Fear Itself Episode 1: The Sacrifice

Fear Itself Episode 1: The Sacrifice

"At least it was better than I expected," I thought to myself at the end of the episode. Fear Itself is the younger sister to Showtime's Masters of Horrors series, except on network television. I've never actually seen episodes of Masters of Horror, but I've heard that they were pretty good. Yet that show had more on its side than Fear Itself. For one thing, it wasn't on regular cable, allowing for all of the strong language and violence that the genre calls for. For another reason, Masters of Horror called attention to itself because it wasn't on regular cable.

Anyway, this first episode in the series is titled "The Sacrifice," and was written by Mick Garris, the creator of the series. In it, four guys out in the wilderness, on the lamb from something, decide to hide out in an old house that they stumble upon after their car craps out on them. The guys find a few old-fashioned gals living there, who take them in and let them rest. However, the three girls (Chelsea [Rachel Miner], Virginia [Mircea Monroe], and Tara [Michelle Molineaux]) are hiding something in their house. Something big and menacing, and pretty growly. Some of the girls seduce the boys Diego (Stephen Martines) and Lemmon (Jesse Plemmons) into becoming a feast for the creature, which very predictably turns out to be a vampire. But Point (Jeffrey Pierce) has no aplomb about getting into a fight with a 7 foot creature, especially with his impressive automatic rifle that he pulls out of nowhere. In the end, Point and Chelsea end up burning everything to the ground, but not before the vampire gets its last bite in on Point. We are left with a cliffhanger - although not challenging, we have the choice of entertaining ourselves with Point's demise.


The thing that struck me about Fear Itself was that it had an hour to tell a fairly simple story, yet it failed to give any significant details as to what the hell the backstory of the protagonists were. The audience is thrown into their predicament of getting out of their situation without getting caught by the cops, which is acceptable. And they're accepting of the fact that one of the guys was wounded in action. But it would have been a little pleasing to know why they were doing this in the first place; then, their decision to leave the highway on foot in the freezing cold would have more urgency.

Also, there are some puzzling encounters with the chicas of the house that had me confused. Were some of the girls trying to help the vampire? Did they just want to have some fun with the boys? Why was a reverend living in their house? Why did Point have to get bitten, he was so dreamy!? Okay, so not that last question, but all the others had me really confused, and nothing was cleared up.

I was very surprised, however, to see that Lemmon did not become our main protagonist. As the weakest character in the show, it would be normal to have him become the sole survivor, the one that saves everyone. However, no character really changes, since right from the beginning Point is the one in charge, and he stays that way in the end. And in reality, that makes sense, so I applaud Garris on his wavering from the norm.


But in the end, one must look at this episode as a mediocre vampire story. It follows most established rules of vampire lore to a T, never straying from a straightforward plot and still managing to confuse the viewer. And compared to most other vampire movies, the scares and the gore in "The Sacrifice" are lacking.

"The Sacrifice" ends where it started - in obscurity. There's no real beginning and no real end, which could have created an interesting and imaginative finale. But there's only one place that the viewer can think of for Point's future, and that is buried, mimicing this episode's inevitable collapse under the weight of far better vampire television and film.