Set Visit to 'Masters of Horror': Teaser Report

Bringing you the freshest horror on the planet, Horror.com travels for you — yesterday, our roving reporter Staci Layne Wilson was on the set of the Masters of Horror in Vancouver, British Columbia. We’ll have some great video interviews and behind-the-scenes footage for you later, but for now here’s Staci’s written report:

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I really enjoy set visits, but why is it that the most static moment in the movie is always the one that’s being shot when I’m there? When I visited the set of Underworld 2 in January (there’s still an embargo on writing about that one… can’t wait to tell you all about it) I “just missed” the blood-orgy scene. When I was on-set for Van Helsing, they’d “just finished” shooting some high-flying wire stunts with the vampires. Even on The Scorpion King, which was 99% action on the screen, I happened to be there for the 1% dialogue scene.

Not that I’m complaining a bit — I’m absolutely dying to see The Masters of Horror (a 13-part anthology to air on Showtime), so I felt privileged to not only get an inside peek at one of the stories, I also got to see one of my favorite directors at work. The story they’re filming now is called Chocolate, and it is written and directed by Mick Garris.

In this particular one-hour installment of the unprecedented horror anthology (to begin airing in October 2005), Henry Thomas plays a lonely divorc? whose bland existence is suddenly spiced up when his senses start to see, feel, smell, hear and taste things that aren’t actually there — it all begins with the flavor of chocolate, and somewhere in the middle there is romance, then a brutal murder. Of course, if you know Garris’s work (which includes The Stand, The Shining miniseries, and Riding the Bullet), you know it doesn’t end there.

All of the stories and directors are top-notch: Don Coscarelli just finished shooting his episode, Incident On and Off A Mountain Road (written by Coscarelli, adapted from a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, who also did Bubba Ho Tep). Before him was Dario Argento, who directed Jenifer (written by Steven Weber, who also stars) — described by Garris as “Wiiiild!”, and first up was John Landis, with Deer Woman (written by his son, Max Landis). Everything is going great so far, despite the hectic schedules — each director must adhere to a 10-day shooting limit.

I was there for day three of shooting Chocolate, which was being done on a practical location — sort of an oxymoron, since it is often impractical to have traffic whizzing by, and the neighborhood kids playing loudly nearby — in a cute yellow quasi-Victorian home. They were shooting a scene in which Henry Thomas’s character goes to visit his young son (named ‘Hooper’… the expectant couple were either huge Burt Reynolds fans, or scared by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre while gestating) and has an awkward moment with the ex (played by Stacy Grant). Thomas enters the charming little house with a heralding sneeze, then there’s a bit of dialogue between the frayed family unit (I haven’t read the script yet, but I presume it’s the deadly muse who’s making him sneeze, and that domestic scene will set the stage for something scary).

That’s about all I saw… but I learned a lot about the story, how it was conceived, Thomas’s thoughts on playing such an emotional role, and also had a short chat with Grant, who told me she auditioned for a few different roles in the Masters of Horror oeuvre before landing this small but integral part in Chocolate.

Stay tuned for our exclusive video interviews with Garris and Thomas, and a few surprises. (And if you really want to immerse yourself in the Masters of Horror experience, check out some of the books in which source material appears.)

"Chocolate" a short story by Mick Garris, published in the Hot Blood anthology

"Dreams In the Witch-House", a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, published in The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories

"Incident On and Off A Mountain Road", a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, published in High Cotton

"Pick Me Up", a short story by David J. Schow, published in Black Leather Required