Quick Reviews: Cigarette Burns (Masters of Horror)

Here's another thing that I revisited in October due to a Facebook Contest.  I've had this DVD for awhile, so let's get to it...

As a refresher for some/explanation for others, Masters of Horror was a Showtime Series where Directors like Carpenter, Joe Dante and others would make Short Films.

In this tale, a man (Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead) is hired to track down a rare Film.  It was shown only once and a mass riot broke out.  A rich guy (Udo Kier) wants it bad!

It is more than just a Film, however, as this thing was apparently in the Film...but now is in Kier's basement.  What.  the.  Hell?!?

While the Crew is nearly-impossible to find, he tracks down the one living Critic of the Film.  The man is apparently quite obsessed (even 32 years after the fact).  As you can see, his new Review is going to be a bit long...

Not everyone Reedus runs across is exactly nice and kind.  That's all I'll say about that here.

His father-in-law shows up for the Climax (for reasons I won't SPOIL here) and things...go badly.

Who lives?  Who dies?  What the hell is that giant, pale guy?  To find out, watch the Show/Movie.  The End.

Damn, this is neat!  The idea is something you don't see every day, which is nice.  As a Film Buff, I like the idea of a Lost Film with some sort of dark secret to it.  The way it plays out is nice, giving you a bit of weirdness at first and then doing a slow burn to pure insanity.  Having this be right around an Hour means that it can both linger on the key parts and also move briskly when they have to.  As good as this is, I would be curious to see how a Film like this would work at 90 minutes or more.  Would it explain more and be better?  Would it just have more filler and not be as good?  Who knows?  All of the Acting is good, ranging from generally-subdued to crazy.  They do a nice bit with one Character being completely sane in their first Scene and batshit crazy in their second (and last) Scene.  The big thing here is the Gore.  While I'm not really bothered by it, I'm sure that some of you would be.  To each his own.  I will say that they give you Gore in the big moments and use it to add Drama, as opposed to just being over-the-top with it.  By using it more sparely, they make it have more impact.  During the Show's 2-Season Run, it got some good acclaim.  In the time since, they have gotten less.  Well, I'm here to tell you that maybe you should give this whole thing another look.  I guess I should do more of these in the future, huh?  I just have to make sure that I give my writing hands a break, lest this happen...

A dark and grisly tale that is certainly not for everyone.  If you're up for it though, it is quite good.