Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on October 12, 2005, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
As Supernatural settles into a comfortable monster-of-the-week format, Invasion devotes just as much time to conspiracy theories as biological mayhem and Night Stalker is already being advertised like a CSI-style crime procedural, where can those in search of serious horror get a truly satisfying tube fix? Unless they’ve been living under a rock the last several months, genre fans know the answer is Showtime, where Masters of Horror debuts October 28 with Don Coscarelli’s Incident on and Off a Mountain Road episode. It makes sense for the Mick Garris-created anthology to open with this particular entry, since it’s a perfect vehicle for the kind of gritty ’n’ gory thrills that promise to set this series apart from those on the more restrictive broadcast networks. While it’s nothing groundbreaking thematically (which may be another reason it’s the first one broadcast—don’t want to throw those who tune in casually too off-balance), it delivers the goods when it comes to getting you in the gut.
Incident is also arguably the most—perhaps the only—pure horror project Coscarelli has yet been involved with, after the wild and woolly Phantasm films and the melancholy, satirical Bubba Ho-Tep. Like the latter film, Incident is based on a story by Southern Gothic master Joe R. Lansdale, but the resemblances end there. Instead of an offbeat character study in which the digressions are half the fun, this is a straightforward survival-terror tale in which a young woman named Ellen (Bree Turner) gets into a car accident late one night on a lonely highway in the middle of a dense forest. Instead of help, along comes a tall and vicious sort called Moonface (John De Santis in very impressive KNB EFX makeup), who chases her through the woods and ultimately to a cabin whose décor will be familiar to devotees of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its ilk.
Intercut with Ellen’s plight are flashbacks to her developing relationship with a young man (Ethan Embry) who’s got very specific attitudes about survival, sports a Bruce-Willis-in-Die Hard look and is even named Bruce for good measure. The purpose of this subplot seems clear early on—Bruce’s self-defense training serves Ellen in especially good stead when she’s confronted by the backwoods maniac—but the parallel story also has a nasty sting in its tail. Along the way, we witness the grisly particulars of Moonface’s preferred violation of his victims, and are treated to a performance by Coscarelli regular Angus Scrimm in a role as far removed from Phantasm’s Tall Man as it’s possible to get.
One advantage of the cable format for genre filmmakers is that it allows them to build up the tension without the interruptions dictated by commercials (though oddly, there are a few moments in Incident that feel almost tailor-made for ad breaks). Coscarelli, even as he jumps between Ellen’s terrorization and her history with Bruce, not only maintains a good pitch of suspense but keeps the dual storylines at matching levels of intensity. In fact, one of the most harrowing moments occurs not in Moonface’s part of the episode, but in Bruce’s. Needless to say, there are also no restrictions on graphic mayhem imposed in the cable world, and Coscarelli keeps the blood flowing while still allowing viewers’ imaginations to fill in the very worst details. (I don’t know if they’re derived directly from Lansdale’s story or not, but the most notable acts of violence carry echoes of the Silver Sphere setpieces from the Phantasm films.)
Throw in a convincing frantic-then-determined performance by Turner, atmosphere-drenched nighttime cinematography by Jon Joffin and seriously unpleasant production design by David Fischer, and you’ve got a solid and uncompromising little terror tale that marks a promising start to the Masters of Horror series. Subsequent episodes promise to venture into more outlandish and unfamiliar territory (just the fact that Takashi Miike is working for an American TV series still boggles the mind), and if Incident is any indication, they’ll definitely be trips worth taking.
