History Series / MastersOfHorror

Directed by Creator/TobeHooper and based InNameOnly on a short story by Creator/RichardMatheson. Peggy (Jessica Lowndes) is a 17 year-old girl who lives with her overprotective mother Kate (Marylyn Norry) in a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] US TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. Her father died in WorldWarThree and her older sister Anna went missing some years after that. Shortly after meeting a teenage punk named Jak ([[Creator/JonathanTucker), Peggy ignores the advice of her mother and accompanies him to The Doom Room, a nightclub in the nearby town of Muskeet run by an eccentric manager known only as "the MC" (Creator/RobertEnglund), where the main attraction is the so-called ''[[TitleDrop Dance of the Dead]]''.

Directed by Mick Garris and based on his own short story. Jamie (Henry Thomas) works in a laboratory that develops flavors for a food company. One day, he begins to suffer a series of apparent hallucinations until he realizes that he's actually living the experiences of a woman in another city as if they were his own.

[[InCaseYouForgotWhoWroteIt Directed by]] Creator/JohnCarpenter. Kirby (Creator/NormanReedus) is the owner of a run-down cinema whose girlfriend Annie (Zara Taylor) recently committed suicide. In order to pay a debt he owns to Annie's hateful father Walter (Gary Hetherington), Kirby accepts the request of eccentric millionaire Bellinger (Udo Kier) to locate the only surviving copy of Hans Bakovic's ''La Fin Absolue du Monde'' (The Absolute End of the World) for him, a film ShroudedInMyth that is said to be the ultimate BrownNote. It's sort of a contemporary version of Robert W. Chambers' anthology ''Literature/TheKingInYellow''.

* BaldOfEvil: Dalibor is a bald SnuffFilm director. He demonstrates this by murdering someone in front of the protagonist.

* OnlyInItForTheMoney: Initially Kirby only takes the job offer to look for ''La Fin Absolue du Monde'' to pay off his enormous debts. Subverted later on as he becomes increasingly obsessed with the film itself due to its corrupting influence. This is lampshaded by Bakovic's widow who notes that the money is just an excuse.

Directed by Creator/LarryCohen and based on a short story by David J. Schow. A bus containing a small number of passengers breaks down in the middle of nowhere. They are soon visited by a trucker, Wheeler (Michael Moriarty) and a hitchhiker, Walker (Warren Kole). Both of them are [[SerialKiller serial killers]]. When the passengers are reduced to only one left, Stacia (Creator/FairuzaBalk), the hunt also becomes a feud between the two.

Directed by [[Film/HenryPortraitOfASerialKiller John McNaughton]] and based on a short story by Creator/CliveBarker. At the end of the 19th century, a man who has just lost his wife comes to the house of Miss Carnation, the Necromancer (Micki Maunsell) and begs her to bring his love BackFromTheDead. She hesitates, but when he insists she proposes to revive her if he still wants her to do so after he hears the tale of medical student Ernst Haeckel (Derek Cecil), that happened 50 years before.

Directed by Creator/TobeHooper and based on a short story by Creator/AmbroseBierce. In 1981, a peaceful family man in a small Texas town went crazy the night of his 40th birthday and killed his wife before being killed himself by an invisible force. Twenty four years later, his still traumatized son Kevin ([[Series/YoungIndianaJones Sean Patrick Flannery]]) is sheriff of the same town and nearing 40 himself when the same unknown force seems to appear again and turn his fellow countrymen against each other.

Directed by Creator/JohnLandis. On the surface, Harold (George Wendt) is a friendly man that lives alone in a quiet Midwestern neighborhood. But underneath, he's a crazed SerialKiller obsessed with forming the perfect "family" and he has set his eyes on the new young couple, the Fullers (Meredith Monroe and Matt Kesslar) that have moved across the street.

