RICHARD MARTIN REVISITS THE MASTERS OF HORROR:THE DAMNED THING DIRECTED BY: TOBE HOOPER

18/6/2021

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;

The Damned Thing
Directed by: Tobe Hooper
Starring: Sean Patrick Flanery, Marisa Coughlan, Brendan Fletcher, Ted Raimi
Original Air Date: 27 October 2006
Synopsis: A small town Sheriff is haunted by the memory of the brutal murder of his father at the hands of an unseen force as a child, and fights to save his family from the same creature in present day.

RICHARD MARTIN REVISITS THE MASTERS OF HORROR:THE DAMNED THING DIRECTED BY: TOBE HOOPER

Way back in my write up for episode two, I talked about how Tobe Hooper’s episode ‘Dance of the Dead’, while holding up better than I expected, has never been one of my favourite episodes of the series. ‘The Damned Thing’ on the other hand, I have very fond memories of. In terms of plot, my recall from my initial viewing was vague, but there are some set-pieces in this episode that are pretty damn unforgettable, and I was looking forward to getting round to this episode for this series of articles to see if it justified these positive recollections.

Things get off to a promising start with a tense and sincerely scary opening that disorientates while events spiral out of control quickly and without warning, culminating in a memorably gory scene. The episode opens on a husband and wife sitting down to dinner with their young son, the camera never keeping still as it pans round and round the table as the family indulge in some idle chit chat. The mother and son get up to surprise the dad with a birthday cake, but he has a surprise of his own waiting for them. There are lots of subtle clues that something is not quite right and they get more overt as we see a black stain spreading across the ceiling as the father walks in, shotgun in hand, his face a mask of regret and misery. The mother and son aren’t quite sure what to make of this odd turn of events, until the father turns the gun on her, all but cutting her in half in a shocking moment that breaks the tension and kicks things off. The son races out the door, dad in pursuit, and it seems like he’s done for when the father corners him at the edge of their house, but an unseen force intervenes at the last minute, pushing the father against the door of his truck and literally tears him to pieces. It’s a great practical effect that looks fantastic on screen and leaves us with plenty of questions as we fast forward twenty-four years.

The young boy is now grown up and is Sherrif, played by Sean Patrick Flanery, of the same quiet town he grew up in. He spends his days sitting in his cruiser and eating at the diner with his deputy (Brendan Fletcher). His trauma of the events of his childhood has soured his marriage with Dina (Marisa Coughlan) and young son, as his obsession with protecting his new family from the monster that destroyed his old one is, ironically, the very thing that has driven them away.

This was one of those episodes where a lot of the cast were instantly recognisable. Ted Raimi, who has a great extended cameo as a priest, is a familiar face to horror fans, and Brendan Fletcher, who plays the towns scene-stealing, would be cartoonist deputy, is no stranger to horror, having starred in ‘Freddy vs Jason’ before Masters of Horror, and the Uwe Boll directed ‘Rampage’ series shortly after. Throw in ‘Boondocks Saints’ star Sean Patrick Flanery and bonafide movie star Marisa Coughlan as his estranged wife, and you have a very impressive group of actors, especially for a cable TV show.

The Sherriff’s twenty-four year-long concern over the Damned Things return turn out to be justified, as strange events start occurring all across the town. Residents become enraged for no apparent reason, either taking their own life or lashing out at those around them. The most impactful example is a cut to a man out by the side of his house, fixing his ladder. The sun is blazing and you assume that the heat is making him irritable as he starts to lose his composure, hitting himself in the hand with the hammer he’s using to nail the steps back into place. He takes his rage out on the ladder with the hammer, lashing out at it wildly. Then, out of nowhere, he then starts to manically smash himself in the face with it. It’s very well shot, the bright sunshine making the hammer and the streams of blood coming off him gleam, and it makes it so much more shocking to watch.

