The Good
Horror has so many wonderful aspects to the genre, it's hard to narrow down what to say about it. The interesting thing about horror is how it evolved over centuries. The genre is quite fluid and can be injected into any other genre.

Modern thrillers, sci-fi, and crime stories have prominent horror elements. For example, psychologically disturbed people committing tragic acts or technology leading us into a cold, lifeless future are elements we see in today's writing.

The type of horror written while Edgar Allan Poe was alive was entirely different than HP Lovecraft or Stephen King's initial rise. Now, with the world's fast evolution of technology and the pandemic, we've seen horror change again.

Horror is a genre that mutates with its times, keeping culturally relevant on what frightens humans. It can be injected into period pieces and let the audience experience a different type of horror they may be unfamiliar with. For example, basing a book in the 90s (if you can even call that a period piece. . .), you remove the advantage of smartphones which in today's times could be quite frightening to some people.

The ever-evolving state of horror is what makes the genre so exciting to write about. We get to explore new depths of our minds and see what elements trigger fear.

The Bad

From a writing standpoint, you have to ask yourself difficult questions: how far do you go with fear? What type of fear are you wanting to inflict upon the audience? The answers vary depending on the themes and plot of the story. Too often, one can answer these questions (consciously or subconsciously) without much effort just so they can get that stamp of fitting within the horror genre.

If you're not careful, you can easily fall into a cheap shock trick. Or you're not making something scary enough, and the work isn't considered "horror." This leads into "The Ugly" part too.

The Ugly

Horror gets shoved into a corner as "slash and gore" or, for a while, "apocalyptic – zombies!". The genre is far more fluid than that. I recently read The Children of Red Peak by Craig DiLouie, which involved cults. On a deeper level, it dove into the psychological repercussions that survivors experience and the meaning of life, which is a hard pill for many people to swallow. Another example would be Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, a thriller, but the story itself has many horrific elements.

Too often do audiences presume horror to be a one-trick-pony with checkboxes to meet. This may be due to the rise in popularity during the 80s with slashers. Who knows? Whatever the source may be, most people are consuming horror without even knowing it from its integration into other genres.

Back in 2006, I had never heard of Lucky McKee. The fact that ‘Sick Girl’ was a reunion of the director and star of modern horror classic ‘May’ completely passed me by. Rewatching this episode again in 2021 I’m all too aware of what a huge deal this is. I’m a big Lucky McKee fan (both movies, and the novels he penned with Jack Ketchum) and as much as I love his recent work, I have to say ‘May’ is still my favourite. So, when you have a Lucky McKee directed episode of Masters of Horror, starring Angela Bettis, my expectations were through the roof.

Much like ‘May’ Angela Bettis plays a bit of an odd social outcast. Her character, Ida, works as an etymologist alongside Max (Jesse Hlubik) and basically spends her time at work, and at home, fawning over her (rather impressive) collection of bugs. Ida also has a crush on a shy young woman who spends her time sketching in the building lobby. After some encouragement from Max, Ida learns her name is Misty (Erin Brown) and asks her out on a date and, much to her surprise, Misty accepts.

Ida and Misty’s burgeoning relationship was one of the episodes many highlights for me. To say both are a little awkward would be an understatement but they have charming chemistry, particularly early on in the episode and both Angela Bettis and Erin Brown are very good throughout, although the latter does get to have a little more fun with her role as the episode progresses.

Around the same time this is happening, Ida receives a mysterious package at her apartment that contains a species of bug that she can’t identify. Her reaction is one of professional interest, whereas mine was more along the lines of “How is she not freaking out having that thing in her home?!”. The ‘insect’ looks like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the praying mantis family, and I was seriously concerned that when Ida went to pick it up, it was going to take her arm off.

That leads neatly onto another element of ‘Sick Girl’ that works really well. The creature effects are great, straddling the fine line between realistic and cartoonish, which is basically a tone the episode itself hits throughout its runtime. Some of the effects are absolutely disgusting once the episode gets past the halfway point, but there’s always an undertone of black comedy, and a knowing sense of humour, and the visual effects play to that perfectly.

Ida’s date with Misty goes well enough that they both go back to her apartment at the end of it and Misty stays over. Ida has gone to great lengths to hide her (frankly impressive) bug collection in the apartment so as not to scare Misty off, so she does not notice straight away when her latest addition escapes its enclosure and is roaming free in the bedroom. Misty is the first to find it when she gets bitten.

