Having missed Showtime’s Masters of Horror series when it first aired in the fall of 2005, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the releases of the 13 one-hour segments from some of the genre’s best directors. Although I’m a wee bit skeptical about anything made for TV, I’ve still held out hope that with this level of talent behind the series that something great would come out of it. Judging by the first two releases a couple months back, the results have been uneven, with one film turning out absolutely killer, and one missing the mark. Unfortunately, the same goes for this second installment.

Mick Garris has made a name for himself translating Steven King’s work onto the small screen (TV’s The Shining and The Stand). This time he goes it completely solo with Chocolate, which he wrote and directed himself. The story follows a ne’er-do-well named Jamie who leads a rather humdrum life until he begins to experience random sensory flashes from a woman whom he’s never met. So now, everything she feels—physically and emotionally—he feels. What sounds like an intriguing premise gets bogged down in attempting to be something it’s not, especially when compared to several of the other installments. Chocolate is pretty lightweight on the scare scale, and there’s not enough atmosphere to sustain any authentic chills or true sense of horror. What we have here is a fluffy melodrama with a few unfulfilled shocks thrown to qualify it being shoehorned into a horror series. Garris’ story would have fared much better as an installment on the Twilight Zone or Tales of the Unexpected, but in this format it’s a clever idea that’s hard to swallow as a horror piece.

Incident On and Off a Mountain Road from Don Coscarelli (director of the Phantasm series) is quite a different affair. Ellen is driving fast on a mountain road when she suddenly happens upon a parked car and crashes. Now stranded, she immediately finds herself on the run from a knife-wielding freak with a terribly misshapen head. But what “Moonface” hasn’t planned for is Ellen’s survivalist skills and unflinching will to destroy him. This fast-paced thriller wastes no time in getting right down to business, and that’s a nice change of pace from Chocolate’s languishing flow. There’s also a sub-story that starts out a bit cheesy where we learn about Ellen’s experiences with her militiaman ex-husband, and how she came to acquiring her survival skills. But further on, the back-story ties in nicely with the current chain of events, and in the end, all eyes are on Ellen.

Coscarelli’s sly direction and productive use of gore (think eyeballs and drill bits) make Incident On and Off a Mountain Road one helluva fun ride that doesn’t let up—you’ll swear it’s not even an hour long. There’s also a cameo featuring an insane performance from Phantasm’s Angus Scrimm as one of Moonface’s cohorts.

Both DVDs are in widescreen format and feature bonus documentaries on the films and the directors. The Chocolate DVD also has an interesting interview between  Garris and Roger Corman. But so far I’d stick with the Coscarelli flick, and Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns from the first installment.

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- Jim Kaz