Vampires are without a doubt one of the most overdone, overrated, tired monsters in the world of horror cinema. There are far too many films that feature the creatures of the night to count at this point, and every low budget director who thinks he wants to make the next vampire classic need look no further than a pair of fangs purchased at Hot Topic and a few gallons of blood to try and make their masterpiece. It’s a little surprising to me that Masters of Horror would believe that trying to make an episode with a so-called twist was a good idea.

We also find though that the word “master” is very loosely used as The V Word is given to director Ernest Dickerson, a man who has a grand total of two horror films to his resume; Bones and Demon Knight, and I quite honestly would just barely consider either of these to be horror films. This episode finds two friends, Justin (Branden Nadon) and Kerry (Arjay Smith) paying a late night visit to the local mortuary where Justin’s brother works. Something isn’t quite right however, and the boys soon find that some of the corpses have been disturbed and before they know it, they stumble into the clutches of a vampire who tears Kerry’s throat out and Justine leaves him for dead. As we all know however, anyone who is “killed’ by a vampire is destined to come back to life as an undead beast as well, and Kerry returns to kill his friend. Now blood is on the menu, but Justin isn’t ready to take a full plunge into the life of the undead.

The V Word first begins as what seems to be no more than a promotional video for Doom III as it is showcased quite a bit. Great idea, because a game of that magnitude, one that has a high level of notoriety around it and has become the media whipping boy anytime a tragedy happens needs to a horror film to try and boost its sales. Much of the movie tries to work in some ties to video games, at least in the first part, and then it’s forgotten about temporarily until the ending. Mick Garris needs a wake up call as well since he was the screenwriter, and the reference to “Revenge of Doom” is just a miserable bit of dialog for a non-existent sequel. Besides, any gamer knows that designers usually aren’t creative enough to title a sequel something like that, and thirteen Final Fantasy titles that simply use a number at the end of them should be a testament to that.

After the video game name dropping and showcasing fades away, the V Word then decides that it wants to be a third rate rendition of The Lost Boys. The idea of vampires tearing their victims throats out isn’t bad, but then again, everyone wants to try and come up with some ingenious twist on the vampire mythos that really doesn’t do much to improve the credibility of any already tired and worn monster that has become about as frightening as a new puppy. Even the torn throat prosthetics aren’t anything highly original or overwhelming interesting, just a simple application that looks fairly similar to those that you can buy around Halloween.

The episode tries to toss in some angst with Justin having some issues with his father who soon becomes the victim of the vampires, but not to make him a blood sucker, but instead just to serve as a means to feed Justin. It’s rather pointless though, and just like any vampire entry, there needs to be a “master” that is behind the creation of terrors. This role falls into the coffin of Mr. Chaney (Michael Ironside), a former teacher who has rumors surrounding him about molesting his male students, but a pedophilic vampire really isn’t something that can help this enter into Masters of Horror. I really don’t think much of anything could.

The Masters of Horror series has been a collection of hits and misses; when the show is good, it’s really good, and when it’s not, the episodes are atrocious. While I haven’t seen all of the episodes yet, The V Word now has to be one of the worst episodes that I’ve seen, though I still have Takashi Miike’s Imprint to sit through, and that might be the deciding factor on the subject. The V Word is a very forgettable entry into the series that isn’t even worth the time to sit through, and I don’t think that it has much to do with the direction in this case so much as a rather lackluster, unimaginative script.

The second season of Masters of Horror hasn’t been quite as impressive with bonus materials in comparison to what was found with season one. There are a few extra features, though not too many. Both Mick Garris and Ernest Dickerson provide commentary on the feature. There is also a making of feature as well as a look at the visual effects from The V Word. There is a photo gallery and anyone with a DVD-ROM can access the original screenplay.

The V Word is an utter disappointment, but then again, when you’re dealing with vampires, you really can’t expect too much. If you thought that the slasher genre had taken a huge nose dive, it’s nothing compared to what has been seen with vampire films. This is just another of the atrocities that has been seen within the genre and I’m still holding out hope that at least for a few years, directors and writers might decide to simply leave these monsters alone for a while and let the true fear emerge once again.

-mike-