History Recap / MastersOfHorrorS2E1TheDamnedThing

* AteHisGun: Involuntary variant - [[spoiler:Strauss is forced to eat his gun by Father Tulli]].
* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:Despite Kevin's HeroicSacrifice, The Damned Thing, rather cheaply, successfully finds and kills his family.]]

* BlownAcrossTheRoom: Kevin's shotgun sends [[spoiler:the woman in the basement and the journalist]] flying backwards after shooting them in the stomach. This doesn't happen when he shoots [[spoiler:Tulli]] however, apparently because he does it from the side.

** [[spoiler:Kevin's father]] is viciously eviscerated by the Damned Thing, and a teenage girl is cut in half by a car accident.

* {{Confessional}}: Unable to control the town, Strauss takes refuge in the confessional booth in church [[spoiler:where he is murdered by Tulli.]]
* CruelTwistEnding: [[spoiler:After the Damned Thing kills Kevin, his son and ex-wife flee in a car, but it runs out of gas and the Damned Thing kills them.]] There is no followup to this as it is the very last scene.

* DropTheHammer: One of the crazed residents commits suicide by bashing his head with a hammer while doing repairs.

* EnragedByIdiocy: [[spoiler:Tulli]] kills Strauss after he tells him that he tried (and failed) to win back his grilfriend with a comic of Nicky the Rat. He literally calls him an idiot afterwards.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Kevin]] struggles to not harm his family and sends them away before facing the Damned Thing alone and allowing it to kill him.

* PosthumousNarration: ZigZaggedTrope. [[spoiler:Kevin narrates the story using the past tense up to the point where he faces the Damned Thing and is killed, but doesn't narrate afterward. There is very little of the episode after this, however.]]

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: A very short one by the crazed Tulli to Strauss. "You tried to win back your girlfriend with a comic about a mouse? I'm not surprised she left you. You're an idiot." The second sentence doubles as a [[spoiler:PreMortemOneLiner, as he shoots Strauss with his own gun before saying the third.]]

* WorstAid: Kevin provides this twice. The first time, he comes across a girl in an overturned car. His radio is dead, so he pulls her out himself, revealing that she's sectioned at the waist and the car was likely the thing keeping her from bleeding out. The second time, a number of scared citizens seek refuge in his home. He leads them into his basement and locks them unde together, even though they are armed, have almost started a fight under his watch, and he knows the Damned Thing is pushing people to act violently against each other. Unsurprisingly, most of them kill each other not long after. [[spoiler:A SoleSurvivor begs to be let out, but Kevin has by now succumbed to the Thing himself. He keeps the door locked and shoots her through the door.]]

* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Kevin's parents moved to his hometown after their previous one was destroyed by the Damned Thing. [[spoiler:His son and ex-wife try to do it again but they fail.]]

* OminousObsidianOoze: When the Damned Thing does make itself visible, it is as a sentient, black-only substance. It appears first as a short ammount dripping from the roof and falling on the hand of its current target's child. The Thing itself was originally underground and unearthed by Kevin's grandfather while doing prospecting work, and the destruction of his hometown was blamed on fumes from an oil well fire.

* AdultFear: Both Kevin and his ex-wife fear for his son's safety, sometimes because they feel the urge to harm him themselves under the Damned Thing's influence.

* ProperlyParanoid: Kevin grew paranoid after seeing his parents die and is ever-improving his house's security.

%%* YouHaveToBelieveMe
%%* YourDaysAreNumbered

* SignificantBirthday: The episode begins with Kevin's father 40th birthday and ends with his own.

* OminousObsidianOoze: When the Damned Thing does make itself visible, it is as a sentient, black-only substance. It appears first as a short ammount dripping from the roof and falling on the hand of its current target's child.
%%* PoliceAreUseless

%%* RegionalRiff

%%* WarmPlaceWarmLighting
%%* WorstAid
%%* WorthlessTreasureTwist
%%* WritersCannotDoMath
%%* YouCantGoHomeAgain

* GiftedlyBad: Strauss, which only makes his excitement for his OriginalCharacter Nicky all the more cringy.

* InNameOnly: The only things in common with the short story are a person seeing another being gruesomely killed by an invisible force in the beginning. In the story, this is followed by an investigation that rules the case a cougar attack, and then by extracts of the victim's diary hinting that it is an unknown animal with cammouflage that makes it invisible to human eyes. It's been cited as a possible inspiration for ''Film/{{Predator}}''. The episode rather is an unofficial remake of ''Film/TheCrazies1973''.

* WarmPlaceWarmLighting
* WorstAid
* WorthlessTreasureTwist
* WritersCannotDoMath
* YouCantGoHomeAgain
* YouHaveToBelieveMe
* YourDaysAreNumbered

Directed by Creator/TobeHooper and based InNameOnly on a short story by Creator/AmbroseBierce. In 1981, a peaceful family man in a small Texan town went crazy on the night of his 40th birthday and killed his wife before he was killed himself by an invisible force. Twenty four years later, his traumatized son Kevin (Creator/SeanPatrickFlanery) is sheriff of the same town and nearing 40 himself when the same unknown force comes back to turn his friends and neighbors against each other.

* SuddenLackOfSignal
* TheUnreveal
* WarmPlaceWarmLighting

* SinisterMinister: In the beginning, Tulli is a nosy priest who creeps behind Kevin and keeps pressuring him to talk to him, using the fact that he is approaching the age when his grandfather and father died. Once the Damned Thing returns, he becomes as erratically homicidal as everyone else, and his speech is littered with CreepyCatholicism-sounding language.

Directed by Creator/TobeHooper and loosely based on a short story by Creator/AmbroseBierce. In 1981, a peaceful family man in a small Texan town went crazy on the night of his 40th birthday and killed his wife before he was killed himself by an invisible force. Twenty four years later, his traumatized son Kevin (Creator/SeanPatrickFlanery) is sheriff of the same town and nearing 40 himself when the same unknown force comes back to turn his fellow countrymen against each other.

** [[spoiler:Kevin's father]] is viciously gutted by the Damned Thing, and a teenage girl is cut in half by a car accident.

* HatePlague: The DamnedThing makes people homicidal before physically manifesting and attacking its main target.
* HereditaryCurse
* HeroicSacrifice
* AHouseDivided: Unsurprisingly, it doesn't end well.
* InNameOnly
* MyCarHatesMe
* NotHimself
* OminousObsidianOoze
* ProperlyParanoid
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech
* SettingUpdate
* TheSheriff
* SinisterMinister: Tulli, although he wasn't himself.

* AteHisGun: Involuntary variant - [[spoiler:Strauss is forced to eat his gun by Father Tully]].

* BodyHorror
* ChristianityIsCatholic: Father Tulli, played by Ted Raimi, seems to be the only priest in town despite it being an entirely Anglo-Saxon settlement in a notorious member of the American Bible Belt, where Protestantism is the rule.
* ClusterFBomb: ''Everyone'' after they get possessed.
* {{Confessional}}
* CruelTwistEnding
* DrivenToSuicide
* DropTheHammer: One of the crazed residents commits suicide this way.
* EldritchAbomination: [[TitleDrop The Damned Thing]].
* EnragedByIdiocy
* GhostTown
* GiftedlyBad
* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe
* HatePlague

* MirrorScare

* BlandNameProduct
* ButtMonkey
* BodyHorror: The MirrorScare.

* TheFifties
* TheEighties
* AmicableExes
* ApocalypseAnarchy
* AteHisGun

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 (Creator/SeanPatrickFlanery) 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.

* InTheBlood: Tulli suggests Kevin give a confession after reminding him that he is about to reach the age when his father and grandfather died.