RICHARD MARTIN REVISITS THE MASTERS OF HORROR: FAMILY, DIRECTED BY: JOHN LANDIS

23/6/2021

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

Family
Directed by: John Landis
Starring: George Wendt, Meredith Monroe, Matt Keeslar, Kerry Sandomirski
Original Air Date: 3 November 2006
Synopsis: Behind the door of a quaint house in a seemingly idyllic neighbourhood, Harold plots to bring home more unwitting victims to add to his family.

Revisiting the ‘Masters of Horror’: FAMILY DIRECTED BY JOHN LANDIS

Fifteen articles in, and ‘Family’ is the first episode of my rewatch where I remembered the episode clearly from my initial viewing back in 2006, even down to song choices and the episodes big reveal. It’s an episode that obviously made a big impression on me and given how much fun I had with Landis’s Season One entry (Deer Woman) I had high hopes going back in.

The episode opens with a fantastic continuous shot that takes us through an all-American neighbourhood on a glorious summers day before focusing on one of the many pristine houses across the street. The camera follows the path up to the front door, goes through the peephole and gives us a tour through the immaculately neat and tidy rooms. It’s all bright lighting and crisp whites until we get to the basement door. The upbeat soundtrack plays on as we descend the steps and meet Harold (George Wendt) clad in a rubber apron and gas mask, pouring chemicals. The reason why becomes gruesomely clear when the camera pulls back to reveal a nude corpse of an elderly man in a bathtub and, in a stellar CG shot, Harold pours the chemical over his head, melting the skin from its bones, while the jaunty soul music plays on in the background. It is a killer opening and sets the tone effectively before a single line of dialogue.

When Harold has finished his work, he comes upstairs to make some well-earned lunch and takes it upstairs to eat with his family. He joins his wife and young daughter in a sitting room, where his wife is reading the newspaper and his daughter is watching cartoons. He engages them in conversation which is, surprisingly, not all that one-sided, once they are revealed to be skeletons. It seems Harold, cheerful demeanour aside, may be suffering from some pretty severe mental health issues and it looks as if the body in the basement is set to be the latest addition to the household.

Like a lot of people, when I see George Wendt, I think Norm from Cheers. It is a lot of fun to see TV’s favourite barfly in a much darker role and he plays the cheerful domestic loner just as well as he portrays him as a dangerous serial killer, switching between harmless and scary when the need arises. Harold is a great role and while the casting choice may be a bit outside of the box, the best casting choices usually are and Wendt is a big part of why this episode works as well as it does.

Meanwhile, across the street, it seems as if Harold has some new neighbours. Married couple Celia (Meredith Monroe) and David (Matt Keeslar) first meet Harold when, after returning home from dinner and a few drinks too many, they hit his mailbox with their car and, being good neighbours, leave Harold a note. When they come over early the next morning, the mailbox is miraculously fixed and they find Harold forgiving to a fault. He even charms them to the point that he scores an invite to dinner at their house.

With all the Norman Bates vibes and grandpa corpses I’ve been discussing so far, I might have inadvertently suggested that this is Landis’s take on grim and gritty serial murderers. This is the guy who directed Animal House don’t forget. Family turns on the comedy when it needs to and it is black comedy gold throughout. This isn’t evidenced better than in this scene, when Harold is charming the couple with bland chit chat, until Celia, sat right next to David, loudly proclaims that her husband is incapable of satisfying her sexually, before verbally pondering what Harold may be packing in his trousers, licking her lips at the mere thought. This is all in Harold's head of course, but his look of absolute incredulity is hilarious.

The good times don’t last for either Harold or his new neighbours, as Harold is soon ‘arguing’ with his ‘wife’ about his attraction to Celia, while Celia and David are not in the best place themselves, as they seem to be at odds with each other over an unspoken trauma of their past. What that may be, we’re not sure quite yet, but stay tuned! Harold picks up a new victim when an opportunity presents itself to kidnap an old lady shopping for groceries, and David seemingly disappears, leaving Celia alone, the stage is set to see how badly Harold really wants to bring Celia downstairs to his basement to make her his new wife.

When Harold learns of David’s disappearance, he sees this as his opportunity to get Celia alone and invites her to his place for dinner. Playing the concerned neighbour, he goes all out and puts on a big spread, with wine and candles. Celia, concerned for David, is clearly in no mood and Harold shows signs of growing frustrated with her, his façade of the friendly guy next door cracking gradually until he finally loses it and attacks her. Despite fighting back valiantly, Harold gets the upper hand and begins to choke her.

Just when we think Celia is done for, David appears at the last second to save the day. You didn’t think he’d just left off-screen, never to be heard from again, did you? When Celia asks him what took him so long, the curtain is pulled back and the big reveal is displayed for all to see. Celia and David knew full well what Harold was, and what he was doing all along. They had tracked him down and are here to kill him because the little girls’ skeleton he has upstairs is (drum roll) their daughter!

In a gleefully macabre closing scene, they tie Harold up in his basement and, after a marathon torture session wherein they tell Harold exactly why he’s here and what they have in store for him, David proudly proclaims that he thinks he could keep Harold alive down here for more torment for “at least another ten to fourteen days”. Harold’s blood-streaked face and expression of dismay stay with us throughout the closing credits.

There is a reason why Family is an episode that stuck with me so vividly for almost fifteen years. Its mix of tense horror and pitch-black comedy work and you can’t imagine anyone but John Landis pulling it off this well. George Wendt is an inspired piece of casting and the story is a lot of fun, sticking with a deceptively simple set-up and pulling the rug with a spectacular twist which works because you don’t see it coming but, once it has, you see all the clues that have been pointing towards it throughout the entire episode. Of the eight Masters of Horror who directed an episode for each season, my vote goes to John Landis for giving us the two most consistently excellent offerings.

Join me next time as I’ll be looking at episode three of the second season, Ernest Dickinson’s ‘The V Word’. See you then!

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

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