++++++++++Landis: "Deer Woman"- The pictures are really simple but still interesting. The approach is entertaining and humorist in just the right amounts. You can see that here is a true professional at work. The style fits perfectly in the tradition of episode-movies, but it also takes it forward and works as an independent movie. The acting is good enough, the cutting, the "flow" and the script are tight and thought. The actors are unknown (to me at least), but undoubtedly because of good directing, interesting, and they do their bit of the work very well. This is the most humorous of these episodes this far. There is also a good amount of sweet eye-candy (in the form of a woman). Landis manages to fill his one hour-space with quite a lot of events, there is not a single boring moment. Again this shows how much you can include in such a relatively short time. Time flies when you watch this kind of entertainment, and it leaves you wanting more.
++++++++++McGee: "Sick Girl"- Never heard of this director. In the beginning this movie looks and feels like some "young adults" soap opera series. There is some well made computer effects/visuals (I mean the bugs). Again David Fischer's production design looks good, this time there is a lot of pastel colours being used. Music is quite terrible (also kind of "young adults"-poprock), but it fits to the context. The characters are repulsively dumb, I mean totally brainless. They are not very believable. The script is childish, I don't know what age the guy who wrote it is, and what he wanted to achieve, if anything. But also the directing and acting is really bad and incompetent. For sure it is meant to be campy, but it's campy in not at all funny or interesting way. There is a staged feeling also in the lighting and other visuals, which I don't quite understand, but I assume that it has something to do with the idea of keeping it campy. Maybe there's supposed to be some "humor" in the script also, but it don't make me laugh. And what's the most interesting thing: There is no horror, none, which makes it little hard to understand why this is included in the "Masters of Horror"-series in the first place. Useless fast-forward garbage. But there always has to be some flops in this kinda series.
++++++++++Cohen: "Pick Me Up"- I know Larry Cohen has done some interesting work, but I haven't seen any of them. Again, right from the beginning, this seems to be one of the better (actually most of them are in this category) movies in this great series. Eye candy (this time in form of Fairuza Balk, seen before in American History X) intelligent-enough script. Again you see that the director is not a first-timer and he knows his instrument perfectly. Again the story takes place somewhere in the "deepest" parts of North-America, this time in the middle of beautiful nature. Good acting and casting. Strange, interesting, and multi-dimensional (=living and real) characters. Inventive and odd plot. I like the liveliness and unpredictability of this movie, it really has it's own style. This director clearly has his own vision of movie making. Small things make this more creative horror than most of the horror you'll see: Not necessarily the plot, but the very subtle nuances in the directing and acting. It really takes some special skills to do something like this. The actor who is playing the truck driver is really good, his character is maybe the most important element in the succeeding of this work.
