Editorials
Horror in Segments: 5 Multi-Storied Episodes from TV Anthologies [Series of Frights]
Horror anthology films have the good fortune of hosting several stories. Audiences can find something to like even if the entire collection is not up to par. As for anthologies on the small screen, usually these series are limited to one story per episode.
Focusing on only one plot at a time has its advantages; the full attention makes for better writing. Yet, variety also has value in anthology shows. A multi-storied episode, such as the following five, can keep the audience just as engaged, if not more entertained.
The Twilight Zone (1985-1989)
Gramma/Personal Demons/Cold Reading
Unlike the original show, episodes of the 1980s Twilight Zone revival were divided into two or three segments during the first two seasons. Season Three then saw the series adapt a more standard format.
This episode from Season One kicks off with its strongest offering; Barret Oliver from The Neverending Story plays a boy deathly afraid of his ailing grandmother. As his mother leaves the house during a stormy night, Georgie stays behind with the namesake of “Gramma“. Stephen King‘s short story provides the basis for this creepy chapter. Without giving too much away, the opener accumulates a glut of dread without showing too much of the sickly woman who strikes fear into her grandson’s heart.
“Personal Demons” finds an aging TV writer (Martin Balsam) in distress when he sees demons wherever he goes. Of course they are invisible to everyone else. Showing too much of the creatures gradually dulls their effect, but this middle story is a creative way of inspiring someone who suffers from writer’s block.
The last tale steps away from horror and runs toward absurdity. Taking a page out of the War of the Worlds incident from 1938, the humorous and imaginative “Cold Reading” follows a 1940s radio show where everything read aloud materializes inside the studio.
Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction (1997-2002)
House of Shadows/One Hand in the Till/Teasdale’s Motor Car/ The Vision/The Grave
The challenge of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction was determining the authenticity of five different stories. The series is not thoroughly horror, but the genre appeared in just about every episode. Even if a vignette was not exactly scary, it was at least weird.
The most suspenseful portion of this Season Four episode is served up first; a house-sitter experiences the scare of a lifetime in “House of Shadows“. The TV continues to switch to video of a man mixing concrete in a strange room. The sitter then recognizes the footage’s location.
“One Hand In the Till” features a case of astral projection; a father does the impossible to prevent his son from making a huge mistake. In “Teasdale’s Motor Car“, a man’s dream car becomes the source of his nightmares. “The Vision” is a classic case of someone trying to stop a portent coming to pass. Finally, “The Grave” is a low-key ghost story about a wronged dead man whose cemetery plot remains grass-free so long as his crooked wife and ex-partner are alive.
Of all the stories presented, host Jonathan Frakes claims only two are based on factual events. Both of these supposed incidents occurred sometime in the 1980s, according to the show.
Night Visions (2001)
The Maze/Harmony
After being rerun on the now-defunct Chiller network, Night Visions slipped back into obscurity. Today it is unclear if the 2001 show will see the light of day again. It would be a shame to have an anthology of this caliber be forgotten.
Fox simply had no faith in Night Visions, and as a result, it was discarded without much afterthought. The Sci-Fi Channel briefly came to the rescue in the days before the Syfy rebranding; several stories were compiled into a standalone feature called Shadow Realm. This collection includes “The Maze” and “Harmony“, which originally aired together as one episode in 2002.
Tobe Hooper does something odd in “The Maze”, and it is not the kind of oddness he was known for. Hooper actually gave the protagonist, played by Thora Birch, a happy ending with no dark strings attached. Her character is a shy college student who is afraid to step outside her comfort zone. Yet, getting trapped in a frightening alternate world after entering a hedge maze on campus scares her into changing. Hooper and writer Steve Aspis take the road less traveled in Night Visions; they leave on a hopeful note rather than a bleak one.
Meanwhile, “Harmony” is the complete opposite of the previous short. Timothy Olyphant‘s car breaks down in a small town where music is forbidden. Rulebreakers are also unduly punished. When this outsider challenges the status quo and questions the townsfolks’ unusual beliefs, he gets the rudest awakening. The conclusion of this tale is an all-timer for Night Visions.
Two Twisted (2006)
There’s Something About Kyanna/Finding Frank
Two Twisted is a sequel to the 1996 Australian anthology Twisted Tales, and it is produced by actor Bryan Brown. The stories in the 2006 show are paired up, with two to each episode. The premiere starts off with a seaside haunter called “There’s Something About Kyanna“.
Melissa George‘s character has moved into a secluded beach house along with her husband (Sandy Winton). The home, named Kyanna by its architect, has a secret underneath its beautiful exterior. Unbeknownst to its current occupants, this secret is why the house was on the market for so long.
The problem with having several standalone stories in one episode is the inevitable comparison. “There’s Something About Kyanna” is merely average when put up against something like “Finding Frank“, but scheduling it first helps smooth things over. The most glaring problem, though, is the underwhelming twist.
“Finding Frank” is definitely the better of the two segments. The title character (Garry McDonald) is set to retire from his security job, and on his last night, he is menaced by an unknown threat inside the building. The outcome is genuinely shocking.
Black Mirror (2011-2019)
Black Museum
Black Mirror is a large reason why anthologies are in fashion again. While it is unclear if the series will return in the near future, creator Charlie Booker helped revolutionize how people view self-contained narratives on television today. For many, his work is the new gold standard.
Booker switched things up in the finale of Season Four by having a trio of sub-stories as well as a wraparound. In “Black Museum“, Letitia Wright‘s character has time to waste as her car recharges, so she takes a tour of a nearby medical museum. The tour guide (Douglas Hodge) presents his one and only guest with three bizarre cases, with each one more disturbing than the last.
The first exhibit relates to a doctor (Daniel Lapaine) who tested an experimental implant; the device allowed him to feel others’ sensations. The doctor eventually becomes addicted to pain — be it someone else’s or his own. From body horror to sadistic violence, this segment does everything in its power to make the viewer uneasy. The next story recalls a comatose mother and wife (Alexandra Roach) whose consciousness is transferred to a part of her husband’s brain (Aldis Hodge). While this tale comes across as lighthearted, it still works in a sad ending.
The final case criticizes those who find pleasure in other people’s misery. In this piece, a death row inmate’s holographic image (Babs Olusanmokun) is available for torture at the Black Museum. How everything then wraps up only reaffirms how pessimistic Black Mirror is.
Series of Frights is a recurring column that mainly focuses on horror in television. Specifically, it takes a closer look at five episodes or stories — each one adhering to an overall theme — from different anthology series or the occasional movie made for TV. With anthologies becoming popular again, especially on television, now is the perfect time to see what this timeless mode of storytelling has to offer.
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
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