Recent Reviews
TV Review: Masters of Horror Season 2 - The V Word
By James VanFleet
Nov 10, 2006, 23:41

The V Word begins wonderfully, gets muddled, then regains its step at the end.  The first twenty minutes are among the best I’ve seen from any episode of Masters of Horror, but the story's drive loses its way and tries to regain its footing.  That it does is a small relief, though the finale of the film doesn’t nearly reach the beauty of the first twenty minutes.

What story there is concerns the exploits of two young men looking for a thrill more exciting than Doom 3.  Justin (Branden Nadon), mentions that his cousin works at a funeral home, and there's a new, convenient dead body they could examine.  Kerry (Arjay Smith) will take any excuse to cure his boredom.  Not exactly the subtlest setup, but it works, and the boys learn that the home houses more than just corpses and iPods.

Ernest Dickerson directed the episode.  Although he’s most recognized for his notable television work and urban dramas, he directed the small hit Bones and the surprisingly enjoyable Demon Knight.  The latter seems to have influenced this episode, which begins like any self-respecting EC Comic : late night, full moon, framed in an extreme angle.  What's not to love?

As the two seventeen-year-olds explore the home, the dialogue decreases as the tension ramps up.  Garris’s script gives them enough reason to go, and enough contrivances to keep them there.  Can we blame Justin for leaving his cell phone at home?  If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be in a funeral home, investigating strange noises.  We'd still be jamming that trigger button and swearing at video games.

The funeral home becomes a character itself, full of coffins and almost no light.  Seriously.  None of the light switches work.  Sometimes I wonder if vampires, just by being near light bulbs, render them useless.  Either that or they’re better electricians than we all realized.  Every room is full of possible threats, and the story doesn’t build with boo-scares.  Instead, it’s mounting dread, through and through.

I must admit, this season of Masters is looking sharper than the first.  Attila Szalay, the chief cinematographer for the series, has made the past few episodes much more effective in regard to color and lighting.  I thought the first season felt too floodlit at times, but this episode is terrifically dark and crisp.  The colors are ripe, especially the reds and blacks.

What happens after the funeral home I will leave you to discover, but I can’t help feeling that the story loses something by abandoning such a classy set-piece.  I can see a whole game of cat-and-mouse taking place within the walls.  Dickerson does such a good job of establishing tension that I wouldn’t be bored for a second.  Alas, that’s not the case, and so the episode meanders along to a conclusion that would be just fine (especially a scene with a bonesaw), were the introduction not so damn promising.

Overall, the episode works, and I give Dickerson credit for crafting such a fun and distinctive look.  What interests me is that the first two episodes of this season felt so assured.  Tobe Hooper’s was a revelation, miles beyond his disappointing Dance of the Dead.  And Landis’s Family was confident and brimming with pathos, stronger than Deer Woman.  The V Word is the weakest this season, but it’s all relative.  I’m convinced that another Dickerson episode down the road would be just fine.