Things take a turn for the body horror from here on out, and anybody who doesn’t want to witness any juicy closeups of pulsating infections and exploding pus may want to check out at this stage. The plot becomes very similar to David Cronenberg classic, ‘The Fly’, but McKee is having a lot more fun with the premise. Misty’s change is not just physical, but also mental. Her personality takes a massive U-turn from introverted oddball to a much more confident, aggressive, and easy to anger state of mind and Ida, who is unaware of the escaped bug that has bitten her girlfriend, wonders if she has made a terrible mistake in getting so close to Misty so soon.

This is one of the many things that impressed me about the episode. On the face of it, it is a fun, slightly silly, tongue-in-cheek body horror story, big on the gooey special effects and humour, but underneath there is a lot of social commentary going on. The episode could also read as a cautionary tale about getting into relationships too quickly. The episode also portrays a gay couple, and this gets more focus than I remembered from my initial viewing. Both have clearly had issues connecting with people in the past, but their sexuality, or their comfort with that part of themselves, is never questioned. They are judged by their homophobic neighbour and landlord Lana (Marcia Bennett) who expresses her displeasure of their relationship in a particularly hateful way, and the additional strain this places on their relationship gives Ida the opportunity to finally stand up for herself after being portrayed as so meek and opposed to conflict throughout. It is a nice moment, well earned, and all the more prominent that such issues are being tackled in what is otherwise a largely fun and light affair.

​By this stage, Ida is starting to suspect that the missing mystery bug and her new girlfriends increasingly erratic behaviour may be linked. She comes to this realisation coincidentally around the same time she receives a letter from the mystery person who sent the bug that has infected Misty, as it seems they now have some regrets about their actions, as the letter makes it very clear that the sender was aware what would happen, but were hoping that Ida would be the one bitten. You see, it was Misty’s father that sent it, as he knows that Misty has had feelings for Ida for a long time and did not approve of their potential relationship, so sent the bug in the hopes it would change Ida into something that Misty found to be hideous. Oops…

Now knowing what has caused Misty’s abrupt change in personality, she races to the apartment for a confrontation, and we get to see just how far the transformation has progressed. The big reveal in the final scene was unexpected, but totally in keeping with the tone of the episode. It was funny, a bit silly, and pretty damn gross. A great ending for an all-around great episode.

‘Sick Girl’ was a hell of a lot of fun, taking inspiration from classic 80s body horror movies, and putting a more modern spin on it. Angela Bettis and Erin Brown are both a lot of fun when they’re on screen together and the latter gets to really go all out with a big personality shift. While the episode does tackle some serious themes, these are welcome additions to enhance the experience, and not the episodes primary focus, which is to entertain. In this regard, it’s a spectacular success.
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Join me next time as I’ll be looking at episode eleven of the first season, Larry Cohen’s ‘Pick Me Up’. See you then!

This is kind of like that silly game Snog Marry or Kill, where you are given the opportunity to talk about something that you love about the genre (The Good), something you don't like about the genre (The Bad) and something that you wish you could expel from the genre for all time (The Ugly)

Good: Psychological and philosophical boundary exploration.


Horror is perfect for exploring psychological and philosophical boundaries. Sure, Fantasy and Science Fiction help build the pillars and foundations for a metaphorical house, but without a horror prowling outside walls we don't really know if our the walls will be strong enough to keep us safe. Horror shows us what kinds of walls we have and where they need boarding up to keep the zombies out. It even seems to have grown with us, at various points in time, from Goosebumps to Eraserhead to The Father recently being categorized as a bit of a horror movie, too. It is here we can express the anxieties and fears of life or answer questions like, "What's under the bed?"

Bad: Horror franchises as horrifying as the monster coming back at the end of every installment of the film.


The junk food of horror always exists in excess: Yes, horror franchises these days are as horrifying as the monster coming back at the end of every installment of the film. Almost just as predictably, I'm not about to skip the next Nightmare on Elm Street or Scream (neither of which are in the works right now, to my knowledge.) I do have my limits. Halloween is going to Halloween, The Conjuring is going to keep me not watching. (As my mind shifts to, "But are they done with those Insidious movies?") Every horror fan has their own guilty pleasure here. Even for the ones we don't like, you know the number of us who are more than happy to try the William Shatner death mask is more than a few.


Ugly: Torture films. Mostly.


Among the furthest boundaries are torture movies. To top it off, most of the ones that come to mind also happen to have franchises: Hostel, The Human Centipede, Saw. I'd rather spend my time with Eli Roth when he's playing baseball or telling me about where to find the clock in a house. Sure, there's the occasional "must-see", like the first Saw (starring none other than The Man in Black, Cary Elwes) and the one-time-watch Martyrs. The titles of interest tend to be far between and probably wouldn't be missed if they were expelled from the horror genre altogether. In any case, this sub-genre isn't selling anything I'm interested in buying.

