Masters of Horror (TV series)

Masters of Horror is a TV series created by Mick Garris. It first aired on Showtime in 2005.

Production

The series features weekly hour-long episodes, each directed by a well-known horror director. No women directors were hired during the first two seasons, and of the directors announced for the third season, none are female. Two have been Asian (Takashi Miike and Norio Tsuruta) and one African-American (Ernest Dickerson); the rest have been white.

None of the writers have been female, although two stories were based on stories by women writers:

• The Screwfly Solution was based on a story by a female writer (Alice Sheldon)
• "Imprint" was based on a novel by Shimako Iwai

Characterization

The series largely tells the story from white male perspectives, although a few episodes have featured female protagonists, and a few others have not featured particular protagonists. Numerous stories featured intense and graphic violence against women.

Female protagonists:

• "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" dir. by Don Coscarelli
• "Dance of the Dead" dir. by Tobe Hooper
• "Sick Girl" dir. by Lucky McKee
• "Pro-Life" dir. by John Carpenter

Female villains or significant female characters:

• "Jenifer" dir. by Dario Argento
• "Chocolate" dir. by Mick Garris
• "Deer Woman" dir. by John Landis
• "Fair-Haired Child" dir. by William Malone
• "Imprint" dir. by Takashi Miike
• "Valerie on the Stairs" dir. by Mick Garris
• "Right to Die" dir. by Rob Schmidt
• "Dream Cruise" dir. by Norio Tsuruta

Themes

The episodes include representations of a variety of horror genres: slasher; supernatural horror; psychological horror; black humor; etc.

• "Homecoming" dir. by Joe Dante (political satire about Iraq war)
• "The Screwfly Solution"

Further reading

• Wikipedia entry