A truly captivating horror anthology is few and far between, as much as it is adored by horror lovers. The art of perfecting a collection of horror shorts is rare, owing to the difficulty of maintaining consistency. Occasionally, you will come upon a horror anthology that includes one excellent story and a few mediocre ones. Other times, the direction is judged to be lacking in the majority of the stories, despite the fact that one of them is directed by a senior director.
Masters of Horror was a breath of fresh air in this world of paradoxes. Mick Garris’ TV series gathered together some of the best horror filmmakers to create something truly special. He hosted an informal meal with filmmakers such as John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Stuart Gordon, Guillermo del Toro, and others, and their mutual admiration drew them together for this project.
You might think that the stories would be promising with such a talented team of directors on board, and over the course of two seasons, this horror anthology delivered some memorable episodes time and time again.
The stories ranged from mysterious monstrosities to strange phenomena to Lovecraftian horror, and we have compiled a collection of the best episodes from this timeless classic in this video. If you enjoy horror films, it is time to turn down the lights and watch this underappreciated masterpiece!
H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreams in the Witch-House directed by Stuart Gordon (Season 1 Episode 2)
Those who are well versed with the works of H.P. Lovecraft know about Dreams in the Witch House, which is regarded as one of his creepiest stories. The narrative picks up with a student named Walter Gilman, who moves into a new attic room in the Witch House. It is thought to be a cursed building and even the dimensions of his room are rather peculiar.
After moving into his new apartment, Walter has strange dreams, and in these dreams, he experiences an otherworldly space of colors and geometry. One day, he hears his neighbor Frances screaming and rushes to help her. She claims that she was chased by a large rat, and the manager refuses to help Walter.
One of the other tenants in the building, Masurewicz asks if the rat had a human face as if it was something he expected! Walter grows closer to Frances and through his future interactions with Masurewicz he learns that the old man believes in a giant rodent with a man’s face living in the building. He also believes that a witch would be after him and warns Walter about the evil nature of the house. However, Walter does not buy such stories and he even refuses a crucifix offered by Masurewicz.
Frances is a single mother, and when she goes for a job interview she asks Walter to watch over her son Danny. During his stay, a cloaked witch appears as Frances and seduces him to sleep with her. Midway into the act, she claws the skin off his back and transforms into an old witch.
He suddenly wakes up, as if from a bad dream, but it turns out that the witch has already carved a pentagram on his back. Later, he is grabbed by the man-faced rodent, and it cuts his wrist causing him to bleed. He finds himself in the restricted access room of his university library and he watches the book of Necronomicon and signs of some terrible rituals.
Suddenly, he is confronted by the angry warden, and he has no explanation of his presence out of nowhere. Walter barely manages to escape and returns back to his apartment, where is dubbed as crazy by Frances. He stumbles upon the skeletons of some past sacrifices in the apartment, and when he realizes that the witch has planned to sacrifice Danny, he strangles her with a crucifix.
However, the rodent with a man’s face sucks the life out of Danny, and Walter is blamed for the murder. He is deemed to be mentally unstable and sent to the psychiatric ward. He is attacked by the vicious rodent and he bleeds to death, while Masurewicz hangs himself in his room. The curse of the house takes a heavy toll on their lives, and the episode ends with the room for rent sign put up again!
The most shocking part of the episode was its unpredictable nature. The interaction with the dark world of witches and monsters was so bizarre that it was not easy to comprehend if Walter was just losing his mind! This is Lovecraftian horror at its finest and it is a must-watch for his fans.
Dance of the Dead directed by Tobe Hooper (Season 1 Episode 3)
The story is premised in a dark and bleak future, and you know you can trust Tobe Hooper to come up with the perfect ambiance for such a setting. In this futuristic world, terrorists have devised a strange biological weapon called Blizz, which can be dropped from the skies and causes people to burn instantly. Peggy, a young girl, watched many of her friends killed by the Blizz, and she took shelter inside her house with her mother and sister.
