NBC's Setup
Fear Itself is the new NBC show that essentially copies Showtime’s “Masters of Horror”. Each week a supposed thriller or horror “master” will direct an episode of chilling, haunting thrills.
Right.
The Sacrifice is the premiere, and if it indicates the show’s direction, it is just another example of pathetic network TV and its restrictions compared to premium channels.
Regardless, The Sacrifice starts out with four guys in a car. We learn through vague dialogue that they are criminals, something is wrong with one of them, and they did... something.
The Ladies of the Manor
The car hits something (there are a lot of something(s) in this story) in the road so of course it stalls. The men trudge through the woods and come across an old fort. Suddenly, women appear on the scene. Turns out these are sisters who have never seen anything outside the walls of the fort. They offer food, shelter, and comfort. The injured guy is laid out on a bed, Chelsea (Rachel Miner) starts to sew up his now apparent bullet wound… and then starts to stitch his mouth shut.
Meanwhile, the brothers Lemmon (Jesse Plemmons) and Point (Jeff Pierce) are eating stew prepared by Tara the silent sister. The meat tastes strange and Point the older (and of course dominant brother) looks at it funny, while Lemmon tries to shed his loser status and flirt with Tara.
Meanwhile, Diego (the horn dog) is trapped in a hole after going too fast with the other sister Virginia (Mircea Monroe). Virginia uses terms like “sexy” and wears low cut shirts to use her female charms even though she has no concept of the outside world.
The Horror…
Point takes food to the injured guy, sees him with his mouth shut and… with a stake through the heart. In the same room lies an injured reverend, (Bill Baska) who is scared stiff of something growling in the corner. Point gets out and tries to save the reverend but the poor guy is dragged back in the room by a chain attached to his leg.
Then a vampire starts running around, Lemmon gets hung upside down, a lot of license plates hang from a ceiling, and the girls really like using an ax. Then Point pulls out automatic weapons from two huge duffel bags, the girls rationalize everything and bring up Romania, and then the survivors try to stop the vampire. When it’s supposed to be all over, the “revelation” means it is but it isn’t, and does not make a lot of sense anyways.
Fear…
Watching this program if the other episodes are like this. Why do these guys have to be criminals if there is no expansion on the point? What did they do to need two huge army sized duffel bags of automatic weapons? Would it not be more dangerous if they were just normal guys? Why does the younger brother always have to be the tag along? Why does every vampire in modern horror still come from Romania? How does a girl understand sex if she’s never experienced anything like it? Why are half of the shots so poorly lit you might not understand what you are watching? The only positive of the episode is the exterior of the fort, which is rustic and beautifully shot.
Directed by Breck Eisner (Michael’s son) from a short story by Del Howison, The Sacrifice falls flat. This does not mean Fear Itself will be a failure. Not all the Masters of Horror episodes have been good, let alone great; but there is a lot of work to do to make it better than The Sacrifice.
Actor and Character names referenced via IMDB