Directed by Stuart Gordon and based on a short story by Creator/EdgarAllanPoe. Set in Philadelphia around 1840, Edgar Allan Poe (Jeffrey Combs) is going through a bad case of WritersBlock as he begins to hit the bottle more than usual and his young wife Virginia (Elyse Levesque) contracts tuberculosis. To make things worse, their pet black cat Pluto begins to act a lot [[CatsAreMean meaner than usual]].

%%* BiTheWay: Shanna.

Directed by Creator/TobeHooper and based InNameOnly on a short story by Creator/RichardMatheson. Peggy (Jessica Lowndes) is a 17 year-old girl who lives with her overprotective mother Kate (Marylyn Norry) in a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] US TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. Her father died in WorldWarThree and her older sister Anna went missing some years after that. Shortly after meeting a teenage punk named Jak ([[Film/TheRuins Jonathan Tucker]]), Peggy ignores the advice of her mother and accompanies him to The Doom Room, a nightclub in the nearby town of Muskeet run by an eccentric manager known only as "the MC" (Creator/RobertEnglund), where the main attraction is the so-called ''[[TitleDrop Dance of the Dead]]''.

[[InCaseYouForgotWhoWroteIt Directed by]] Creator/JohnCarpenter. Kirby (Norman Reedus) is the owner of a run-down cinema whose girlfriend Annie (Zara Taylor) recently committed suicide. In order to pay a debt he owns to Annie's hateful father Walter (Gary Hetherington), Kirby accepts the request of eccentric millionaire Bellinger (Udo Kier) to locate the only surviving copy of Hans Bakovic's ''La Fin Absolue du Monde'' (The Absolute End of the World) for him, a film ShroudedInMyth that is said to be the ultimate BrownNote. It's sort of a contemporary version of Robert W. Chambers' anthology ''Literature/TheKingInYellow''.

* AllGaysArePedophiles: [[Creator/AngelaBettis Ida]]'s landlady discovers she's gay, and accuses her of eying up her ten year old granddaughter. Ida is understandably offended.

* AllGaysArePedophiles: [[Creator/AngelaBettis Ida]]'s landlady discovers she's gay, and accuses her of eying up her ten year old daughter. Ida is understandably offended.

* BodyHorror: [[spoiler: After being infected by the parasitic beetle, at one point, Ida transforms into a grotesque bug-woman. It's in this state that she kills the landlady.]]

* EvilAlbino: Moonface is completely pale.

* ThisIsThePartWhere: Walker is a pop-cultured serial killer. When he chases down one of his victims through the woods, he notes that she must know how this scenario ends if she's seen ''Franchise/TheTexasChainsawMassacre'' -- both versions.

* DomesticAbuser: Bruce becomes an emotional abuser towards Ellen as their marriage disintegrates. [[spoiler:Then, after she leaves him, he resorts to physical abuse, including rape.]]

* DomesticAbuser: The disfigured prostitute's late father was cruel and violent and constantly beat his wife [[spoiler:because they were both cast out for being incestuous siblings.]]

Directed by [[TheRing Norio Tsuruta]] and based on a short story by [[Film/DarkWater Koji Suzuki]]. Jack Miller (Daniel Gillies) is an American lawyer in Tokyo who is deathly afraid of water and has recurrent nightmares about the drowning death of his brother Sean when they were children. He's also having an affair with Yuri Saito (Yoshino Kimura), the wife of his colleague Eiji (Ryo Ishibashi). When Eiji invites Jack to a cruise on his yacht, he finds soon that Eiji already knows about the affair, but that's not the biggest of his and Yuri's problems.

* MessyMaggots: In the otherwise psychological horror-themed episode, the main character's wife appears halfway through the episode. At the end, the cops burst into his house when he goes fully mad, finding [[spoiler:her rotting, maggot-eaten corpse in the bedroom.]]

* MistakenForGay: In a total break with his usual character, Larry acts ''too'' friendly to one new employee that he sees as a ReplacementGoldfish for his son. The employee is creeped and resigns the next day.