Ten years following this event, the US has been destroyed by the impact of World War III. The body count keeps rising, and Peggy has now grown into a young woman. Her sister is now dead, and she runs a business with her mother Kate. Even though business is down, their father had left some money for them and they manage to get along fine.
Kate meets a biker and druggie named Jak and two of his friends, and she takes interest in some shady dealings at a nightclub called The Doom Room. Despite her mother’s warnings she sneaks out with them and heads to the Doom Room. This heavy metal bar is home to the scum of the society, and Peggy watches a performance in the club, while her new friends strike a deal backstage.
They smuggle packets of blood and Peggy finds out that the owner of the Doom Room, MC, collects bodies of drug-overdosed teens and injects them with some drug to keep their hearts beating. They are pumped with blood and forced to dance in the club, and Peggy is shocked to find that her dead sister is also one of these undead teens. She tries to whisk her sister away, but she has a nasty surprise when she learns that her own mother sold her sister to MC after she overdosed.
Apparently, Peggy’s father never left them any money, and Kate admitted that her financial condition forced her to go ahead with this unthinkable act. Peggy is furious and trades Kate for her sister, whom she buries respectfully and considers the last living member of her family. The episode ends on an ominous note as we see Peggy one of the teenagers frequenting the Doom Room, and she watches Kate’s corpse being forced to dance!
This episode was Tobe Hooper at his finest, with a gratuitous, nihilistic tale of a post-apocalyptic world. His expressions were vivid and there was nothing to hold him back, which allowed him to create this masterpiece!
Deer Woman directed by John Landis (Season 1 Episode 7)
The episode opens at a lodge, where several drunk truckers are having quite a party! One of the truckers leaves the room and hears a fellow trucker screaming inside a truck. Just as he is about to go and investigate things go quiet and he leaves. Detective Dwight and his partner Officer Jacob Reed are called into some reports of a possible animal attack.
We see the truck from the opening sequence and upon investigation, they realize that the door of the truck was kicked out by something extremely powerful. When Dwight questions the locals about the whereabouts of the victim inside the truck, he finds out that the man was last seen with a Native American woman. He seems to have died in a state of arousal and nothing about his death can be passed off as natural.
Meanwhile, another businessman is seen with a beautiful Native American woman, who guides him to a hotel. He soon becomes the next victim, and the woman proceeds to seduce another man. When the detective inspects the dead body of the business, he realizes that the body has marks just like the previous victim in the truck. Something similar seems to have killed them both, and their initial suspicion attributes the attacker to be a deer.
They also get some information about the second victim being seen with a Native American woman. A local Native American bartender tells them about the legend of the Deer Woman. This malevolent spirit of the forests takes the form of a beautiful girl and seduces its victims. She has the body of a woman, but the legs of a deer and the Deer Woman kills for the thrill of it.
The detective believes the story, but Officer Reed doesn’t buy such an outrageous tale and wanders off. He soon runs into the Deer Woman and takes her home. The detective unearths some past news of loggers trampled to death in the woods under mysterious circumstances. The pattern seems all too familiar, but by the time he calls his assistant, it is a bit too late.
Officer Reed tells him about the woman, but he soon realizes that he is faced with the monster! Before the detective can arrive to help, Officer Reed is killed. Dwight desperately gives chase and attacks the Deer Woman, but she simply disappears. The episode ends with the detective informing other policemen about an animal attack, probably because he realizes that no one would believe his story!
This episode will be remembered for the creepy mythical legend of the Deer Woman, and everything about this short story was eerily presented for the viewer. The open-ended climax further added to the charm of the narrative, and the director John Landis did a great job with the concept.
