4 out of 5

Director: John McNaughton

It’s not quite a four star episode, but as most of the MOH’s struggle to get above ‘meh,’ anything extra should be given notice, and John McNaughton’s tale, though it suffers from some diverting pacing in its middle, is a fun little entry, and, satisfyingly, tosses in bits of all the desired horror fall-backs – some gore, some nudity, some lust, some “don’t go in the woods,” and, what truly gives it that extra bump – some overkill.  Who to most credit for the accomplishment?  We have Mick Garris’s script, based on a Clive Barker work, directed by John McNaughton…  Certainly a lot of this rests on McNaughton, as the mood established early on – student / scientist Ernst Haeckel’s attempts to prove that science can resurrect the dead leading him to investigate a local necromancer’s claim of magic doing the same (setting aside a framing story) – is one of brooding, rich and dark colors, and a great foreboding feeling behind every questioning look Derek Cecil gives the camera.  As others mention, the general path the plot follows isn’t really surprising, and when Cecil gets diverted to go visit his sick father the pacing stumbles, trying to fill about a third of the runtime to get to the, er, climax, but that’s short enough space in an hour episode to be tolerable, and when things start piling up at the end. McNaughton, the script, whatever, deliver a successive roll of well… it could end here, but let’s add some more AND THENs onto the fire.  Which is cheesy overkill, but made me laugh in good ol’ horror fun.