Further evidence that Gordon has lost his shit (although he's more of a "master" than Coscarelli). The protag has to be the stupidest theoretical physics student in history, as he doesn't know that astrology is total bullshit (as was known even to the ancient Greeks), and he never, ever thinks of claiming the James Randi Educational Foundation million dollar prize. Also, Gordon and Paoli should get a spanking for stealing one of the most famous scenes in _The Shining_. Why, you fuckheads? WHY?

Fails at telling original story. The protagonist is too stupid to sympathize with. I rank this high because I assume it's a comedy--the giant talking rat was lolworthy.

The horror in the source material comes from the vocabulary, the anglophilic prose is so uncompromising and impenetrable it becomes a sort of other antagonist. A good analogy would be the camera in classic survival horror games. Fixed, predatory and unmoving, depriving you the basic human connection one needs with a protagonist. But when you just make a literal translation of the prose into film, you get some whimsical BS about a talking rat and astrology. Lovecraft, as is, is unfilmable.

Why is this series not better than it is? It has so much potential, but I haven't seen a single one that impressed me. As a fan of the horror genre and of many of these directors (including Stuart Gordon), this show is quite disappointing to me.

This was a comedy, right? Because that 2-minute long "can't control my witch-possessed knife-wielding right hand...must pull it back with my fully-controllable left hand" scene was GOLD.

This movie starts ok(I don't actually expect too much anymore) but then turns out ridiculous most of the time. Either you make a comedy horror film that doesn't take itself too seriously or you actually make a really scary movie. A rat with a human face just won't work in the latter (and a daft looking human face to top it off!). Or it's an attempt not to take it too seriously and that attempt has failed. Either way, I quite enjoyed the ending.

Awful, even for a made-for-TV film. After seeing only two episodes of 'Masters of Horror' I can't stand it anymore. Why have I watched this, lord?

Pretty decent MoH episode, it reminded me a lot of Suspiria.

Forgettable.

Stuart Gordon is an awesome director and this is a funny and sometimes scary short.

It's really hard for me to take any movie seriously that takes a talking rat with a human face seriously. I also really dislike the fact the sub-60 min film had about 3 false endings. Honestly, this series at least has its moments. This episode had none of them.

dug the ending, but there isn't enough going on in this movie to make it. it is actually true to lovecraft's style, although lovecraft's style is definately not good subject matter "as is" it requires a lot of work to be anything other than just weird, and this movie is definately weird.

I'm giving it extra marks for the scary rat thing.

Pretty much a failure, but I can give some points for effort. You just can't tackle Lovecraft on an hour-long cable series episode format unless you are really skilled or really lucky.