One of the good things the Masters of Horror [MOH] series provides is an opportunity for an older or younger filmmaker to take a crack at the anthology format. It certainly worked in the sixties when The Twilight Zone ran, and even Night Gallery gave John Badham time to learn his craft before embarking on feature films, and hitting career paydirt with films like Saturday Night Fever, Blue Thunder, and Stakeout.MOH's younger filmmakers already have some feature works under their belts, so it's not quite the same, but it is interesting to see what short story a director will choose, and how the tale is realized within a 58 min. running time.
The latest couplet we've uploaded is Sounds Like, from Brad Anderson (Session 9, The Machinist), and The Washingtonians, from Peter Medak (The Changeling, The Ruling Class), and while one can understand the reasons each filmmaker picked their story, it's frankly jarring to see Anderson craft one of the best character-driven tales, and Medak make repeated wrong turns at every angle.
Anchor Bay's DVDs all come with commentary tracks, so it's helpful to hear the directors (when they participate) explain what they tried to achieve wih their episode. In Medak's case, it's not so much a train wreck as a one of those productions where everyone had fun, loved the extreme nature of the project (makeup, gore, audacious story elements) but the final results are repeated missteps.
Check out the reviews for further praise/excoriation, and we'll have another MOH couplet shortly.
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