The likes of Wes Craven and John Carpenter found great success on the big screen, but their horror contributions before and after their theatrical breakthroughs can’t be overlooked.
We can always learn something new about these “Masters of Horror” simply by watching their television work. These small-screen endeavors show how talented filmmakers can traverse the limitations of TV while still preserving elements of the genre they helped build.
Mick Garris
Quicksilver Highway (1997)
Mick Garris is certainly no stranger to television; he’s done everything from writing (Amazing Stories) to directing (Psycho IV: The Beginning). Without him, we wouldn’t have the ambitious series Masters of Horror, either. He remained true to his love of anthologies by producing this bisected horror-comedy that first aired on Fox in 1997.
Quicksilver Highway stars Christopher Lloyd as the narrator of two ghoulish stories based on the respective works of Stephen King and Clive Barker; “Chattery Teeth” features a pair of novelty wind-up teeth springing to action during a dust storm-set carjacking, and “The Body Politic” pits a man against his own autonomous hand. Both tales demonstrate Garris’ morbid sense of humor and eye for outlandish imagery.
Lucio Fulci
The House of Clocks (1989)
Between giallo movies and spaghetti westerns, Lucio Fulci had a diverse career. His talent could not be limited to just horror, but that is definitely a genre where he excelled. Fulci directed and wrote two made-for-television movies as part of the series La case maledette (Cursed Homes); immediately following The House of Clocks, he began working on The Sweet House of Horrors. Both projects were shelved and not seen until later, though.
The House of Clocks concerns three robbers getting more than they bargained for when they rob an elderly couple in their own home. The plan takes a turn for the worse, and the intruders are handed a sizable slice of just desserts; the many clocks in the house suddenly upset the flow of time and the criminals are now trapped inside with the homicidal homeowners. An ordinary abode turns into a chamber of torture where geriatric killers gleefully maim their youthful prey.
Sean S. Cunningham
Terminal Invasion (2002)
Sean S. Cunningham got his start around the same time as Wes Craven; they worked on movies together including The Last House on the Left. Of course, it wasn’t until 1980 that Cunningham changed the landscape of horror — Friday the 13th remains a template for the slasher subgenre. His other directed horror offerings include A Stranger is Watching (1982), The New Kids (1985), DeepStar Six (1989), and XCU: Extreme Close Up (2001).
In 2002, Cunningham’s Crystal Lake Entertainment produced an original cable movie for Syfy (née Sci-Fi Channel) called Terminal Invasion; the telefilm also reunited him with composer Harry Manfredini. The characters, including Bruce Campbell as an anti-heroic convict, are stranded inside a small airport during a blizzard when a shapeshifting alien starts to pick them off one by one. Terminal Invasion is essentially a one-location thriller with shades of The Thing, albeit far more low-key and talky.
Lamberto Bava
The Ogre (1989)
Lamberto Bava conceived five movies for the television series Brivido giallo (Yellow Thrills), but only four were actually produced. Of these films, The Ogre is promoted as a sequel to Demons and Demons 2 in some parts; the connection is a nominal one. The setup here is similar to that of The House by the Cemetery: a family experiences a supernatural event when they stay at a new home. In this case, the doomed destination is a rural Italian villa where a writer hopes to complete her latest book. A curse on the house, however, brings her childhood nightmares of a basement-dwelling ogre to life.
The Ogre is singular when it comes to the director’s body of work; the dreamlike yet ghastly ambience makes up for a lack of trademark Bava carnage. The repetition adds to the unreality at hand, but it can also wear thin on viewers. Even so, this grim fairy tale exudes eeriness.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Séance (2001)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s cheerless interpretation of Mark McShane’s novel Séance on a Wet Afternoon is the slowest of burns. Always cooking on low heat, his adaptation is a meditative lesson on dangerous ambitions and compromised ethics. He studies a desperate psychic who goes to extremes as she attains her own renown during a missing child case. Soon after, she and her husband are plagued with unrelenting guilt.
