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Review: 'Fear Itself' horror anthology on NBC

Verne Gay | Off Camera

June 4, 2008

Reason for watching: NBC's revival of Showtime's "Masters of Horror," featuring the blood-curdling chops of a bunch of solid directors who know how to curdle the blood - and splatter, smear, spread and splotch it, too. Some of the names include Darren Bousman ("Saw II, III and IV"), Brad Anderson ("The Machinist"), Mary Harron ("American Psycho") and John Landis ("An American Werewolf in London"). Alums of "Masters" are onboard, too.

What it's about: Thirteen-episode run invokes a classic form of TV - the anthology - which has fallen out of favor because of audience preference for "character development" or serial storytelling. The horror anthology has had a slightly different fate over the years, as some of these seminal titles ("The Twilight Zone," "The Outer Limits," "Tales From the Darkside" and "Tales From the Crypt") attest. The trick is that each edition requires auteur status, so that individual stories have a pop and sizzle (or slice and dice) distinctive to the specific director. Tomorrow begins with Breck Eisner - yes, son of ex-Disney boss Michael, remaking "Creature From the Black Lagoon." He reworks a short story by Del Howison ("The Lost Herd") about four criminals on the lam. Their truck breaks down, they see a plume of smoke in the distance and head to a stockade that surrounds a darkened gloomy fortress, wherein live three beautiful women who are tending to another hungry inhabitant. Yes, you'd know better than to go inside, but they don't.

The bottom line: A breath of cold, bracing and - bless it - fresh air. Eisner's fable is dark, almost impenetrably so, though skillfully rendered. Best of all, nothing here has ever been performed on reality TV, the best I can tell.

"FEAR ITSELF"