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I'm sitting here listening to Lewis Black's latest album, Anticipation, and I'm happy. I'm not rolling in money or anticipating a big event, but I'm at home, doing what I want to be doing, which right now, is nothing. Later tonight, I'll start my next ficcing project, but that's later.
I watched the first two episodes of Masters of Horror S2 last night. "The Black Cat" was an adaptation of the eponymous Poe story, and "The Damned Thing" was a modernization of an Ambrose Bierce tale. "Cat" was a faithful retelling and the act was superior to most network bilge, but oh, God, was it profoundly disturbing. The scene wherein Poe plucks out the cat's eye with his quill was horrendous to watch. It wasn't gratuitous and lingering torture porn like Saw, but neither did it flinch. And when Poe accidentally stepped on the disembodied eye and it popped like a grape... Yet the scene, horrendous as it was, paled in comparison to a subsequent scene in which a grief-maddened Poe hangs the cat from a rafter and sets the house ablaze with the intent of committing suicide. Cats shouldn't...gargle like that.
"The Damned Thing" was mediocre at best, victim, I suspect, of Richard C. Matheson's well-intended updating of a nineteenth-century horror tale. By Matheson's own admission, the original story bears scant resemblance to his "reimagining". It's not set in Texas, doesn't involve a sheriff, and most certainly doesn't feature an oil monster bent on punishing a family for its greed. In other words, Matheson and director Tobe Hooper took the name of Bierce's story for the cachet and bowdlerized the rest.
Feh.
Updating seldom works, and well enough needs to be left alone. So what if Bierce's story featured muskets and Victrolas and hansom cabs? Scary is scary, and most horror fans willing to shell out for a Showtime anthology series are savvy enough to know what they are and place the credibility of the story in its proper context . If they're not, there are the helping hands of Google and Wikipedia.
Modern /= better.
Still, freed from the onus of allotting time for commercials, the filmmakers could devote time to character and plot development, and the production values are brilliant. Masters are what Fear Itself would be with the proper support and resources, a fact borne out by the assertion on Wikipedia that Fear was, in fact, meant to be S3 of Masters, but was shunted to NBC when Showtime passed.
So, I'll watch more today after I've finished my German coursework. Until then, it's time to mindlessly t00b the Internet.
I watched the first two episodes of Masters of Horror S2 last night. "The Black Cat" was an adaptation of the eponymous Poe story, and "The Damned Thing" was a modernization of an Ambrose Bierce tale. "Cat" was a faithful retelling and the act was superior to most network bilge, but oh, God, was it profoundly disturbing. The scene wherein Poe plucks out the cat's eye with his quill was horrendous to watch. It wasn't gratuitous and lingering torture porn like Saw, but neither did it flinch. And when Poe accidentally stepped on the disembodied eye and it popped like a grape... Yet the scene, horrendous as it was, paled in comparison to a subsequent scene in which a grief-maddened Poe hangs the cat from a rafter and sets the house ablaze with the intent of committing suicide. Cats shouldn't...gargle like that.
"The Damned Thing" was mediocre at best, victim, I suspect, of Richard C. Matheson's well-intended updating of a nineteenth-century horror tale. By Matheson's own admission, the original story bears scant resemblance to his "reimagining". It's not set in Texas, doesn't involve a sheriff, and most certainly doesn't feature an oil monster bent on punishing a family for its greed. In other words, Matheson and director Tobe Hooper took the name of Bierce's story for the cachet and bowdlerized the rest.
Feh.
Updating seldom works, and well enough needs to be left alone. So what if Bierce's story featured muskets and Victrolas and hansom cabs? Scary is scary, and most horror fans willing to shell out for a Showtime anthology series are savvy enough to know what they are and place the credibility of the story in its proper context . If they're not, there are the helping hands of Google and Wikipedia.
Modern /= better.
Still, freed from the onus of allotting time for commercials, the filmmakers could devote time to character and plot development, and the production values are brilliant. Masters are what Fear Itself would be with the proper support and resources, a fact borne out by the assertion on Wikipedia that Fear was, in fact, meant to be S3 of Masters, but was shunted to NBC when Showtime passed.
So, I'll watch more today after I've finished my German coursework. Until then, it's time to mindlessly t00b the Internet.
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