"Fear Itself" Skin and Bones (2008)

And the good news is that Doug Jones, probably one of the greatest gifts to modern horror and fantasy since Don Coscarelli 'discovered' Angus Scrimm, gets showcased here. Not since Andy Serkis as Gollum has an actor been so good at playing characters who completely obscure his identity. If he's not at all familiar to you, hopefully you saw Guillermo Del Toro's mind-blowing PAN'S LABYRINTH, or the considerably less wonderful FANTASTIC FOUR sequel. The guy who played both the menacing "Faun" and the even scarier "Pale Man" in PAN'S, and the Silver Surfer? That was Doug. And with more of his real face and body showing than usual, he still manages to be creepy as hell in this FEAR ITSELF episode.

The other "good" news is that the script is penned by Scott Swan and Drew McWeeny, the writers behind the two John Carpenter episodes featured in MASTERS OF HORROR, "Cigarette Burns", which was one of that series' gorier entries, and "Pro-Life", which fell pretty short of the mark of greatness.

Unfortunately, "Skin and Bones" follows suit more with the latter than the former. Anybody see RAVENOUS? Well, this is more like RAVENOUS-LITE...none of the taste and half of the walking menu entrées in this one. As the stereotypical wise Native American shaman, Gordon Tootoosis probably gives the second best performance of the cast, with Molly Hagan coming in a close third as she gets the best line at the end: "Get...your...hands...off...of...MY...KIDS!" (It won't replace Ripley's "Get away from her, you BITCH!", but at least it's a good effort.)

But this is pretty much Doug's baby, and director Larry Fessenden wisely just points the camera at him and lets him go. It's just too bad the script doesn't nearly measure up to Doug's uniquely creepy talents. Here's hoping Guillermo has him back for his next film. Now THERE'S a man who knows how to put Doug's talents to good use.