October 27, 2006: Masters of Horror Still Has Guts
Tobe Hooper, you did it. You started off
Season 2 with a bang, and set this year's standard: This series still is not for lightweights. I'm actually a bit in shock as I sit here writing this; speechless [er... blogless?] over what I just saw and felt. To say that
The Damned Thing was gore-tastic is an understatement. It made some of last year's goriest episodes seem like they were PG-13. (Hellz yeah!)
Following in the footsteps of Hooper's Season 1 entry,
Dance of the Dead,
The Damned Thing's script is also written by R.C. Matheson. To my pleasant surprise, much like
Dance of the Dead,
Damned has got that unique, intelligent, poetic meter to it that actually makes Southern draaawls sound artistically stylized. However,
Damned definitely parts ways with
Dance's romantic, doomed poetry, and opts for a cynically introspective, downright tormenting script. After doing some digging, it's fascinating to learn that Matheson adapted
The Damned Thing from a short story by Ambrose Bierce, a 19th-century writer considered by many to be among the ranks of horror pioneers such as H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe. Curiously enough, Bierce has his own doomed history; he literally disappeared off the face of the earth in 1913, which naturally steeps his stories in real-life, historical darkness.
The Damned Thing reminds me very much of Hooper's classic and acclaimed
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, not just because it's set in Texas, but because of the gritty, dank, sickly earth tones and constant cloud of dread stalking every scene. As sick in the head as I have become, I couldn't help but chuckle as the family ate ribs for dinner in the opening scene: Hmm... what exactly is in the sauce? Was that a hard-shelled peppercorn?
It didn't take long at all for the first gore-ridden scenes to set me in constant cringe mode, wondering who would next pick up an inanimate object and use it creatively to express supernatural rage. Let's just say, "It's hammer time" has now taken on a whole new meaning tonight. But I think I may prefer that imagery to loud '80s flight pants.... I dunno, get back to me on that one. Another classic horror film that entered my mind throughout
The Damned Thing was fellow
Master John Carpenter's
The Fog. The atmospheric malevolence, the premise of the fathers' sins destroying the children, and the motivation of greed literally damning a seemingly unassuming town seemed to me like notable parallels between the two stories.
Sean Patrick Flanery's performance as leading man and town sheriff, "Kevin Reddle," was on the same subtle, pensive, intense level as somebody like leading actor
Kiefer Sutherland. Flanery's cast mate
Marisa Coughlan reminded me a bit of cult star
Sheryl Lee [
Twin Peaks], which made her estranged character familiar and likable. My new official name for
Ted Raimi is "Father Ted Scene-Stealer Raimi." 'Nuff said about the mighty Ted.
Finally, I did learn a couple of life lessons from
The Damned Thing that I will take with me. 1) Should I ever decide to remain a resident in a house in which a brutal murder took place, I will definitely get rid of that creepy Felix the Cat clock (it's supposed to be retro chic, not retro creep), and 2) Whenever a
Damned Thing is about to hit, the last place I'll wanna be is in a trailer park. Thanks, Tobe, for delivering a killer premiere episode!