* PresidentEvil: George Washington became a [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalistic]] madman after he was forced to eat some of his men during a harsh winter. He started regularly killing and eating people (including several members of his own administration), [[ChildEater ate children]] and made household items out of their bones and skin, and was apparently intent on founding the United States as a "cannibal republic". A reporter claims that Washington's monstrousness was covered up by his followers.

* {{Gorn}}: Loads of it. Takashi Miike (who else?) had so much in his episode that it was banned from broadcast.

* PlayingWithATrope: What is of much interest to us Tropers is how the series play with standard HorrorTropes. Take "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road"; at the beginning, it looks like a typical hapless-female-chased-by-a-psycho. Then it turns out she is not that hapless, being a wife of a CrazySurvivalist. And so on.

** Played straight with the Young Woman, who isn't able to defend herself and becomes easy prey for the psycho.
* DomesticAbuser: Bruce becomes an emotional abuser towards Ellen as their marriage disintegrates, [[spoiler:then, after she leaves him, he resorts to physical abuse, including rape.]]

* SerialKiller: Moonface lives on a remote mountain top where he indulges in serial murder. He attacks passerbys on the lonely nearby road (mostly women) to take them to his cabin where he cuts out their eyes and decorates their corpses around the place.

* DiabolusExMachina: At the end, [[spoiler:Walter is killed by Brown Jenkins while interned in a mental asylum]].

* KarmaHoudini: Brown Jenkin

* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler:Just as Walter kills the witch and saves little Danny, Brown Jenkins comes out of nowhere and kills the baby]].

Directed by Creator/TobeHooper and based InNameOnly on a short story by Creator/RichardMatheson. Peggy (Jessica Lowndes) is a 17 year-old girl who lives with her overprotective mother Kate (Marylyn Norry) in a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] US TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. Her father died in WorldWarThree and her older sister Anna went missing some years after that. Shortly after meeting a teenage punk named Jak ([[Film/TheRuins Jonathan Tucker]]), Peggy ignores the advice of her mother and accompanies him to The Doom Room, a nightclub in the nearby town of Muskeet run by an eccentric manager known only as "the MC" (Creator/RobertEnglund), where the main attraction is the so called ''[[TitleDrop Dance of the Dead]]''.

* FanDisservice: Jenifer is an ambiguously-human creature who has the body of a gorgeous woman and the face of an inhuman monster. She also eats people, including children. Several sex scenes are featured with her and the man she enchants that deliberately invoke this trope.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Depending on one's interpretation, Jenifer could either be a Siren or some kind of demonic temptress who lures men to their doom, or she could just be a severely disfigured and ''severely'' disturbed young woman. In particular, her ability to repeatedly make men lust and obsess over her (oftentimes to the point of insanity) despite her monstrous face is something that can be interpreted in quite a few different ways. Shredding people to pieces with her bare hands (or teeth), even the armed man who was hired to catch her seems to be more supernatural than [[FavorsForTheSexy manipulating men with sex]].

* GhostlyGoals: The undead soldiers only drop dead after being allowed to vote. They come back to life when the government decides to not consider their votes as valid.

* TheReveal: [[spoiler: Philip didn't die in the war. He was killed at home by the infant David, who was playing with his gun.]]

* ArtifactOfDeath: Pretty much anyone involved in the production of ''La Fin Absolue du Monde'' killed themselves and each other because of it, as do people who go after it.

* BaldOfEvil: Dalibor is a bald snuff film director. He demonstrates this by murdering someone in front of the protagonist.

* LipstickLesbian: Both Misty and Ida.

* StrawmanPolitical: The landlady.

* BiTheWay: Shanna.

* FurAndLoathing: Complete with SpaceWhaleAesop.

* HunterTrapper: John Saxon's character, Jeb Jameson.
* LonersAreFreaks: Mrs. Mayter.

* MsFanservice: Shanna.

* {{Youkai}}: The raccoons.

* InterspeciesRomance: Valerie and The Beast.

* MirrorScare: Valerie's first scene.

* {{Bambification}}: Averted.

