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Rating: Country: USA Release Date: September 15, 2009 Distributor: Lions Gate Cast: · Elisabeth Moss · Brandon Routh · Eric Roberts · Molly Hagan · Rachel Miner Related Sites: · IMDb: Fear Itself Grade: B

Ever since Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits found television success back in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, the anthology series has been a generational hallmark, popping up every decade or so in a slightly different form.  Shows like Night Gallery and Mystery! popped up, bridging the gap between the hardcore revival in the 80’s, when HBO brought out the fantastic Ray Bradbury Theatre and The Hitchhiker, and network television blessed us with Tales from the Darkside and Spielberg’s Amazing Stories (we won’t bring up the Friday the 13th or Elm Street anthologies).

This continued into the 90’s with more cable entries in the form of Tales from the Crypt and the campier Perversions of Science, only to take a bit of a break until late when network summer programming opened the door for resurgence with Masters of Horror and this, Fear Itself.

From the perspective of quality, creativity and execution, this entry into the anthology lexicon is no better or worse than the majority of those decades old, but culturally we’re in a different place, keen on serials, reality contests and soaps, past the drive-in camp fun of the weekly horror romp. 

As these 13-episodes are all written and directed by different people, it is really no surprise that they vary greatly in quality and entertainment value, ranging from impressive (Fessenden’s “Skin and Bones”) to terrible (Bousman’s “New Year’s Day”) to boring (Yu’s “Family Man”) to gross (Gordon’s “Eater”) to smart (Harron’s “Community”). The variety, however, ensures that anyone who enjoys televised slices of twisty campy horror will have some fun with at least an episode or two.

Episodes are as follows:

1. Eater – Directed By Stuart Gordon: Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss stars as a rookie horror-obsessed Goth-chick cop spending the night guarding a sadistic cannibal.

2. Spooked – Directed By Brad Anderson: Eric Roberts stars as a detective with a troubled past, forced to face his demons while tackling a new case.

3. Community – Directed By Mary Harron: Brandon Routh and Shiri Appleby star as a young couple moving into an idyllic community with some similarities to Stepford.

4. The Sacrifice – Directed By Breck Eisner: Four criminals take refuge in a snow-covered fort. Vampires are involved.

5. In Sickness and Health – Directed By John Landis: A bride gets a note saying that her soon-to-be-husband is a serial killer. Terrible.

6. Family Man – Directed By Ronny Yu: Serial killer switches bodies with a family man. Compromises are made, lessons are learned. It’s a familiar to do.

7. Something with Bite – Directed By Ernest Dickerson: A vet is bitten by a strange animal and discovers how dull his life is.

8. New Year’s Day – Directed By Darren Lynn Bousman: zombies and a director known mainly for desultory nonsense.

9. Skin and Bones – Directed By Larry Fessenden: What’s that, Larry Fessenden has made something else about man’s relationship to the environment, sanity and the Wendigo? Oh well, at least he’s really good it.

10. Chance – Directed By John Dahl: Ethan Embry stars as a douche-bag keen on getting rich quickly, until he meets his evil self. Blah.

11. The Spirit Box – A couple of teenage girls make a Ouija board out of a pizza box and learn that the gym teacher is a perv. Aren’t all gym teachers’ pervs?

12. Echoes – Directed By Rupert Wainwright: Guy moves into apartment and confronts his past. Was he a sadistic murderer, a boring white guy, or both?

13. The Circle – Directed By Eduardo Rodriguez: Halloween stories turn creepy. Natch.

Special features include director and cast interviews for each episode, which is a nice touch, for those curious to hear people talk about how wonderful everything is with a big fake grin on their face.

Aside from crappy packaging with annoying double-sided discs, this box set is pretty solid for anyone keen on the subject.