“Haeckel’s Tale” makes me sad.  It really does.  I’m not crying or anything, but I’m a bit depressed.  Here is an episode with so much potential.  It’s a story that finds room for Mary Shelley, Terrence Fisher, and graphic, weird sex.  I mean, come on.  For a horror fan, this premise is a wet dream.  The director of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer?  The author of the frigging Books of Blood?  Adapted by the guy who dared to adapt The Stand?

Damn it.  I want to like this episode.  So much is working.

The atmosphere is just stellar.  McNaughton and crew have managed to almost perfectly capture the gothic mood of 60’s classics like Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula.  The sets are lovingly crafted so that they don’t look real at all.  Instead, they look lovingly crafted.  The Necropolis is that most standard of horror movie tropes – the cobweb-infested graveyard.  The trees are twisted and dying.  The graves are all stone coffins with cross markers.  It’s beautiful.

This attention to detail extends to the dress and manner of the actors.  They look like they genuinely inhabit the late 1800’s, and they speak that way, too.  At first, I was worried that late 1800’s meant throwing in the word “verily” every now and again.  But the language, and the earnest playing of the actors, made it work.  The world of “Haeckel’s Tale” is a thing of beauty.

But this story?  It feels confused, split into two parts.  We begin with a character named Ralston (Steve Bacic, in a thankless role).  His curiosity about bringing the dead to life begins the tale, as an old woman warns him by relating the story of Haeckel.  No points for guessing if Haeckel’s story ends on a down-note.

In the first half, we meet Ernst Haeckel (Derek Cecil).  Ernst is a man of science, convinced that the reanimation of life is possible by electrolysis, not God.  As per usual, his character is surrounded by city fathers who stroke their beards and cluck their tongues and wonder, “What’s to be done with this Ernst Haeckel?”  He even gets a visit from a body snatcher straight out of the underseen horror classic . . . The Body Snatcher.

In the second half, he learns that his sick father takes a turn for the worse.  Haeckel journeys across country to visit him.  A pit-stop at an old cottage, however, results in some truly bizarre imagery and a whole lot of sex.  And the entire first half gets thrown out the window, as McNaughton takes Barker’s lurid story to the limit.  This part of the tale feels more alive.  There’s a rich mix of surrealism and dark humor.  Why this part wasn’t expanded to fit the whole episode is beyond me.

That weird structure is also marred by a few confusing choices.  Consider the wraparound.  Once Haeckel’s tale has been told, the wraparound tale is a foregone conclusion, obvious to anyone who’s ever, I don’t know, read a story before.  And there’s a certain undead character who appears late in the film, who . . . well.  I can’t spoil it, but I will say that this type of character should never, ever, ever be in a horror movie again.  Never.  It just doesn’t work.*

McNaughton knows what he’s doing from a visual standpoint.  No problem there.  But Barker’s story feels like two different ones, joined at the hip.  “Haeckel’s Tale” is a confusing send-off to the first season of Masters of Horror.  It has dread.  It has style.  It has capable production values and a solid cast.  There are a few nice ideas.  Some gruesome gore.  But those elements never coalesced into a frightening experience.  Again, “Haeckel’s Tale” isn’t exactly bad.  It just isn’t good.  And what’s more depressing than mediocrity?

*: Highlight to view Spoilers:

I am referring, of course, to the zombie baby.  Note to horror directors everywhere: zombie babies don’t work.  They will never work.  They look froggy and helpless.  At least Peter Jackson had the good sense to stick his zombie baby in a blender and hit “puree.”

Checkout our review of Episode One: Don Coscarelli's  Incident On and Off a Mountain Road

Checkout our review of Episode Two: Stuart Gordon's H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch-House

Checkout our review of Episode Three: Tobe Hooper's Dance of the Dead

Checkout our review of Episode Four: Dario Argento's Jenifer

Checkout our review of Episode Five: Mick Garris's Chocolate

Checkout our review of Episode Six: Joe Dante's Homecoming

Checkout our review of Episode Seven: John Landis' Deer Woman

Checkout our review of Episode Eight: John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns

Checkout our review of Episode Nine: William Malone's Fair-Haried Child

Checkout our review of Episode Ten: Lucky McKee's Sick Girl

Checkout our review of Episode Eleven: Larry Cohen's Pick Me Up