* DeathBySex: The Deer Woman's MO.

* AmoralAttorney: Ira.
* BandageMummy: Abbey after the accident.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: [[spoiler: Cliff.]]

* EyesAreUnbreakable: Averted.

* ManOnFire: Abbey, Ira.
* MedicalHorror: [[FlayingAlive Trish's death.]]
* TheMistress: Trish.
* NightmareFace: Abbey after the accident.
* ObnoxiousInLaws: Abbey's mother.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: Ira, [[spoiler: Cliff]].

* StrappedToAnOperatingTable: Trish.

* WomanScorned: From the grave!

* TheAlcoholic: Poe.
* AllJustADream

* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Virginia, the cat]].

* JerkAss: Poe.
* KindheartedCatLover: Virginia.

* HiddenInPlainSight: Cliff is carrying [[spoiler: Trish's dismembered corpse]] in a bag on top of his car when some pieces fall off. He stops to pick them and a police car immediately appears only [[CrowningMomentOfFunny for the driver to scream at him to get out of the way and disappears as quickly]].

* AllMenArePerverts: The plague explicitly switches the men's sexual urges to violent ones. The only way for men to resist it is by different types of castration (chemical and ''actual'', to be specific). Once all the women are dead they turn their attention to the younger boys with a man shrugging off the fact that he murdered his teenage son.

%%* BackFromTheDead: Buster is back... [[TheUnreveal somehow]]. His desire for revenge likely plays into it.

* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler: Buster is defeated by making a [[ItMakesSenseInContext voodoo ice cream]] of him.]]

%%* DepravedBisexual: Virgil.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler:Layne defeats Buster by crafting an ice cream in his likeness and giving it to his child to eat.]]

%%* ImMelting: Type A on the victims and [[spoiler: Buster.]]

* AdaptationalHeroism: [[spoiler:A mild example, but in the original story, Harkinson is part of a Redcoat-styled group who are implied to be a likewise shady (but not cannibalistic) organization that does unspeakable things to [[PayEvilUntoEvil The Washingtonians]]. Here, he's a regular educator who summons a SWAT team to take them down.]]

%%* BackFromTheDead: Buster is back... [[TheUnreveal somehow]].

* AdaptationalHeroism: [[spoiler:A mild example, but in the original story, Harkinson is part of a Redcoat-styled group who are implied to be a likewise shady (but not cannibalistic) group that do unspeakable things to [[PayEvilUntoEvil The Washingtonians]]. Here, he's a regular educator who summons a SWAT team to take them down.]]

* AdaptationalHeroism: [[spoiler:A mild example, but in the original story, Harkinson is part of a Redcoat-styled group who are implied to do unspeakable things to The Washingtonians. Here, he simply brings in a SWAT team to take them down.]]

* NeutralFemale: Valerie never attempts to free herself, and just stares at Rob and The Beast during the final battle. [[spoiler:Though it doesn't stop her from avenging herself against her creator.]]

* AncientConspiracy: Parodied.

* RockBeatsLaser: Averted.

* AllWomenAreLustful: Both Valerie and Patricia. Valerie seduces pretty much anyone she sees, while Patricia talks very openly about her sexual life.

* TheDulcineaEffect: Rob is rather drawn to Valerie, the woman who begs him to save her from a monster, even though he knows nothing about her. [[spoiler:This is later explained to be because they're both fictional characters who were written that way. Valerie specifically has no personality attributes beyond her status as a damsel in distress because she's defined solely by her relation to Rob.]]

* TheHero: Rob.

* NeutralFemale: Valerie never attempts to free herself, and just stares at Rob and The Beast during the final battle.

* StrawmanPolitical: Dwayne.

* NoAntagonist: There's no villain in this episode; the conflict revolves entirely around the main character's acute sense of hearing becoming [[BlessedWithSuck increasingly unbearable]].

* SinisterScrapingSound: After a while, literally everything.

* TheBait: [[spoiler: Celia.]]

* VillainProtagonist: Harold.