Fear Itself: "Spooked"
Hoo boy. This second episode of Fear Itself was, to put it lightly, a complete mess. It had no sense of subtlety or suspense, the plot was incoherent and the ending was shout-at-the-TV bad. Ex-cop turned private dick Eric Roberts stakes out a cheating husband from a house across the street, a haunted house that shows him all his worst memories and bad things he's done in an attempt to make him kill himself. Or something. The haunted house's motivation keeps changing, to the point where it would have been better to not mention anything at all, really.
Turns out his worst memory is accidentally shooting his brother dead with his cop dad's pistol when they were kids. No wait, that's not it. The worst memory was when cop dad, for -- and I cannot stress this enough -- NO REASON AT ALL, decides they can't tell anyone what happened and he and little Eric Roberts bury his brother in the woods and just tell everyone the boy went missing. Um, what? Again, cop dad gives no reason, saying only, "It's better for both of us this way." Hokay. Cue the guilt phantoms!
Eric Roberts' partner, played by Larry Gilliard Jr. from The Wire, does nothing through the whole episode except preen, listen to music and talk about mackin' the ladies. You know, like all young black men in Hollywood movies. Then at the end he accidentally shoots Eric Roberts. Who dies with an ambiguous smile on his face for, once again, NO REASON AT ALL. Cue end credits!
No, seriously. That's exactly how it ends.
I can't believe Brad Anderson, the director of Session 9, one of my favorite horror movies of all time, had anything to do with this. Oddly, his name isn't listed on the IMDB page for this episode. Maybe he had them take it off.
The scenes from next week's episode look even worse. A man mysteriously trades bodies with an imprisoned killer, then tries to get out of jail to protect his family. Oh, did I mention the good guy and his family are white and the maniac is Hispanic? Thanks for the civics lesson, Hollywood!
I think I'm done with this show. Off the DVR list it goes.
Turns out his worst memory is accidentally shooting his brother dead with his cop dad's pistol when they were kids. No wait, that's not it. The worst memory was when cop dad, for -- and I cannot stress this enough -- NO REASON AT ALL, decides they can't tell anyone what happened and he and little Eric Roberts bury his brother in the woods and just tell everyone the boy went missing. Um, what? Again, cop dad gives no reason, saying only, "It's better for both of us this way." Hokay. Cue the guilt phantoms!
Eric Roberts' partner, played by Larry Gilliard Jr. from The Wire, does nothing through the whole episode except preen, listen to music and talk about mackin' the ladies. You know, like all young black men in Hollywood movies. Then at the end he accidentally shoots Eric Roberts. Who dies with an ambiguous smile on his face for, once again, NO REASON AT ALL. Cue end credits!
No, seriously. That's exactly how it ends.
I can't believe Brad Anderson, the director of Session 9, one of my favorite horror movies of all time, had anything to do with this. Oddly, his name isn't listed on the IMDB page for this episode. Maybe he had them take it off.
The scenes from next week's episode look even worse. A man mysteriously trades bodies with an imprisoned killer, then tries to get out of jail to protect his family. Oh, did I mention the good guy and his family are white and the maniac is Hispanic? Thanks for the civics lesson, Hollywood!
I think I'm done with this show. Off the DVR list it goes.
