gfoots

Bravo in the UK aired the Takashi Miike episode that Showtime chose not to show. Supposedly it was "too extreme" for American audiences. In fact, it isn't that extreme, just a few shots of aborted fetuses in the distance and an overlong torture sequence that isn't that disturbing. Still, I can't get too excited about the episode. It isn't quite as bad as a lot of the other episodes, but it still kind of sucks. I'm ranking it behind Cigarette Burns and Incident On and Off a Mountain Road, which weren't terrific either.

The real problem with the series was the choice of titles. When you call your show "Masters of Horror," you are automaticaly setting yourself up for attack if the end product doesn't meet up with expectations. If they had just called it "The Horror Show" no one would have cared if it sucked or not.

DRG

But that was the hook... that each episode was supposed to be directed by a reknowned director in the horror field (Romero, Carpenter, Argento). Of course, the inclusion of guys like William "feardotcom" Malone and Mick "Stephen King tv movies" Garris (the show's creator, so I guess I can let that slide) sort of stretches the theme a bit.

Mondo Kane

Bummed about the reaction, but I still gotta see this.

Giles

same here.

I just watched over last weekend two episodes I didn't see when they first premiered and enjoyed them quite a bit

'Sick Girl' and 'The Fair Haired Child'

meritocracy

Pretty damn disappointing.

gfoots

Believe me, I totally understand the hook, but but they were unable to live up to the title. It seems IDT is making the same mistake with its next series, Masters of Science Fiction.

After the Masters of Horror title, the biggest problem wasn't the choice of directors or writers, but the limitations the producers put on each director. Although they hyped up the fact the there would be no creative control over what each director did, this wasn't entirely true. The directors had to shoot in Canada, using Canadian or producer approved casts. Each director had to use the same crewmembers, producrtion designers, cenematographers, effects, etc. I'm sure many of these guys use their own crew on every picture they do. For instance, Dario Agento is known for a very specific photographic style. Take a look at his episode, Jenifer. Beyond the fact that it is totally pointless all middle with no beginning or end, it looks like straight forward borring television. Who knows what it might have looked like with his own cinematographer. It seems that Miike was one of the exceptions. Probably due to language concerns, he was allowed to use many of his own crewmembers. Although he probably should have let Greg Nicotero work on the makeup effects.

Slumbering Fist

I thought the whole series was a blunder. A majority of the episodes are either downright embarrassing or painfully mediocre.

Wether or not Miike’s ep is good or not, is immaterial. To pull it from airing because of content further showed that the supposed freedom the series claimed to stand by as a creative project was, in fact, total bunk.

clckworang

I don't care what you name the show. If you gather people like Carpenter, Argento, Hooper, Dante, Landis, Coscarelli and Miike to direct episodes, the expectations are going to be extremely high. Come on! These are horror fans we're talking about, the same ones who make almost any movie No. 1 at the box office for the first week. People are serious about the horror. The names were the hook, not the title of the show.

I will agree that I was surprised at how little visual wizardry was on display during Argento's episode. Although I really liked the episode, I was disappointed that the filming of it looked about how you would expect anyone to shoot it. Even in lesser Argento films, I have always been able to sit back and enjoy the style, and that wasn't as apparent in his showing.

Zodiac_Speaking

I enjoyed Carpenter's a lot, but I haven't seen the rest. All the complaints are justifiable. I'm eager to see the rest and it must have done decent business cuz season 2 is coming. I don't see S3 or anything past that. I hope season 2 is better and I hope they watch who they choose to do an episode (feardotcom's Malone? WTF?). I like already the inclusion of Rob Zombie, but hold off on too many newbies. I would love to see (of course) Romero, Craven, Corman, but I think it would be cool to allow some other, non-traditional choices like Sergio Martino, Gasper Noe (I guess that strecthes it a bit much), Jim VanBebber (from Manson Family fame), Clive Barker (in a directing mode), or Peter Jackson (I don't care for his early zombie films, but I appreciated the imagination of them).

paradicelost

I thought Gordon's episode was really good. He seemed to put style of directing on it despite the "limitations" that were put on him.

MartinBlank

I rented this one last night, thought it was pretty good. What other episodes do you guys recommend watching? Of all the ones trailered on the disc, "Jenifer" looked interesting.

Luther Heggs

I liked "Imprint" better than all the other MOH episodes, by which I mean that I thought it sucked quite a bit as opposed to sucking heartily. Billy Drago ruined this for me from the outset with his overstated hand gestures and Heston-style scenery chewing ("This place.......is a daaaamned place!"). The stilted dialogue didn't help any. And I thought the ultimate "twist" suffers from the fact that If you've ever seen Kwaidan or the like, you'll be able to predict much of what happens. You know that when someone relates a story to a stranger, a) and b)
At the same time, I can see why the SHO execs balked at the episode: (pretty convincing effect, now that I think about it - while the was a very unconvincing effect), and the pièce de résistance,
A few moments gave me the creeps - - but they were few and far between. Cut this down to about 22 minutes and it might work; the plot holes probably wouldn't seem so big. Now that I've typed that out, it doesn't seem like a plot hole so much as the fault of Drago's assworth performance.
Still, details like this coupled with the usual Miike WTFness - and just what did the title "Imprint" signify? - add up to a disappointment for me. Not that anything could have lived up to the idea of "Miike - Too Hot For TV!"

clckworang

I really liked Jenifer. I think it was second favorite ep after Cigarette Burns. In fact, I showed it to a few people, and they all loved it, too.

For what it's worth, I've shown quite a few different episodes to friends of mine who don't have Showtime but wanted to see the series, and their reactions have never been as harsh as any of the reactions on this board (the reactions were usually pretty positive), with the possible exception being Dance of Death (we all pretty much disliked that one).