Fair-Haired Child directed by William Malone (Season 1 Episode 9)
Tara is a young teenager, but she is somewhat of a loner. Despite her talents, she is not really liked in school and she doesn’t have any friends. Her life gets worse when she is kidnapped one day and taken to a strange mansion far away. Her mother seems unbothered by her situation, and her kidnapper is a woman dressed in a nurse’s outfit who asks her some weird questions about her life so far.
She is asked about her physical relationships and whether or not she is baptized. Following the interrogation, she is locked up in the basement, and her attempt to run away fails. Tara’s kidnapper also has a male accomplice, and something about them is very unnerving. In the basement, Tara finds a young boy named Johnny hanging from a noose, and she saves him from certain death.
They develop a bond, but the boy cannot speak and only communicates by writing in the dust. Tara tries to make sense of his cryptic message to beware of a Fair-Haired Child. The duo also finds a room with several backpacks and a bloodied bathtub, which suggests that they are not the first ones to be trapped. The ones before them clearly did not meet with a pleasant fate, and they must quickly find a way to escape.
There is a shocking twist in the tale when Tara discovers that the Fair-Haired Child is none other than Johnny himself. He transforms into a disgusting demonic creature, and Tara somehow manages to hide from the creature until it transforms back to Johnny. She learns that Johnny had died twelve years ago on his fifteenth birthday, and unable to deal with the tragedy, his parents had struck a deal with a demon.
They performed a ritual regularly, where they would sacrifice a teenager every year. After twelve such offerings, Tara being the last one, Johnny would become human again. However, Johnny is overcome by guilt and he also started to care for Tara. She reciprocates his feelings for her, and this time when he transforms into a monster, she doesn’t run away and allows herself to be killed.
Johnny is now back to his human self because the ritual is complete, but he has something else in mind. When his parents arrive, he reveals that he has struck a deal with the demon for two victims! Tara now appears as the Fair-Haired Child and the parents are killed. In return, she gets her life back, and Johnny tells her that she will have no memory of the terrible past temporarily.
This episode was impressive mainly because of the unexpected twist. The monster design was quite impressive, and it was a story that kept people guessing till the very end.
The Damned Thing directed by Tobe Hooper (Season 2 Episode 1)
This is Tobe Hooper’s second contribution to the Masters of Horror series, and this episode is based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce. However, the director made quite a few changes and only retained the concept of an invisible force trying to destroy the residents in a small Texas town.
This apocalyptic tale traces a mysterious monstrous force that devastates the family of local Sheriff Kevin Reddle. His father killed his mother many years ago, and he believes that there is a connection between the invisible force and the murder. He sets off to investigate further and he wants to put an end to the damned thing before it can affect the entire town by turning the residents into murderous psychopaths. However, he is up against an unexplained force, and it is not going to be a cakewalk.
Tobe Hooper is not the one to shy away from explicit violence in his movies, and this one is no exception. Be prepared for some gruesome moments with blood and guts and dis-embowelments. The execution has a subtle Lovecraftian touch that makes things all the more mystifying. We also loved the touch of dark humor in the script, and this is certainly going to be a memorable episode from this addictive series!
Pro-Life directed by John Carpenter (Season 2 Episode 5)
John Carpenter is always an exciting name for horror fans, and his presence in the Masters of Horror project presented us with another of his classics. Pro-Life begins with a haunting sequence in an abortion clinic. Angelique has been taken thereafter someone forced himself on her, and the enforcer was apparently a demonic creature. Does the name Angelique ring a bell?
Well, she is one of the most notorious demons of hell, and John Carpenter wasn’t just playing around with names here, and the story proves that he was being quite ironic! Even though she is at the abortion clinic, her father is against the procedure because he is pro-life. He accompanies her three brothers and they are determined to save the unborn child. Her father apparently received a message from God, ordering him to save the baby, and he makes sure that the orders are carried out.