I always remembered Fair Haired Child as being the scariest episode of Masters of Horror, which is quite the statement when you consider some of the people that directed episodes throughout its run. It wasn’t the build-up or the premise that got to me when I first saw the episode, it was the creature. The Fair-Haired Child, although not on screen often, absolutely terrified me. I was excited to revisit this one to see if it had the same impact on me now, 15 years and literally hundreds of horror movies later.

The opening scene achieves a lot of things right from the outset. We meet middle-aged married couple Judith and Anton (William Samples and Lori Petty) performing an occult ritual, complete with a full moon, candles, creepy old book and some lightning. We aren’t quite sure what they are doing but, whatever it is, it works, as the camera lingers on an effigy build from mud and sticks, eyes wide and mouth agape, seemingly come to life just before the camera cuts away.

From there we’re introduced to the episodes lead character. Tara (Lindsay Pulsipher) is a bit of an outcast, quiet and introverted and keeps to herself. We are told this by a few scenes, set at the high school she attends, that are a little too mired in tropes (“What are you looking at, loser?”) but gets the message across loud and clear. This whole sequence takes up limited screen-time anyway as it isn’t long until Anton knocks her off her bike with his van as she’s riding home from school and loads her in the back, whisking her away to somewhere no doubt extremely unpleasant.

When Tara wakes up, she finds herself in what seems to be a hospital, with Judith playing nurse. Tara is disorientated and Judith seems, at first, to want to help her, but things feel a little… off, and it’s not long before Tara realises that this is no hospital, and Judith does not have her best interests at heart. Anton reappears and takes Tara to the cellar, where he throws her inside and locks the door. Tara soon finds she isn’t alone when she finds Johnny (Walter Phelan) trapped down there with her.

The core cast are all excellent but Lindsay Pulsipher and Walter Phelan are show stealers. Both having great chemistry together and the episode really picks up when they are (literally) thrown together. Now locked in the cellar with no hope of escape, Tara tries to get Johnny to tell her what’s going on but he seems unable to speak. There are enough clues, however, for Tara to piece some things together. She finds ominous warnings scrawled on the wall (“Beware the Fair-Haired Child”) and before long stumbles upon a bathroom hiding backpacks of other children presumably kidnapped and left down in the same cellar. A blood-soaked bath hints at what their grizzly fates may have been, but who is the Fair-Haired Child these doomed kids seemed so desperate to warn her about?

There is a lot of backstory at this point, switching focus back to Judith and Anton as we find out what their ritual in the episode's opening was all about. Told via some gloriously surreal 1920s style black and white flashbacks, we learn that Johnny was their son. Was, because he drowned when he was 15. The couple have made a deal with an unnamed evil power to bring their son back. The price for this deal is the lives of twelve children, Tara being the last.

So, if Johnny is dead, how is he down in the cellar with Tara? Well, the answer is a little complicated. He is Johnny, but he is only alive due to the fact that he is playing host to the demon that his parents made their infernal bargain with. After a painful transformation, Johnny turns into the creature and attempts to take its final payment; Tara’s life.

So, we finally get to see the Fair-Haired Child in action. Was it as scary as I’d built it up to be in my head?

If you missed any of Richard's previous Revisting The Masters of Horror articles, you can find links to them all here on our handy landing page ​

THE MASTERS OF HORROR ​

Amazon best seller Paul Lubaczewski returns with a collection of short stories that are always horrific and yet often dark and personal as well with “What Is a Paddywack.” It includes the 2018 Annual Critters Readers' Poll runner up “The Last of the Ashiptu” and much more including the novella “The Fire That Remembers.” Stories of ghosts, witches, haunted buildings, demons and dark monsters from this world and beyond the stars themselves populate the pages of this collection. Terror leavened with deeper emotions are on tap in the pages of “What Is a Paddywack.”




Amazon best seller Paul Lubaczewski presents a collection of horror and science fiction torn straight from the psyche. Thirteen tales of revenge, witchcraft, ghosts, greed, and terrors from beyond the realm of human understanding populate “What Is A Paddywack”

What the critics are saying about Paul Lubaczewski

“Paul doesn’t pull punches in the horror department, really building the tension especially in the hunts, where anything can happen.” -Biff Bam Pop!

