Older fans of the genre will, I'm sure, be perfectly familiar with Mick Garriss' Showtime anthology series that aired in 2005-06. The story goes that the project emerged from regular dinners hosted by Mick in LA that were attended by the greatest living horror directors and writers: Carpenter, Dante, Landis, Argento, Hooper, Gordon, del Toro et al.
The episodes themselves, each an hour long, were made on a shoestring but represented the passion projects of horror luminaries. Season 1 kicks off with Don Coscarelli's "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road," which is as good as its bigger-budget, full-length, mid-00's, survival horror contemporaries, and the season concludes with Takashi Miike's what-the-fucky "Imprint". In between are highlights from John Carpenter ("Cigarette Burns" with Norman Reedus) and Dario Argento ("Jenifer"). Season 2 slows a touch in MoH's wildly experimental tone, but no one should miss Jeffrey Combs as Edgar Allan Poe in Stuart Gordon's "The Black Cat".
The two seasons (26 episodes total) are worth watching all the way through. The show serves as a primer on the founding fathers of this new golden age of horror. For younger fans who are reluctant to wade into the genre-defining films of the 70s and 80s, most of the same creative juices are a flowing in these tight, one-hour love notes to horror at large. Mick, if you're out there, you've made some stinkers. That said, because of projects like MoH, I'll concede that you are the god-emperor of horror fans. Give Masters of Horror a go.
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