Masters of Horror Epp 8 - Cigarette Burns.

spooky donkey

I eagerlly await the KH review for this one. I`ll not review it only say it was the best one so far. Directed by John Carpenter I did not expect a lot thinking him to only be a mediocar director. I felt the story was a little rushed having only an hour to tell it, this could have made an exelent feature.
Its basicall about a rare film expert hired to find a rare film that caused riots and carnage when first showing 30 years earlier. The only copy of film believed to be destroyed by the goverment is saught after by a rare film collector ( Played by udo kier, from Blade among other things ) and he hires our main character to find it. This reall creped me out and even had me relucant to even look at the film when it is found. Im sure it had its flaws but I was way too into it to nit pick. I may watch this one again and look foward the KH review. There was even a feel of high fedility when our two film nerds talk about films, reminded me of Jack Black and John cusack discussing music. Watch this one I thinks its at least as good as epp2.

columok

This was an excellent episode. There was definately a feeling of dread going into the last fifteen minutes that made me want to press stop. The "snuff" moment was very unexpected and excellent.

I feel that Carpenter did a great job and really built up an incredible tension throughout the hour though like In the Mouth of Madness he somewhat fell at the final hurdle where he should remember maybe not to see is scarier than to see. He showed too much. Maybe remember Jack Tourneur's lesson...

My faith in the series has been somewhat redeemed. Great special effects.

Must see for any horror fan really...

Karl Hungus

spooky donkey wrote:

I eagerlly await the KH review for this one.

Does it seem I'm that talented as a writer, you'd be awaiting my review at all, never mind eagerly? Well, to the bat cave then! No, wait... there's bats in there!

I'll forego any outline of the plot, as this has been covered, so let me start off by saying what condescending drivel this episode was. With all the superfluous talk of the mythic power of films, I felt like I was being talked down to. Most of the dialogue was considerably grating, and pretentious, as if writen by someone trying to mimic the talk of an 'Artist' without really understanding any of what said talk is often refering to. The acting for the most part was horrible aswell, with the obvious exception being Udo Kier. Norman Reedus as the protagonist was terrible, as if he was being filmed wandering around, reading his lines from queue cards, for example in the scene where he confronts his dead girlfriend's father, telling him "You have no idea what I'm going through." Horrible.

But... And this is an absolutely prolific but. Despite these huge short-comings, "Cigarette Burns" actually comes off as a good episode! I know, I was quite suprised, but I felt myself getting quite sucked in after the first 20 minutes or so, and compared to the other episodes, this one was really quite scary. Hell, I felt it was one of the very few episodes that deserved to be filmed under the monicker "Masters of Horror" as opposed to the "Vaguely Supernatural Tale" that some of the other episode so far have been.

Certainly, what made this episode was Carpenter's direction. So while it was an extremely poorly written piece, and being overly similar to films like The Ninth Gate, 8MM, Ring, and of course, In The Mouth Of Madness, I think that how it was handled was brilliant. All the time I was cringing at the dialogue, there were parts that were disturbing, and I genuinely did feel the tension and dread growing.

It's odd to think that with such terrible writing, and horrendous acting, just how much the direction is accountable to the overall result. Then I think to myself just how silly the idea of someone coming out of a TV is, yet that particular scene in Ring is easily one of the most outright terrifying things to have been put to film, ever. It's all about direction, how things are built up, the atmosphere, and tension. Cigarette Burns was masterfully directed (No pun intended) in this respect, and I think we have a redemption for not only the series, but John Carpenter aswell. Strange, isn't it?

spooky donkey

columok wrote:

I feel that he somewhat fell at the final hurdle where he should remember maybe not to see is scarier than to see. He showed too much. Maybe remember Jack Tourneur's lesson...

Yes I thought this also, I really dident think that we would see any of the mythical film at all was a little disapointed when some got showed.

Karl Hungus wrote:

Norman Reedus as the protagonist was terrible, as if he was being filmed wandering around, reading his lines from queue cards, for example in the scene where he confronts his dead girlfriend's father, telling him "You have no idea what I'm going through." Horrible.

Yeah I thought some of his dialogue was so bad and forced also. Particularrly an secence where he spoke to the father. Also that guys dodgy french accent.
Fair points about direction too, I dident ecpect a lot when I saw Capenters name as he had been blowing hot and cold of late but this was a return to form for him, and it was only a TV show, lets seem him do as good a job on his next feature.

Karl Hungus

You know, this is probably the first time since I saw The Thing that something of Carpenter's has actually scared me. Granted, there was a lot of cheap scares in it, a lot of "Jump" moments, but the atmosphere that was building was very well done. I don't know if this would be enough to make me hopefully, or optimistic about any further John Carpenter films, but I'd certainly give him another chance.

spooky donkey

Im sure he would thank you for youre patients.

Hugh Hefner

I really liked this episode. The acting was certinaly terrible but the gore was nice and full. Plus I always fall for sappy/crappy storylines like this one.

koneko

This was probably one of the better MOH episodes, for me anyway. Liked the premise, though not entirely original (and I'm sure I've seen something just like it on Outer Limits or Twilight Zone), some of the acting was a bit patchy and the dialog wasn't great, but overall I would really recommend it. Nice gore and it was pretty creeeepy.