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.

As is the case with most second-season "Masters of Horror" episodes, 'The Damned Thing' is simply a downgrade in all departments: a poorly structured, generally ineffective tale suffering from a muddled plot, one-dimensional characters, and effects that come off as absurd in their own exaggeration (the ep opens with an overblown disembowelment and only gets sillier from there). The actors are done no favors by Richard Christian Matheson's script (a loose adaptation of an obscure story by Ambrose Bierce), which stitches together disparate moments of somber exposition and hyperactive bloodletting in a story that never really comes together: in 1981, Kevin Reddle witnessed his father go on a rampage, murdering his mother in cold blood on his birthday; 24 years later (and now a lawman played by Sean Patrick Flanery), a vague, possessive evil rises up to transform the residents of his sleepy Texas town into bloodthirsty maniacs. While Matheson seems to be making a social comment on man's reliance on fossil fuel turning civil society to pandemonium (echoes of Katrina and the Iraq quagmire), his method couldn't be less subtle. Also problematic is Flanery's portrayal of Reddle--mumble-mouthed and listless, his performance borders on sleepwalking, and a cliché-ridden voice-over does nothing to help us sympathize with him (especially when he unconvincingly heads into Jack Nicholson territory in the last reel). With so much working against 'The Damned Thing' my middle-ground rating comes from Hooper's direction: while 'Dance of the Dead' (his season one entry) combined the horrific and sleazy with pathos and social insight, the director weaved it into a dazzling barrage of nightmarish imagery through his spastic technique; similarly, 'The Damned Thing' shows him operating well within his limited resources--even if the other elements aren't up to snuff, Hooper knows when to shake the camera, and when to keep it perfectly still. But that alone really isn't enough to warrant repeat viewings.

Sean Patrick Flanery plays the sheriff in a small town. As a child he saw his father kill his mother and then be killed by a thing (never shown). He grows up in total fear of that thing coming back for him. It destroys his marriage...and then it seems it's come back for him...

That may sound sort of vague but you should see the movie! Good acting by everybody (especially Flanery) can not save this confusing, pointless tale. At the end a slew of impressive special effects are shoved in the audiences face...but it doesn't make any sense about what exactly is going on. Director Tobe Hooper has done worse but he's certainly done better. The only part that got to me is when we see a man attacking himself with a hammer! Confusing and dull.

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.