 Revisiting the ‘Masters of Horror’ We are living in a golden age of horror on TV. Shows like ‘The Walking Dead’, ‘Supernatural’ and ‘American Horror Story’ have effectively taken the genre mainstream, offering weekly doses of gore and mayhem to the masses. Go back a decade or two however, and genre fans had far fewer options to choose from. Anthology shows, like ‘Tales From the Crypt’, ‘Monsters’ or ‘Tales From the Darkside’ were king during the horror heyday of the 1980s, providing cheesy and cheerful tongue in cheek horror in half hour bites. It wasn’t until 2005 that the TV horror anthology show got serious, and delivered arguably the most consistent, memorable and scary anthology show to date. The brainchild of horror legend Mick Garris, the show’s title is no hyperbole. ‘Masters of Horror’ brought together the best horror talent Hollywood (and beyond) had to offer. Episodes directed by undisputed genre luminaries such as John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Dario Argento and Stuart Gordon were like hour long movies brought to your TV screen. High production values, A-List talent and a free reign to do whatever they pleased resulted in some truly unforgettable work from a group of horror legends let off their leash. These are stories that have stayed with me in the fifteen years since many initially aired and, in this series, I’ll be revisiting all twenty-six episodes, one at a time, to shine a light on a fondly remembered and undeniably influential moment in horror TV history. Join me as I take a look back at Dreams In The Witch House Dreams In The Witch House Directed by: Stuart Gordon Starring: Ezra Godden, Chelah Horsdal, Campbell Lane, Jay Brazeau Original Air Date: 4 November 2005 Synopsis: A college student takes up residence in a spare room in an old house where ancient supernatural forces haunt his dreams, attempting to coerce him into committing a heinous act.  The original airing of this episode coincided with my discovery of the films of Stuart Gordon and, at the time, I was gleefully watching and re-watching ‘Re-Animator’ and ‘From Beyond’, relishing the joyful excess and manic energy of them. Oddly, I had yet to discover ‘Dagon’, also starring Ezra Godden who is also the lead in this episode, but the prospect of another H.P. Lovecraft adaptation from my new favourite director was a very exciting prospect and I look back on this episode as one of my favourites of the whole run. Rewatching it now, I was struck by two things. Firstly, it is a lot more comedic than I remember it being and second, it takes its premise a lot further than I recalled from my initial viewing fifteen years ago. The premise is, after all, a pretty dark one. Walter (Ezra Godden) is a student studying string theory at none other than Miskatonic University. Hoping to find somewhere quiet and, more importantly, cheap to live so he can do his research he finds a free room in a dilapidated and filthy boarding house which the surly building manager (Jay Brazeau) reluctantly agrees to rent to him. Walters room (and the whole house for that matter) is suitably creepy, with its filthy walls and haunted looking paintings, not to mention the weird layout of the walls which come into play later on. Also living in the house is Frances (Chelah Horsdal) along with her infant son Danny, who we meet being chased around their room by a rat. Walters other neighbour is elderly recluse Mr Masurewicz (Campbell Lane) who, upon hearing the news of the rat, promptly asks Walter if it had a human face! Not creepy at all… When Walter goes to sleep later that night we see the rat again as it scurries along his bed and sits on his chest, waking him up. I honestly can’t decide whether the rat with the mans face is hilarious, or the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen committed to film, but I suspect a healthy mix of the two and it is nothing if not memorable. I’d go so far as to say this summarises the vibe of the whole episode. It is incredibly over the top, with liberal amounts of blood, some gratuitous nudity and some uniquely surreal special effects. It is intentionally, blackly funny, as you’d expect from the director of ‘Re-Animator’ but that helps to balance the very grim plot that sneaks up on you while we’re having a great time with the talking rat and borderline slapstick performance from Ezra Godden. Speaking of the cast, Ezra Godden is fantastic in ‘Dreams In The Witch House’ (as he was in ‘Dagon’). He has a great energy and goes for a pretty exaggerated performance that really suits the material, and which reminded me a lot of Bruce Campbell’s tour-de-force in ‘Evil Dead 2’. I couldn’t help but think what a shame it is that he didn’t go on to become a more well-known horror actor, much like Stuart Gordon’s other go to performers, such as Jeffrey Combs or Barbera Crampton. The other cast of the episode fare ok, but none come close to stealing Godden’s thunder. By the midway point, Walter has become convinced that something evil is in the house and, thanks to his coincidentally super useful study of string theory, as well as a helpful peek at a certain forbidden book being held at Miskatonic U, he surmises that the being that is hounding him lives in the house with him, but on another plane of existence. Once he voices this realisation, things escalate pretty quickly from there and he is visited in person by the titular witch living in the house in what may or may not be a dream. It’s at this point things take an unexpectedly bleak turn, as an increasingly agitated Mr Masurewicz confesses the murder of multiple children in the past (at the behest of the witch) in an effort to persuade Walter to leave before the same fate befalls him. Walters growing attachment to Frances and Danny convince him to stay and attempt to defeat the witch using the knowledge he has gained so far. A brave, heroic choice, but not one that works out well for him in the end. After a bloody showdown with the witch, in which eyes are gouged with the maximum amount of blood possible and there is a symbolic strangling with a crucifix, Walter seemingly prevails. We’re just being set up for a far bleaker ending however as Walter returns to find the witch’s familiar gnawing on Danny’s neck and police are summoned just in time to break in and find Walter sat in a pool of blood, cradling Danny’s body. It is such a jarring scene after what has been a mostly fun and larger than life affair up to this point and it’s played straight and very effectively. I never for a second thought Danny would actually be sacrificed, and was genuinely shocked that they went through with it. An equally downbeat epilogue tells us that not only did Walter not succeed in stopping the witch, but she has been more prolific that we first thought, as police find over seventy bodies of young children at the house dating back centuries. A last minute appearance from the man/rat who dispatches Walter in a particularly unpleasant and painful looking way wraps up the episode. Evil triumphs, everybody is dead. Damn Stuart, that got pretty dark! Would I still count ‘Dreams In The Witch House’ as one of my favourite episodes? It’s certainly no ‘From Beyond’, but it is very clearly a Stuart Gordon production and you can’t help but get swept along in the insanity of any of his work, so there is a lot of fun to be had. Ezra Godden is a big reason why this episode works as well as it did, and the human/rat hybrid is not something you are ever going to forget and you can take from that what you will. Join me next time as I’ll be looking at episode three of the first season, Tobe Hooper’s ‘Dance of the Dead’. See you then! Further Reading  Richard is an avid reader and fan of all things horror. He supports Indie horror lit via Twitter (@RickReadsHorror) and reviews horror in all its forms for several websites including Horror Oasis and Sci Fi and Scary TODAY ON THE GINGER NUTS OF HORROR WEBSITE BEAUTIFUL/GROTESQUE EDITED BY SAM RICHARD - BOOK REVIEW THE HEART AND SOUL OF HORROR FEATURES Comments are closed.
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