RICHARD MARTIN REVISITS THE MASTERS OF HORROR: VALERIE ON THE STAIRS, DIRECTED BY MICK GARRIS

14/7/2021

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;

Valerie on the Stairs
Directed by: Mick Garris
Starring: Tyron Leitso, Clare Grant, Christopher Lloyd, Tony Todd
Original Air Date: 29 December 2006
Synopsis: A struggling writer who takes up residence in a writers commune is haunted by a beautiful young woman who is being kept hostage by a malevolent entity.

Revisiting the Masters of Horror: Valerie on the Stairs
review by richard martin

Being the self-proclaimed Masters of Horror, the series managed to attract some top tier talent during its two-year run, but few episodes can beat ‘Valerie on the Stairs’ for pure horror cred. Not only is it directed by series creator and serial Stephen King adaptor Mick Garris, but it is based on a story written by the legendary Clive Barker and, in a fun bit of confluence, stars the horror icon made famous by his turn as the titular Candyman in the 1992 adaptation of Barker’s ‘The Forbidden’ from his seminal Books of Blood collection. Throw in an appearance for Doc Brown/Fester Adams himself, Christopher Lloyd, and you suspect this is going to be something pretty special.

When we first meet Rob (Tyron Leitso) he is a wannabe novelist struggling to find a publisher for his work. Through a montage of rejection letters and bills past due, we see he is fighting to stay afloat and when he is offered a lifeline in the form of a residency at Highberger House, a home for aspiring writers. The rent is free, on the condition that he vacate once he becomes published. Rob is understandably thrilled to take the room, but it doesn’t take long for things to start going wrong for him.

He has barely unpacked when he begins to hear loud banging outside his door. This isn’t spooky noises late at night, this is someone knocking on his door in the middle of the day, so Rob is understandably more annoyed than frightened at this stage, as he keeps going to the door and finding nobody outside. Eventually, after much noise and a few upset neighbours, Rob meets Valerie (who, as the title suggests, he finds sat outside his room, on some stairs).

Being set in a writer’s retreat, to say that there is a colourful cast of characters is a bit of an understatement. Poor Rob is practically bland by comparison. You have rebellious ‘cool kid’ Bruce (Jonathan Watton), foul-mouthed Southern belle Patricia (Suki Kaiser) and Nancy (Nicola Lipman), the grumpy building manager with a heart of gold. As might be expected though, it’s Christopher Lloyd, playing long term resident Everett Nealy, that steals the show. Although his screen time is limited, he is a presence throughout the episode, and the script calls for a lot of exposition from his character, giving Lloyd lots of monologues and lengthy scenes, which he delivers perfectly with his trademark manic energy and bold expressions. I love to watch him work and, honestly, his casting alone makes this an episode you don’t want to miss.

Back to Rob and Valerie though, and Valerie is starting to communicate with Rob, expressing fear at an evil presence that is keeping her trapped in the house. We get glimpses here and there (a clawed hand here, an arm there) but nothing concrete until later on. Valerie is begging Rob to help her, but it’s not clear yet why she is trapped (or, more importantly, why she is unable to help herself). The more Rob sees of her though, the more he begins to develop feelings for Valerie.

Although this episode is fairly light in tone, almost Gaimanesque with its urban setting of a rundown apartment complex, with fantastical, fairy tale elements sprinkled in, the effects team are kept relatively busy in the horror department once things pick up the pace in the second half. The Beast starts to rack up a pretty impressive body count as it attacks residents and kills residents who get too close to Valerie. The Beast makeup itself is subtle (it is very clearly Tony Todd under the make-up) and effective, as it should be when you have somebody of that calibre playing the role. There is also a great CGI effect that closes out the episode that may not have aged as well as some of the more straightforward digital effects used in the shows run, but wins major bonus points for creativity.

So far, Rob has become more than a little preoccupied with ‘rescuing’ Valerie, completely forgetting about his novel. We’ve also seen Valerie on multiple occasions, but usually just playing the damsel in distress, begging Rob for help but offering little in the way of assistance or clues as to how he might accomplish this, lacking her own agency. We’ve also had glimpses of Tony Todd as the Beast. Being Tony Todd, he is a commanding presence, with his big stature and deep rumbling voice, but we’ve had no sense of why he’s keeping Valerie imprisoned so far, other than being evil for evil's sake. If it sounds like the one-dimensional characterisation and motivation of this trio is coming across as a criticism, then stay tuned, because there is method to the madness, and the (very purposeful) reasons why these three seem like archetypes is nothing less than inspired.

The episodes (first) big reveal, that Valerie and the Demon are fictional characters that are straight from the pages of a book the commune have been writing as a group, is a stroke of genius. It puts everything we know up to now in a whole new light and fundamentally changes the dynamics of what’s to come. Not only does it call into question the reality (or lack thereof) of everything we’ve seen so far, but it changes the emotional drive of the episode. Is Rob real, or is he an archetypal ‘hero’, written into the story to serve the narrative? Is the commune even real? Is anything we’ve seen so far? The third act now stops being about whether Rob can save Valerie (after all, is it not a given that good triumphs over evil) and the audience finds themselves more concerned about whether there is a life after for either of these characters or if their story ends there.

I won’t discuss the ending here, other than to say it fits perfectly with the tone of the episode and answers our questions in a rare moment of heart-warming poignancy for the series. I will also say that, as this was a rewatch for me, it is a very different experience watching the episode when you know how it ends, and I highly recommend multiple viewings, because the build-up takes on a very different tone once you know how things pan out in the end.

‘Valerie on the Stairs’ remains one of my favourite episodes of the series and a very underrated entry. It is less overtly rooted in horror than many of the other episodes, borrowing profusely from fantasy, particularly fairy tale tropes, to tell a classic love story. Clive Barker’s stamp is writ large on the episode and a lot of his trademark themes (eroticism, repression) come up time and again. It is a nice change of pace to present a more uplifting story in the series and while Mick Garris will probably always be known as an acclaimed director of Stephen King adaptations, based on ‘Valerie on the Stairs’ I would love to see him tackle more of Barker’s catalogue.

Join me next time as I’ll be looking at episode nine of the second season, Rob Schmidt’s ‘Right to Die’. 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