This is part three of a six part series of reviews of the Masters of Horror films. Here are parts one & two .

The Fair Haired Child (William Malone): A teenager-outcast amongst her peers, neglected by her mother-is abducted on her way home. She wakes up in another state, in a hospital, where the nurse (Lori Petty) asks her if she’s been baptized and is a virgin. The girl sees the address on a magazine-she’s actually at a music school-and tries to escape when she’s thrown into a basement, where she finds a boy being hung by the neck. She helps him down before he dies and they try to find a way out of the basement. Meanwhile, the adults upstairs are preparing a ritual, which is successful, I suppose because something horrible is born in that basement. There are odd, Bergman-esque moments in flashbacks, that are humorous, rather than frightening. I don’t know if that was the intention, but I found it to be distracting. Loved the ending, though. 7/10.

Who’s a good Hell…thing? YOU are! Yes, you are!

Sick Girl (Lucky McKee): An entomologist who’s a bit awkward with the ladies, and has a disturbing number of pets (bugs), finally gets up the nerve to talk to the brunette who sketches in the lobby every day. That evening, she also receives a parcel from Brazil of an insect she’s never seen before and cannot identify. The awkward entomologist, played by Angela Bettis, is like a younger Lilith Sternin, which is all to the good. Part of the story is from the point of view of the the bug, which is amusing. There are a few laugh-out-loud moments. One of the least gory of the entire series, but not for insectophobes. 7/10

One big creepy family

Pick Me Up (Larry Cohen): A bus breaks down between two areas of nowhere in Washington State. One person (Fairuza Balk) chooses to walk in the direction they were headed towards a hotel, three others choose to take a ride with a trucker who comes along and offers to take them back to the previous town. That leaves a young couple with the bus driver when a young man strides up out of who-knows-where and makes the situation a bit more interesting. We then follow the course of the three stories-Balk, the trucker, and the wandering guy, which eventually converge and go to hell. One of the better written and acted of the series. 9/10

Fairuza Balk instantly ups the yikes factor in any film

Haeckel’s Tale (John McNaughton): A prosperous young man approaches a necromancer to have his young, recently deceased wife returned to him. She says she will if he will first listen to Haeckel’s Tale. Haeckel was a heretic young doctor who, inspired by Dr Frankenstein, becomes determined to reanimate the dead. His resurrection man tells him of a necromancer. Sceptical, Haeckel goes to see the man anyway. The young doctor’s father is taken quite ill and on his way to visit him, he is taken in from the weather by a man. Haeckel is immediately attracted to the man’s wife, Elise, and the attraction is returned. As Haeckel is lying down he sees the woman feeding a child and then the necromancer comes to take Elise away. Haeckel follows… and finds far more than he ever bargained for. Based on a short story by Clive Barker, the titular character is a fictionalised version of a real person . It put me in mind of the Johannes Cabal series of books. The Barker story is probably great, but the film is unintentionally goofy. 5/10

‘Did Victor have these sorts of problems?’

Imprint (Takashi Miike): I don’t know what this one was about because I got about ten minutes in and realised it was more of what Miike is famous for and wanted to be able to sleep. So caveat emptor and all that. Wikipedia has this to say about it:

Episode 13, “Imprint”, originally scheduled to premiere on January 27, 2006, was shelved by Showtime due to concerns over its content. Mick Garris, creator and executive producer of the series, characterized the episode as “the most disturbing film I’ve ever seen”.

Clearly, I made the correct decision.

The next film review will be the the first few films of the second series of Masters of Horror. See you then!