MASTERS OF HORROR creator and longtime Stephen King adapter Mick Garris is getting a horror anthology together, and the level of talent that’s attached is pretty gosh darn impressive.
The film will be five segments, each by a different director, and Shock Till You Drop has got the list of directors:
David Slade (30 DAYS OF NIGHT, major creative force behind HANNIBAL), Ryuhei Kitamura (VERSUS, MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN), Alejandro Brugues (JUAN OF THE DEAD), Garris himself (SLEEPWALKERS, THE STAND), and Joe Dante (well…you know).
More than that, at least one of the segments will be based on a script written by the late, great Richard Matheson, who has written as much A+ short-form horror as anyone.
I’ve heard arguments that the best horror anthologies are ones where all the segments are done by the same creative team (CREEPSHOW, TALES FROM THE CRYPT, TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE) so that it’s all linked aesthetically/thematically (admittedly, some of the V/H/S films suffer from awkward transitions and weirdly repeated plot elements). But, in this case, fuck all that. I am so all about these guys getting together and assembling an anthology of stories that let them do whatever they want, as long as it all adds up to about 20-30 minutes. In particular, I’m excited for the segments by Kitamura, whose MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN remains a potent, crazy Clive Barker adaptation (with a weirdo early star turn by Bradley Cooper), and Slade, whose work on HANNIBAL no doubt helped shape it into one of the finest and most extreme pieces of horror television of my lifetime.
I have to assume Dante is directing the Matheson script, whom he worked with on his terrific TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE segment, and if the idea of another short feature from that team doesn’t get your pistons firing, then I don’t know what to tell you.
What I saw of MASTERS OF HORROR tended to be more miss than hit, so the idea of a Garris-fronted anthology film didn’t exactly make me want to sing from the rooftops, but the directors he’s lined up have instantly made this one of my most anticipated horror films of the next couple years. As a whole, I have to say this lineup rivals any of the individual V/H/S rosters (though between the three films you could compile a pretty kick-ass crew of directors), and even if the segments jar against one another in an atonal mess, I figure/hope they still might be so effective on their own that it won’t sting too bad.
Whose segment are you most looking forward to?