Finally, Angelique gives birth, but there is a shocking twist in the tale. She gives birth to a demonic baby, and its demonic father rises from the ground. Angelique’s father realizes that it was not God, but the demon who ordered him to save the baby, but now it is too late. The demon father of the baby attacks some of the staff presents there, and even kills Angelique’s father. However, Angelique does not lose her composure and shoots the monstrous baby dead. The demon father grieves over the corpse and heads back to hell, and Angelique ends the episode by saying that the will of God is finally done.
This episode has John Carpenter written all over it. Everything from the disturbing premise to the shocking scenes will let you know that the horror maestro is at work. You might find some of the sequences to be a tad too graphic, but the narrative always keeps you on the edge of your seats. The demons look terrifying, and overall, it is an episode to remember!
The Screwfly Solution by Joe Dante (Season 2 Episode 7)
A mysterious virus infects a majority of the male population of the world and turns them into murderous psychopaths. The episode begins on this apocalyptic note as a mother and daughter try to escape from the carnage. Their journey across the country would be riddled with dangers and one wrong move could end their lives. There are increased cases of killings, and meanwhile, Anne’s husband Alan notices these incidents while working to solve an insect problem.
One of their friends interrogates one of the infected men, and it turns out that they are in a state of arousal and justify the murders with some religious rhetoric. The world is plagued by tens and thousands of such murders, and slowly everyone is aware of this strange epidemic. The only feasible method of preventing the infection seems to be chemical castration or actual castration.
Many are opposed to such a drastic solution, and even the US Army General is against this move. In the course of time, even Alan gets infected, and later he attacks his own daughter. In some regions, the situation is so grim that the entire female population has been wiped out. In a surprising revelation, we learn that the entire infection was a ploy by an alien race, who viewed it as a slow and effective solution to make the human race go extinct.
Even with the desperate struggle for survival, it eventually comes to the point where the female population is totally exterminated. Only the infected men remain, who are going to die off slowly pointing to an obvious end of human life on Earth!
We have seen several takes on alien invasion stories, but few ideas have been as innovative as this one. The aliens do not engage in any form of conventional combat and simply take down the entire population using the most effective method. The story might be pessimistic, but the thrilling journey and the struggle for survival make it a very interesting watch. Joe Dante did not hold back with violence or his brand of dark humor, and this effective horror story is sure to leave a lasting impact.
We All Scream for Ice Cream directed by Tom Holland (Season 2 Episode 10)
Remember the horror of the Candyman? Well, this episode brings you an Ice-cream man with a twist. The episode begins with a bizarre sequence, where a man melts away as his son bites into a cone of ice cream. After his death, one of his friends named Layne arrives to attend his funeral, and he realizes that something is very mysterious about the death. He also observes children eerily chanting, we all scream for ice cream, as if in a trance. We get to know the terrible past of the town, where an ice cream man named Buster dressed up in a clown suit and sold ice cream in a cart.
He was a decent fellow, but some of the notorious kids decided to prank him. One day one of them pulled off his clown nose to reveal that he had a deformed nose, and to make matters worse, they released the brake of his ice cream truck and got Buster run over. Layne was the man who was made to release the brake back in the day, and he realizes that the ice cream man is back for revenge.
He watches helplessly as one of his friends melts away when a girl bites into an ice cream cone, and he devises a plan to put an end to the evils of the ice cream man. He tricks one of the kids to eat an ice cream cone-shaped like Buster, and the clown fades away. However, the episode ends on a cliffhanger because it is revealed that the ghostly figure is still present and Layne may not be safe after all!
This episode did have a few goofy moments, and the heart of the concept was somewhat laughable. However, credit is due for Tom Holland who pulled off this entertaining story in style. The look of the ice cream man was quite creepy, and the story did remind many of the viewers about the legend of the Candyman!
The idea of bringing together some of the finest horror movie directors to create various episodes of a horror anthology was a masterstroke. Such shows are hardly made these days, in the times of big bucks and large-scale releases. Masters of Horror might be a fun throwback to enjoy, and some of the creepy episodes are sure to provide a few sleepless nights for the viewer!