The Damned Thing

A young boy named Kevin Reddle sees his father go berserk and kill his mother and is then mauled and disemboweled himself. Years later, Kevin is the town sheriff and when similar incidents start happening around town, he must piece together the mystery before the evil consumes the town.

Like season one's "Dance of the Dead" this is a story directed by Tobe Hooper and written by Richard Christian Matheson, adapted from a classic horror story (though this time from Ambrose Bierce rather than from Matheson's father). And also like season one, it is the least critically acclaimed episode in the season.

I haven't read the Bierce story, but the elements here should be familiar: a town consumed by evil, an evil that returns every 24 years (not unlike Stephen King's 30 years from "It") and a son who must deal with his father's legacy. Some variations from other stories you may have seen, but the general idea remains unchanged. Even Sean Patrick Flannery (Kevin Reddle) reminds me of Nathan Fillion from "Slither" in his sheriff uniform.

Where this episode shines is in the gore. While perhaps not as gory as "Jenifer", we have a man who smashes his own face with a hammer, a car accident victim with no legs and a man get visibly disemboweled before our eyes (not unlike what happened to Judas Iscariot probably).

The acting is also decent. Flannery is respectable, the local reporter is well-casted, and Marisa Coughlan makes for a good female lead. (Viewers will recognize Coughlan as the female lead from either "Super Troopers" or "Freddy Got Fingered" -- this film is not as funny as either of them.) Really standing out is Ted Raimi as Father Tulli, in one of his bigger roles (and a much better one than in "Skinner" with Ricki Lake).

Where the film fails, though, is the lack of a plot. In the first ten or fifteen minutes I thought I was watching a great film, but it fell deeper and deeper down the ranks as it went. By no means will I give away the ending, but I think it will leave you about as unsatisfied as you can possibly be. It is the only ending of a "Masters of Horror" episode I have really despised.

I cannot say you need to watch this film. I would be hard pressed to say it is better or worse than "The Fair-Haired Child" or "Pick Me Up" (my two least favorites), but I can say this: Tobe Hooper is proving to the world over and over again that whatever magic he had, he lost a long time ago.

Much like many other commentators, I am a Bierce fan and was very much excited to see one of his stories put to film. Alas, like so many others who have abused the great early horror writers, Tobe Hooper and friends were unable to even approach the greatness of Bierce and his short story. In fact, the script had so little connection with Bierce's mini-masterpiece that I would have to say the creators of this film are guilty of name-dropping to sell the show. Perhaps what started out as an honest attempt to adapt the story somehow went wrong in the screenplay writing (which is mediocre at best, but has next to no connection with the original story) and they had no choice but see it through. That however is giving them the benefit of the doubt and then some.

So about half way through the film, I realized my hope of seeing a Bierce story on screen was not to be and I had to un-suspend and then re-suspend my disbelief in order to wince through the rest of the movie. And I mean literally, I was wincing due to the pervasive flashy strobe light effects and the jittery jump shots that left me wondering if they were in the middle of a caffeine bender or if they edited it that way on purpose. Seriously, I felt at times as though I was watching a documentary about raves. The film did have some good moments, though few and far between. It's a decent little production if you factor in that they only had 10 days to film it, and if you aren't expected a film based on an Ambrose Bierce short story of the same name.

This episode of Masters of Horror has some excellent aspects and some rather dubious ones as well. Now, I am not one of those Hooper haters. I actually think much of his work - mostly early am afraid - is quite good - and some even amazing. He definitely has talent. But this episode's faults are mostly with the script not the direction. Hooper got me interested early and the performances were all very adequate - some a bit over-the-top undoubtedly. The story concerns a man who as a child witnessed some inexplicable force taking over his father and "making" him execute the boy's mother and try to kill the boy. Thirty Years later the force rises again and haunts the boy and the town - as we discover that the force not only had changed the boy's father but also caused the townsfolk to go mad and on a killing spree. Well, things go fairly fluidly until the last fifteen minutes or so where all hell breaks looses both figuratively and literally. I like the way Hooper shot the scenes, but the story dissolves really at the end into one big "What just happened?".Sean Patrick Flannery does a good job in the lead and Sam Raimi's brother Ted gives an overblown yet fun performance as a local priest. Although Hooper shows he still has touches, he needs to find better material to work his craft with.

i am one of the big fans of this would be cult series for horror fans.i believe that season 1 especially cigarette burns and imprint "wow" really good horror stuffs for the genre despite some disappointments during the first season.I hoped and desperately waited season 2 and wished it would be a decent start but it didn't damned thing not suits for the series and not a good start actually a bad one.Season 2 might be a downfall comparing season 1 but still masters of horror will and should continue to satisfy all the fans to miss serious and well-made horror stuffs for the TV and here a tip for whom not yet watch: please prepare yourself and watch this show you will like it.

Ah, what can I say? I was rooting for Tobe Hooper, as a longtime fan of the man's work, to hit one out of the park this time around, since his episode "THE DAMNED THING" opens Season Two of MOH. Last season, his entry, "DANCE OF THE DEAD" had its sketchy moments, yet still (at least for me) managed to compel me to stick with it...with a lot of motivation coming from Robert Englund's bravura performance as the "M.C."

I'm sorry to say that this time around, Tobe and writer Richard Christian Matheson fall far short of the mark. And I think a lot of the problem comes from the source material. It's a commendable ambition to attempt to adapt material as classic and timeless as the stories of a well-known author like Ambrose Bierce, but the chilling terror from his stories lies in the brevity and the strong imagery they evoke.

Set basically in the past, via a series of journal-like entries, the original story would've proved problematic to adapt on a limited budget, so I can understand why Matheson brings the scenario into modern times. But given that there's only an hour to tell the tale, no matter what you do with it, there's just not enough time to do the kind of set-up that Hooper has done in the past...getting us all comfy with the characters and their relationships, so that our concern for their welfare magnifies the horror of their grisly fates that much more. Sorry to say that I sensed none of that going on here at all.

The other signature Hooper touches are here: the oppressive sense of oncoming doom, the extreme gore (although it's more literal than psychological here, which dilutes a lot of the shock value), and an atypical ending to the story. But Sean Patrick Flanery, who is usually pretty good, underplays the lead character almost to the point of being catatonic, while the supporting players are all stock characters, (except for Ted Raimi, whose priest seems to be a complete loon from the get-go, so his later rampage comes as no surprise to the audience whatsoever.)

Just like there are certain songs that some singers should never attempt, there are some contemporary American authors whose work shouldn't be adapted by some writers or directors. I wish Tobe and Richard better luck on their next endeavor, since this one really didn't work.

(Honestly...maybe Don Coscarelli should've tried this one, while Hooper and Matheson could've been given a Joe Lansdale story to tackle. Now THAT might hold some great possibilities...)