This will have some slight spoilers, but nothing to give away the ending, I promise!!!







Did anyone see the first episode of Showtime's Masters of Horror? It was Don Coscarelli's adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale's "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road". I've been looking forward to this for a while (and hope to see FPW's "Pelts" someday too).

I'll have to say, by the end of the 1 hour show, that I decided it was very good. The acting was bad in spots and great in others. The crazy old man was awesome, and reminded me a little of "Grandpaw" from House of 1000 Corpses.

There were some spots, early, in the show that really bothered me. The fact that this girl, who has been trained in combat and survival overlooked so many obvious advantages, neglected some glaring opportunities, and showed her training by doing some IMPOSSIBLE MacGyver-style attacks (That wouldn't work based on physics, and the odds) really bothered me, at first. An example is, Moonface threw a knife at her (she's well trained in knife fighting), misses, and it sticks into a fallen log inches from her head. My first thought is man, she can kill him with that knife. Instead she screams and crawls under the log to escape leaving the knife for Moon Face to recover and use later. There is another spot where she takes off her panties, and seems to find 6 or 8 feet worth of elastic in them. That elastic was strong enough to be stretched across a 3 foot opening and launch an arrow into a shoulder, several feet away. In fact, at one point, I said, "This show sucks", and stopped recording, but continued watching.

The show made a great turnaround though (maybe 10 to 15 minutes in) and ended with a cool twist and a majorly dark turn that I really liked. I never read the short story, so the twist was completely unexpected. With about 10 minutes left, I was waiting for the obvious Jason, Michael Myers, Jeepers Creepers type Monster comes back from death to continue wreaking havoc. I was brilliantly surprised by the direction the story went at that point. I didn't see it coming.

Luckilly for me, Showtime replayed it again right after. This time the tape machine was running!!!

This film isn't as amazing as Joe and Don's previous collaboration, Bubba Ho-Tep. That one was an all-time great, immortal. What it was, was a very good first episode of what I hope to be a good, and long running series for Showtime (with an FPW episode or two to boot).

Dang, now I may need to rethink my not having any pay channels on my cable.....Damn you T4!!

I had pretty much the same initial reaction as T4 -- ho-hum, another crazy-in-the-woods story...when does he pop up again...?

And then that cool (maybe I should say "cold") turnaround. Changed entirely my opinion of the film. I didn't see it coming. Bravo.

I read the short story, saw the advertisements for the show, and thought... gee, I've read a story just like this. Duh....

I decided not to watch because I'd read the story and lately haven't felt the need to be scared to death. Real life has been stressful enough. I wasn't home when it aired, either.

Well, after reading these posts, I realize that I've forgotten the ending...wait a minute...I think I'm remembering it...hmmm...and if I'm not mistaken, I didn't see it coming in the book, either.

I enjoyed the story from Lansdale. It was one of the few that didn't gross me out completely.

Maybe I will watch the show. I have Showtime on Demand, as well regular Showtime, so I can catch it whenever.