Today NBC aired the first episode of their new horror anthology Fear Itself. This evening Tex sent us his official review of "The Sacrifice", which was written by Mick Garris ("Riding the Bullet," "Amazing Stories") from a story by Del Howison ("Dark Delicacies") and directed by Breck Eisner ("Creature from the Black Lagoon"). When four criminals find themselves stranded in an old, snow-covered fort, they slowly discover both the fort and the seductive trio of sirens who reside there are filled with deadly secrets. Click here to write your own reviews or read on for Tex's thoughts...
Sacrifice (Fear Itself 1.1)
Mick Garris (MASTERS OF HORROR) brings his latest vision of a horror anthology show to NBC with the debut of FEAR ITSELF. Like his Showtime series, Garris is bringing aboard a gaggle of genre vets and a few newcomers. This premiere episode SACRIFICE provides a solid mix of both.
Garris penned the screenplay based on a short story by Del Howison. Howison’s name should be familiar to the more literal gorehounds out there, as he is the owner of the Dark Delicacies bookstore in Burbank, California—the be all, end all location for the best in horror film and book signings. Helming the episode is Breck Eisner, who’s getting his feet bloodied in the world of genre films before stepping up to lens THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and a re-make of George Romero’s THE CRAZIES.
SACRIFICE follows four friends whose car troubles leave them stranded in the middle of the snowy wilderness. With one of the group seriously wounded, the men happen upon an old fort. Inside, they discover three beautiful sisters and a deadly secret that has been hidden behind the walls for a very long time.
SACRIFICE has a few things working against it, and a lot of things working in it’s favor. To begin with, what we are talking about here is a cut and dry monster movie. Everything is by the book. Eisner’s direction is not flashy—although he does employ a few interesting camera angles. As the film’s opening credits run, the bleak landscape calls to mind Sam Raimi’s terrific film A SIMPLE PLAN. Eagle-eyed genre fans will recognize the fort in the wilderness (A location previously used in the highly underrated GINGER SNAPS BACK). It’s clear almost immediately (we’re talking pre-credit sequence here) that the men have been lured to this location. So, we know everything is not hunky dory. The trio of girls—lead by Rachel Miner (PENNY DREADFUL)—have obviously been extremely sheltered. Their speech is stilted and when they display flashes of their sexuality, it seems forced. The film addresses these issues (which have an interesting subtext in light of recent events in Texas) with the final reveal and does well to make the viewer reassess some preconceived prejudices about their intentions.
The problems lie in the fact that the film is moving forward with all guns blazing from almost the minute the guys arrive at the fort. There is no time for character development on the part of the women and one of the guys is dispatched so rapidly it’s a wonder why he was even written into the script at all.
The effects work is pretty good stuff and those of you fearful that no blood was going to be shown can rest assured that there’s a fair amount of splatter to go around. Obviously no one is going to be swearing up a store on network television so, despite an instance or two where you’d expect a few four letter words to fly, the scripting is pretty much on the mark as far as believability.
SACRIFICE is probably not going to blow any dyed-in-the-wool horrorhounds minds, but for a primetime horror show, not airing on a pay cable network, it’s not bad. That Garris and company have taken a traditional horror film format to NBC says a lot about how much television has progressed over the past 20 years. As I said before, it’s not explicit—at least no more so than a week worth of CSI episodes would suggest—but it is fair to the viewer. If the assembled coming episodes match or hopefully enhance the favor earned by SACRIFICE, I wager we’re looking a pretty fearful summer ahead of us.
What struck me as particularly strange is I had more problems with the script than the directing, despite this technically being the first horror themed thing that this director has actually shot. He's coming off of directing episodes of 'Taken' and 'The Invisible Man'.
Though he has one horror remake listed in preproduction and another recently announced, this technically is his first, and unlike Masters of Horror where the directors already had something genre related on their resume, this director did not. Not bad for a first effort, the majority of the blame for this episode's problems fall back on the censoring for television and the script itself.
As you said, Tex. this was a pretty good showing for network TV. Also as you pointed out it was a very by the numbers monster show, so much in fact I felt like I had seen it many times before. That said, I think there was too much character development (albeit generic). We know were this is going and how it's going to end, so why not just pony up with the scares? Sometimes that's all that is needed. Not everything has to be groundbreaking, original and Emmy worthy; especially for summer fare. In my opinion this should have moved a lot faster without all the lead up to the vampire making his appearence. I gottaq agree with americagods that many of the problems lied in the script - should have been tighter. As for being censored for TV...if the script would have worked a bit better it wouldn't have mattered.
Yeah....I'm in the "not bad for network TV" crowd.
Of course, I recognized the fort immediately so we had fun making Ginger comments throughout the thing. The critter really should've been a werewolf.
(then again, I always think the critter should be a werewolf)
The other thing that's kind of telling is in Darren Bousman's blog regarding the level of violence on the show. I realize that I'm posting on a site named Blood Disgusting, but violence isn't everything. Especially since this show is on network TV, it will live and die primarily by the quality of its writing and the ingenuity of its directors to wring suspense and terror out of the stories. "Red stuff" can accent a well crafted story, but by itself it amounts to precious little (this probably explains why I don't like Mr. Bousman's films). If FEAR ITSELF can deliver some solid, original scripts with snappy direction (and some judiciously placed gore), it may gain a cult which would give it a chance, but I'm still betting we'll wind up watching a good chunk of the series on DVD in lieu of actual aired episodes.