“Paul Lubaczewski is a super talented writer able to grab and hold the attention throughout his entire story.”- GBHBL

“Paul Lubaczewski wrote something that was a beautiful,weird, but beautiful gleam of light in this year of 2020.”- Punk Rock Horror Podcast


“The important aspect of all this is the fact readers will care about the characters involved… and that makes all the difference.”- Diabolique Magazine

This is it! The big one folks, the episode that is probably the best known of Masters of Horror’s twenty-six episode run, perhaps the best-regarded and probably my personal favourite. To say I was excited to get to ‘Cigarette Burns’ would be an understatement. My expectations at the time I first watched this episode, way back in 2005, were sky-high. I was already in love with movies John Carpenter movies like ‘The Thing’ and ‘Halloween’ and was only a few years away from discovering classics such as ‘In the Mouth of Madness’ and ‘Big Trouble In Little China’. Couple this with this episode’s story, of a legendary horror movie that causes anyone who views it to commit horrific acts of violence, and this episode was always going to be something that appealed to me in a big way. Re-watching it now I also appreciated the added bonus of horror icons Norman Reedus (‘The Walking Dead’) and Udo Kier (‘Suspiria’, ‘Blade’), but did it live up to the fond memories?

The episode opens with a signature Carpenter soundtrack (simple yet creepy) and a voiceover by Mr Bellinger (Udo Kier) as Kirby Sweetman (Norman Reedus) drives up to a huge mansion, where he meets Kier’s wealthy cinephile. He has invited Kirby as his reputation as a man who can track down obscure, seemingly lost movies, and he has a job for him.

The fictional film within a film (‘La Fin Absolue du Monde’, translated as ‘The Absolute End of the World’) is almost a character in and of itself in Cigarette Burns. Every character we meet is completely consumed by it, whether it be the people who want nothing more than to finally watch it, or those destroyed by the fact that they have, and lived. A huge part of the success of this episode is that the film is built up to such a degree, yet we don’t end up with wholly satisfactory answers, leaving your imagination to fill in the blanks, all the while suggesting that the answers are beyond the capability of our minds to fathom, and that the worst our brains can conjure doesn’t do justice to the truth.

Carpenter doesn’t waste any time in setting up some bizarre possibilities in motion, as Bellinger makes Kirby an offer he can’t refuse (i.e. $200,000) and before he heads off on his journey to find ‘La Fin Absolue du Monde’, he is introduced to the film’s star; a de-winged angel, chained to a pedestal in Ballinger’s living room. We aren’t offered any further information (that comes later) and although Kirby is obviously troubled by what he sees, he is also desperate and agrees to take the job.

We soon see why the $200,000 means so much to Kirby when we learn via flashbacks that the theatre he owns was bought using money borrowed from his future father-in-law. A father-in-law that is now demanding the money back following the unexpected death of his daughter, a death which it is heavily implied that Kirby is at least partially responsible for. Desperate to both keep his theatre and rid himself of the man that serves as a constant reminder of his dead girlfriend, this sub-plot serves to give Kirby some backstory but, if I were to have a minor quibble with the episode, it would be that it doesn’t really add a great deal beyond that and, at times, drags the forward momentum down a little. I would argue that $200,000 is incentive enough, and his other motivations only draw focus from the far more interesting enigma of ‘La Fin Absolue du Monde’

The episode is a fairly slow burn, more than making up for a lack of action scenes with an overbearing sense of foreboding. A lot of what follows is Kirby speaking with people close to the film, researching and digging, getting closer and closer to a fabled print that he is convinced exists. These encounters start off low-key (although no less disturbing) with a visit to a film reviewer who saw the initial screening thirty years ago. His house is filled with hoarder level stacks of paper, millions of pages that we learn is his second attempt at a review of the movie, which he speaks about in fearful reverence before sending Kirby further down the rabbit hole.

Things escalate quickly from there as Kirby meets somebody physically disfigured just from being present at a private screening some years earlier, then a group of snuff filmmakers who, in a brutal scene, decapitate his taxi driver on camera whilst waxing lyrical about the power of movies. The camera doesn’t seem to flinch from the violence (although that is largely clever editing and camerawork playing a trick on us) and it is all the more jarring and effective for the fact that Carpenter has allowed the tension to build and build to this point, suggesting that something awful was going to happen when the film is screened, then having this shocking scene burst the tension before Kirby has found it.

We aren’t shown how Kirby escapes his predicament, as this is one of a number of blackout moments he has throughout the episode. The suggestion is that the closer he gets to the film, the more it affects him, and he has begun to see things that aren’t really there, blacking out when they appear. After this particular blackout, he walks up to find his captors all dead or dying and he escapes, with the information on where to find the movie.