Kurosawa’s Séance is a master class in disquieting atmosphere and authentic scares. The director doesn’t create typical conditions for his brand of mounting dread; he manages to stir up a cold chill or two while still keeping everything cast in broad daylight.
Álex de la Iglesia
The Baby’s Room (2006)
Álex de la Iglesia earned his cult filmmaker status by creating strange and memorable genre movies like The Day of the Beast (1995), Witching and Bitching (2013), and The Bar (2017). Those titles show his brazen habits of pushing the envelope and disregarding convention. Yet when it came to his entry in the television event Películas para no dormir (Films to Keep You Awake), de la Iglesia shows an unusual level of restraint not typical with his style. He and his creative partner Jorge Guerricaechevarría reel in their affinity for blatant weirdness in favor of more relatively subtle creepiness.
In The Baby’s Room, a couple raising their firstborn in an old house hears mysterious voices from the baby monitor; yet no one is there when they go and check. The father comes to suspect someone (or something) is living in their house without them knowing it.
Wes Craven
Invitation to Hell (1984)
The “Sultan of Slash” has a few TV movies under his belt: Stranger in Our House (1978), Chiller (1985), Night Visions (1990), and, of course, the campy classic Invitation to Hell that came out the same year as A Nightmare on Elm Street. In the movie, the Winslow family moves up in society after the father accepts a job in Southern California. They eventually cross paths with Susan Lucci’s Jessica Jones, the lurid head of the local country club; she is adamant that the new transplants join so they too can enjoy all the perks of Steaming Springs. The father fends off Jessica’s aggressive advances as best he can, but his family is susceptible seeing as they’re all vying for something bigger and better.
In what feels very much like another reinterpretation of The Stepford Wives, a fear of change and perhaps technology stirs up a hefty and overt helping of anxiety for Robert Urich’s character. Lucci is a goddess with her chewy performance, and the otherworldly climax is striking given the medium.
Fred Walton
Trapped (1989)
Not every first-time director earns a cult hit right out of the gate, but Fred Walton did exactly that with his 1979 thriller When a Stranger Calls; he is also responsible for the clever teen slasher April Fool’s Day. For the most part, Walton’s career is rooted in television. On top of I Saw What You Did (1988), When a Stranger Calls Back (1993), and Dead Air (1994), one of his most effective TV movies is the USA Network original Trapped. This cat-and-mouse trembler — which sounds like the inspiration for Franck Khalfoun’s 2007 movie P2 — has a businesswoman fighting for her life as she’s locked inside a high-rise office building with a vengeful madman. While the scares are straightforward, Trapped is a thoroughly stressful and harrowing thrill ride.
Tobe Hooper
I’m Dangerous Tonight (1990)
Mädchen Amick and Anthony Perkins star in this cable movie based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich. In it, an unaware college student makes a dress out of a cursed ceremonial cloak, and accordingly, anyone who wears it becomes a heartless killer. Tobe Hooper’s hidden gem I’m Dangerous Tonight is a standard morality play with traits of slashers, body hijacking horror, and fairy tales. The damned dress ultimately becomes a tool for meaningful personal growth for our put-upon main character who we’re completely endeared to because of Amick’s earnest performance.
John Carpenter
Someone’s Watching Me! (1978)
Being eclipsed by your own work can be frustrating especially if the thing that’s overlooked is good in its own right. Halloween had just been released in theaters when NBC aired John Carpenter’s made-for-television thriller Someone’s Watching Me! a month later. The story revolves around a live-TV director (Lauren Hutton) moving to LA after she experienced personal problems at her last job. The apartment she moves into has an undisclosed past that entails the last tenant being harassed by a twisted peeper in the building across the way. Hutton’s character, who is typically cheeky and confident to a fault, slowly falls apart as she becomes the stalker’s next target.
Someone’s Watching Me! is a skillful and tense update of classic imperiled women stories of yesteryear like Midnight Lace. Hutton and Adrienne Barbeau are equally fantastic and personable; the violent voyeur is a timeless villain who will make your skin crawl.