Also, I'm not sure what you mean by your comment about "how much television has progressed over the past 20 years". There's a solid tradition of horror/sci-fi anthologies on TV, the most successful and obvious examples being the original TWILIGHT ZONE, ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS and NIGHT GALLERY (which mas mostly good). You can add the made-for-TV movie TRILOGY OF TERROR to that list. Dated though they may be, they're still effective and far more astute and literate than anything on network TV today. The 80s TWILIGHT ZONE, TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE and AMAZING STORIES were also successful. There were some that were less so, including the James Coburn-hosted DARKROOM, FREDDY'S NIGHTMARES, NIGHTMARE CAFE and NIGHT VISIONS, but they all got a shot. More recently, this type of show has fallen out of favor, the 3rd go-round of the TWILIGHT ZONE with Forrest Whittaker and last year's MASTERS OF SCI-FI being prime examples.
While this first episode was okay, my gut tells me that its probably going to go the way of those shows. The acting was decent and it looked like there was some money behind it, but the directing was bland in indistinct. The Mick Garris script (always the weakest in the MOH series) also had problems aplenty. The show seems like its in a kind of no-man's land; not really satisfying enough for its target audience and too weird for a general mainstream audience. Its unfair to judge the entire series based on one episode (though next week's Brad Anderson entry doesn't look promising), so I guess time will tell...
I can see you point. It was my intention to note that (with the exception of Freddy's Nightmares and maybe Friday the 13th) the major shows were not visceral horror shows. Essentially NYPD Blue (and to a lesser degree CSI) changed what you could show on television. 20-years ago, the lip scene in this episode would have never made it on the air--not by a country mile. The major ones you mentioned are all classics and you're absolutely right, the writing in them was far superior to this week's show and virtually all of the episodes of Masters of Horror. Tragically, I'd say the writing in old horror films (maybe not Slasher or Grindhouse films, but classic horror films) was better too. I'm in no way detracting from those old anthologies (I own a lot of them on DVD as I grew up with them). I'm only saying that Fear Itself is pushing an envelope that other shows 20-years ago wouldn't have even considered doing.
Happy to say that it wasn't bad... Obviously it wasn't spectacular or anything but it wasn't bad, at least compared to what i expected...
Good review there Tex, pretty much what i thought. Although, the guy they killed off immediately was fun (in my opinion), and it allowed us to see what will be allowed on NBC (the sewn mouth thing). I just hope the series goes well. Oh and Tex i also agree on what you said abnout how classic horror films were better written... I mean i LOVE any slasher, gore, sci-fi and grindhouse movies but there's something about how those classic horror movies were written that made them feel natural, real... I just finished watching I Bury The Living, good good stuff.
Anyways, best wishes to Fear Itself. Overall glad to finally have some horror on network television.
Cheers
It was just awful. Just for starters, am I sincerely supposed to believe that girls with perfect California accents, perfectly plucked eyebrows and wearing eye make-up are actually Romanian immigrants who've never set foot outside a small fort in the wilderness? And how predictable was it really? Admit it, we all knew exactly what was going on by the end of the second segment. The believability of this thing was getting destroyed at virtually every turn. Some of you are blaming the board up television's ass for what was wrong with this first episode and you'd be right, but passing the buck does not change the end result here and that result was just poorly executed garbage all around. I saw how they tried to make you think it was the same old "people running afoul of cannibals in the woods" scenario from miles away. It was basically an episode of Buffy that took itself more seriously than most of us would ever imagine. This is definitely strike one for Fear Itself.
Wharmon, the California accent beef is the same thing I have against that piece of crap horror movie called "Venom". Yeah, teens from one of the most backwater Louisiana hick towns EVER all dress like they are from Beverly Hills and have no accents. But, regarding this episode of Fear Itself, it wasn't that bad. At least I didn't think it was. I think the only thing that killed it was the "action" approach. That's the same beef I have against Anderson's Resident Evil films. Those guys were packing serious firepower. When stuff like that happens in a horror movie, it becomes too stupid all too fast. If I wanted to see an action movie, I'd see Rambo. If anything, this reminded me of a higher budget Sci-Fi Channel original movie. Yeah, I say HIGHER budget, cause Sci-Fi Channel original movies are probably the most low budget crap movies ever, and they tend to board Action Sci-Fi to Action Horror. Y'know, there'll be a female scientist character that, by the first time she picks up a gun, she's aiming like a pro and picking off monsters left and right. THAT'S bad writing.
I thought it was decent. Shockingly, I wasn't bothered by the limitations of network TV or the lack of extreme violence, but instead I was bothered by a not too good script--the dialogue was pretty crappy at times. But as for the director and actors, they did good with what they were given.
The lack of logic pissed me off the most. It started pretty decent, I really liked the scene were the dude layed down on what he thought was a bed...
But then towards the end it capsized. Why hadn't they thought about trapping the thing before? Also, why would that creature stay inside the fort just because they gave him fresh blood? He didn't look like a guy you could easily compromise with, really.
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Mick Garris (MASTERS OF HORROR) brings his latest vision of a horror anthology show to NBC with the debut of FEAR ITSELF. Like his Showtime series, Garris is bringing aboard a gaggle of genre vets and a few newcomers. This premiere episode SACRIFICE provides a solid mix of both.
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