Masters of Horror (TV series)

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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 the story of the same title by a female writer (Alice Sheldon, credited to her better-known male pseudonym, although originally published under her female pseudonym)
  • "Imprint" was based on Bokkee Kyoutee, 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. Women are occasionally featured as villains, and frequently featured as victims — numerous stories featured intense and graphic violence against women. The premise of the series is that the directors are given free reign to do as they wish without censorship. Some use this to be blatantly political (Homecoming, Pro Life), but most merely grabbed at the opportunity to show more breasts (full frontal male nudity was prohibited) and gore (as long as it was not child-on-child violence).

Female protagonists:

  • "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" [[1]] dir. by Don Coscarelli
  • "Dance of the Dead" [[2]] dir. by Tobe Hooper
  • "Sick Girl" [[3]] dir. by Lucky McKee
  • "Pro-Life" [[4]] dir. by John Carpenter
  • "The Screwfly Solution" [[5]] dir. by Joe Dante
  • "Pick Me Up" dir. by Larry Cohen

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.

Further reading

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