Main cast: Imogene Coca (The Old Woman), Gregory Grove (Ray), and Gary Roberts (Clifford)
Director: Allen Coulter
Two brother, Ray and Clifford, break into a wealthy old woman’s house for some easy money. In the ensuing kerfuffle, she bites Ray’s hand, causing the man to kill her. Oops.
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It gets more entertaining when the wound on Ray’s hand soon morphs into the woman’s Face, and the “face” begins taunting him for his sins…
The Face initially plays out like a horror comedy, with the more diabolical Brother Ray offering plenty of actually not-half-bad puns and one-liners worthy of a Tales from the Crypt episode.
Indeed, the episode would be right at home in that show because it has a darker, more adult undertone that can be at odds with the generally more family-friendly vibe of Monsters.
I am only forcibly reminded that I am watching Monsters when, after the first reveal of the pretty well-done “face” for a show with a modest budget, the whole thing quickly becomes something more akin to a cartoon.
While Ray and Clifford have been pretty grown-up villains until that point, they—especially Ray—start putting on hammy facial expressions and yelling out their lines like they are in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
The “face” starts cackling in a way that will only scare kids while sending older viewers into laughter, and the whole thing culminates in a development that would have been terrifying if everything up to that point hadn’t felt, looked, and sounded like some farce instead of a proper fright fest.
Perhaps if the episode had been tonally consistent, I might have been more impressed. As it is, I am initially led to expect something else, only to get a more typical Monsters baby’s first scary show halfway and I am so disappointed as a result.
Still, all things considered, this episode is pretty solid for this show. The pacing is fine, and the acting is fine too for the most part, and the idea behind the episode is pretty twisted yet ingenious. It’s just the execution that is tad off.
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