As an adaptation of the classic Ambrose Bierce story, it is a very loose one. While the story was more of a ‘weird tale’ than outright horror and focused largely on the aftermath and inquest rather than the event itself, Hooper has his camera trained on the bloodshed and mayhem from the very start, taking the broad concept of the short and running with it, much like Stuart Gordon did with his Lovecraft adaptations. As much as I like the Bierce short, I think Hooper’s more brutal and overt approach works fantastically well for the screen.

The episode goes full-on ‘Needful Things’ by the end, every single one of the towns residents both terrified of being the next victim of this unseen intruder and angry enough to make someone the next. The creature that took the Sherriff’s parents over two decades ago is revealed to be part of a family curse, one that took his father, and his father before that, and has now come for him, and has no qualms about killing half the town to get to him. Will the Sherriff find a way to break the curse and save the town, or is it doomed to continue, taking him then coming back for his son twenty-four years later? I’m not telling…

I did have my issues with the episode, but they were minor and didn’t spoil my overall enjoyment. There is a voiceover that runs throughout the episode, only cropping up very occasionally and, in my opinion, unnecessarily, and I found it oddly jarring when it was there, particularly in the Sherriff’s closing scene. The manner in which we get fed information about the titular ‘Damned Thing’ also feels a little redundant, as the events of the story fill in the gaps we need and the rest just drags the pacing down. These are small quibbles, only noticeable because the rest of the episode works so well.

Overall, I enjoyed this episode a lot more than Hooper’s first season offering. The concept is a fun one, and the creature and its motivations are kept wisely vague for the most part. The cast are great and the episode is surprisingly ambitious and big in scale. As much as I enjoyed the story, it’s the gory set pieces that stay with you. This is the polar opposite of Hooper’s best-known work (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) where a lot is suggested, but there is surprisingly little violence, and it’s the dark and dirty tone that gets under your skin. With ‘The Damned Thing’, the violence is front and centre, well lit and gloriously over the top. It’s a strong opening episode for an underrated season two of the series.

Join me next time as I’ll be looking at episode two of the second season, John Landis’s ‘Family’. See you then!

As an adaptation of the classic Ambrose Bierce story, it is a very loose one. While the story was more of a ‘weird tale’ than outright horror and focused largely on the aftermath and inquest rather than the event itself, Hooper has his camera trained on the bloodshed and mayhem from the very start, taking the broad concept of the short and running with it, much like Stuart Gordon did with his Lovecraft adaptations. As much as I like the Bierce short, I think Hooper’s more brutal and overt approach works fantastically well for the screen.

The episode goes full-on ‘Needful Things’ by the end, every single one of the towns residents both terrified of being the next victim of this unseen intruder and angry enough to make someone the next. The creature that took the Sherriff’s parents over two decades ago is revealed to be part of a family curse, one that took his father, and his father before that, and has now come for him, and has no qualms about killing half the town to get to him. Will the Sherriff find a way to break the curse and save the town, or is it doomed to continue, taking him then coming back for his son twenty-four years later? I’m not telling…

I did have my issues with the episode, but they were minor and didn’t spoil my overall enjoyment. There is a voiceover that runs throughout the episode, only cropping up very occasionally and, in my opinion, unnecessarily, and I found it oddly jarring when it was there, particularly in the Sherriff’s closing scene. The manner in which we get fed information about the titular ‘Damned Thing’ also feels a little redundant, as the events of the story fill in the gaps we need and the rest just drags the pacing down. These are small quibbles, only noticeable because the rest of the episode works so well.

Overall, I enjoyed this episode a lot more than Hooper’s first season offering. The concept is a fun one, and the creature and its motivations are kept wisely vague for the most part. The cast are great and the episode is surprisingly ambitious and big in scale. As much as I enjoyed the story, it’s the gory set pieces that stay with you. This is the polar opposite of Hooper’s best-known work (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) where a lot is suggested, but there is surprisingly little violence, and it’s the dark and dirty tone that gets under your skin. With ‘The Damned Thing’, the violence is front and centre, well lit and gloriously over the top. It’s a strong opening episode for an underrated season two of the series.

Join me next time as I’ll be looking at episode two of the second season, John Landis’s ‘Family’. 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