Masters of Horror returns to DVD with this Season two contribution from master Dario Argento who tells a tale filled with furs, woe, and the desire to do nasty things to yourself with sharp things.
Showtime has amassed some of the greatest horror film writers and directors to bring to you the anthology series, "Masters of Horror". For the first time the foremost names in the horror film genre have joined forces for the series consisting of 13 one-hour films each season
Jake (Meat Loaf Aday) is a scummy furrier with an obsession with Shana (Ellen Ewusie), a stripper at the local seedy strip bar. “Pa” Jameson (John Saxon) is a fur trapper showing his son, Larry (Michael Suchanek), how to trap animals. They venture onto some fenced off land and find that their traps have snared a great deal of raccoons. After taking them back to their shack and skinning them they find that they have a rather unique fur that appears to shine bewitchingly.
Ouch!
“Pa” immediately calls Jake to tell him he’s found the “stuff that dreams are made of.” Larry seems beguiled by the fur and happily gives “Pa” a taste of his own medicine before finding a rather gruesome way to give himself a facelift, grinning all the way. Jake and his employee Lou (Link Baker) arrive to collect the furs, but find a mess instead. Jakes sees the furs and indeed thinks that his dreams of Shana might be able to come true if he were to fashion a coat for her out of the furs.
However, everyone that comes into contact with the furs in Jake’s shop finds that they want to do to themselves what they do to the furs. Since they’re making a coat you can imagine it’s not very pretty. Jake continues in his obsession to get the coat to Shana, but will the results be worth the price that he has to pay?
Pelts is horror master Dario Argento’s second contribution to the series. The first was the sexy and strange Jenifer (reminding me of a Tales from the Crypt comic). This tale definitely has the strange and features several scenes in the strip club. Not that it’s very sexy since the boorish Jake makes us feel dirty since we might see a little like him ogling the flesh on display. It’s adapted from the short story by F. Paul Wilson. The main character is not a very likeable fellow, in fact really somewhat repulsive.
He has a single goal in mind and it’s not one that Shana concurs with. She’s not even exactly interested in men at all sexually. The concept behind the story is basically be careful what you ask for – you might get it and the price may not really be worth paying. The people possessed by the furs have a tendency to want to nasty things to themselves so we get some pretty gruesome set pieces as they perform self mutilation to the accompaniment of Claudio Simonetti’s seemingly cheerful score.
The makeup effects are rather obvious in several instances. I wonder if the somewhat rushed nature of the show (I think the Masters are given ten days or so to shoot each episode if I recall correctly) or shooting them in close up made me able to see the seams a bit more. However, one portion involving a needle through the nose was quite effective the first time I saw it.
I need something sharp
It was a pretty clever digital effect and it sends chills down the spine, especially if the thought of a putting a needle through your nose doesn’t sound comfortable to you (though the needle through the lips is obviously CGI).
Pelts is the first DVD release of the second season of Masters of Horror (though it was not the first one aired on Showtime). As preference go, I liked Argento’s first contribution better. I also found this release less loaded with special features as the first season’s DVD releases (more on that later).
Pelts is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features are not as elaborate as the first set of releases. I hope this is not a sign of things to come. It might be because they already lavished Argento with the career retrospective type documentary already on Jenifer, but they’ve also did away with the usual separate on-set interviews (on this release anyway).
Now that I’m done complaining, the special features are worthy. It just feels light compared to the other releases, but let’s get to what is there. The first item is the 13 minute “Fleshing it Out: the Making of Pelts.” It interviews director Dario Argento, Meat Loaf, Link Baker, Ellen Ewusie, executive producer Mick Garris, director of photography Attila Szalay, actress Elise Lew (thankfully without her mouth sewn up), writer Matt Venne, production designer David Fischer, and makeup supervisor Howard Berger. Next is the 7 minute “All Sewn Up: Mastering the Effects Sequence.
It interviews Berger, Lew, and adds visual effects supervisor Lee Wilson. The feature has an audio commentary by writer Matt Venne. The rest of the special features include a photo gallery, original storyboards by John Lund, an Argento text bio, previews of other Anchor Bay DVDs, and the screenplay on DVD-ROM. It is disappointing that they didn’t interview John Saxon since he worked with Argento before in Tenebrae and is a genre vet.
Jake finally gets his way with Shana
Pelts is pretty good and gory, but I still liked Jenifer better. This round of releases feels a little light in the special features department, not that what’s there is not worth your attention though. Fans of Argento and the Masters of Horror will want to give it a look.
Masters of Horror – Pelts is now available for pre-order at Amazon for a Feb. 13th release. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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