Those wild guys at Showtime are at it again with a series of the grittiest down-and-dirty gruntin... TV Review: Masters of Horr | Sex Press
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Those wild guys at Showtime are at it again with a series of the grittiest down-and-dirty gruntin... TV Review: Masters of Horr

Submitted by admin on Wed, 2005-11-02 12:00.

Those wild guys at Showtime are at it again with a series of the grittiest down-and-dirty grunting, slobbering, chain-saw juggling mutants ever to grace your home theatre. Culled from thousands of skilled but slightly deranged producers, directors and screenwriters from the world over, a thoroughbred stable of creative force has been channeled into a series of several dozen one hour long horror specials that air beginning October 28, 2005. The inaugural installment is an insightful eyeful entitled “On and Off a Mountain Road,” by Don Coscarelli and Stephen Romano; starring Bree Turner as the abused wife of an Oregon woodsman survivalist who turns the tables on not only her gun-toting hick hubby but Olympic quality serial killer Moonface as well. Angus Scrimm provides great back-up as Moonface's senile but loveable gimp.

If “Mountain Road” is a typical example of the quality of work we are to see in this series it is long on gore and short on imagination. The piece does not concentrate so much as on fantastic events as on fantastic make-up. The lines vary between the tolerable and the horrific, but the crucified, semi-rotting remains of former residents at deformed killer Moonface's cabin make it all worthwhile. Moonface has taken full advantage of the old slogan, “See the USA in Your Chevrolet” and creates auto accidents on his deserted stretch of woodsy highway as a sort of spider web for young attractive woman. These woman crash and as luck would have it their cell-phones don't work. Tough luck for them, or maybe Moonface works for Verizon, but they are in for some rough trade, woodsman-style, as the lurching giant with very bad teeth chases them through the dripping evergreens of the Northwest rain forest to his home handy-man workshop. He straps them down, wheels them under the drill press, and the fun begins, courtesy of Mssrs. Coscarelli and Romano.

Amazingly enough, this particular episode does not shy away from a bit of feminist survivalism and woman's liberation. If woman are sex objects to be carved up by their male dominators, Coscarelli and Romano have apparently conceded to what for them may be world-record political correctness. In this case the woman is a survivor. She keeps her wits and does the right thing. Unlike the “dirty” girls before her who could only think of the “F” word when it came to offering Moonface an alternative to the rusty auger treatment, this babe is no bimbo because she learned from, and survived, the best. Her husband was a psycho survivalist himself and he taught her everything he knew. Literally. Nothing succeeds like a warm AK-47 unless it's skillfully rigged manicure scissors on a flexible pine branch at just about Moonface eye-level. Ouch, that has got to hurt! But I don't want to give too much away.

The series can't be blamed for being facile and superficial, the TV medium does not allow for any more than that. Five minutes of set-up and there had better be some screaming, spattering blood or flying eyeballs or the network will be down your throat like Moonface's maggots.

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