“Master of horror” William Malone (such universally recognized classics as Feardotcom and the remake of House on Haunted Hill… which I know isn’t all that great by critical standards but I do fucking love) works from a Matt Greenberg (the man who blessed the world with screenplays for both Reign of Fire and Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest and no, there is no sarcasm in that statement) for this Masters of Horror outing. Teenage outcast Tara gets herself abducted by a psychotic couple and because she’s no idiot, ends up locked away in the basement of their isolated estate after figuring out some bullshit is going down when she comes to in a supposedly care facility. Anton and Judith (fuck yes, it’s Lori Petty and the always welcome William Samples) have made a pact with something ancient to bring their drowned son back from the dead. Said pact calls for the sacrifice of twelve virgin teenagers and our girl Tara happens to be the final one. What a horrible way to be needed for the first time. Tara shares the cellar with the couple’s teenage son who is definitely off because black magic is no way to adapt to death, even if it’s not by your own doing. She rescues him from an attempted suicide upon waking up in the basement and assumes he’s another victim of the lunatics. The longer Tara stays in the basement, the more convinced she becomes that there is something supernatural in the works and she really needs to get her ass out of her current situation. Judith is dead-set on bringing her departed boy back but Anton seems to be losing his marbles the deeper they get into the unsavory business of resurrection. Tara and the mute boy she has befriended uncover more and more awfulness as they await the girl’s fate and do what they can to escape. Warnings of a “fair-haired child” etched into the walls point towards the fact they do not want that ticking timer to come to an end. There’s a nice weird edge to everything and this outing from the first season proves to be one of the more pleasant surprises to get produced. It successfully comes off like a Lovecraft outing from his cycle before he went balls deep in the Elder ones and is purposefully melodramatic and harnessing the right level of camp for something this inspired by a late 60’s American International horror flick and reruns of Night Gallery. A charming slice of macabre that I really feel like the Masters of Horror series should have aimed for more than it did. A likable leading lady, a couple of intriguing villains and a weird-ass monster… that’s all I really want.
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