Kevin Reddle's family and his small Texas town.

This is a good episode but not great. Sean Patrick Flanery does a great job here, as does the rest of the cast. I liked seeing Ted Raimi in his role as a priest/pastor.

The story is both simple yet vague at times, with a few plot holes that bothered me. It's like two stories in one. First, we have a mysterious force that causes the townspeople to go crazy and attack each other to the death. Second, we have Sheriff Kevin Reddle who, as a child, witnessed his father go crazy on his birthday and kill his mother. Why on his birthday is never really explained. Now, Kevin's birthday is coming up and the force/monster is out for revenge for the sins of the father.

If you want to really get deep into the social commentary that is at the heart of the story, you will see a story of revenge by nature on mankind. I clearly see this aspect but this movie mixes it into other horror aspects that detract from this nature and moral "lesson". I do enjoy good social commentary but there is a time and place for it but this isn't it. Tobe Hooper and Richard Christian Matheson should have focused on just one story and not try to do several at once.

It had potential to be so much more than what we see here. I think it just needed one more edit to make a tighter-knit story. I find it hard to believe that Richard Christian Matheson, such a renowned writer, would put out something with so many problems. He wrote the teleplay of Ambrose Bierce who wrote the short story on which this is based. I hear that the story is much better written.

There is tons of gore with a few eviscerations and geysers of blood. If you are a gore fan, this movie will be like opening gifts on Christmas morning! Blood, guts, organs ripped out and hanging and more! The SFX are okay until the end where the monster is shown; it just looked cheesy. It would have been much better if it was left unseen.

Overall, it was a fairly good episode but far from stellar and not one of my favorites. It's still worth a view.