One of the characters prepares to build a small fire in “The Sacrifice” the first episode of Fear Itself.
© NBC

Mania Grade: D
TV Series: Fear Itself
Episode: The Sacrifice
Starring: Jeffrey Pierce, Rachel Miner, Jesse Plemons, Mircea Monroe
Written By: Mick Garris
Directed By: Breck Eisner
Network: NBC

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TV Review: FEAR ITSELF: The Sacrifice

It’s been said here before just how admirable Mick Garris’ tenacity is. He loves the horror genre, he loves working with horror creators, and he’s convinced that a weekly horror anthology can work again. Fear Itself is his second go at it with Masters of Horror of course being the first. In true Garris fashion the series started off with a whimper rather than a bang. This episode – titled The Sacrifice – was adapted by Garris from a 2004 short story called The Lost Herd. This episode was promoted as being about sexy sirens that seduce a group of thugs that took a wrong turn running from the law. The truth is that the episode isn’t really much about that and those tuning in for that sort of thing are destined for disappointment. The fact is those who tune in at all are destined for disappointment though.

So yes, there are thugs running from the law and their car breaks down near an old isolated fort. Sure enough, inside the fort there is a bevy of attractive women with motivations not yet apparent to the men but these women are most definitely not sirens, at least not in the traditional sense. They are downtrodden and depressed but they do take the men in and offer help to one of them that’s wounded. Once the story does begin to reveal itself, it’s not the traditional siren story that the show’s marketing team promoted it as being but it is another kind of story that’s even more overdone and clichéd. These women are doing their part to protect the world from a greater evil. As long as they stay put in this place and feed that evil, it won’t escape into the world. The question is who will take their place when they get too old to do the job? None of them seem to be working on getting pregnant. There is one girl, played by Mircea Monroe, that teases at the potential of a traditional siren story and she actually has the best gag in the film centered around a bed laid out on the floor of a barn. The story could have at least had a bit more depth had she been trying to use one of these men to get her pregnant so there would be later generations to take the place of these sisters.

The story is completely predictable and the acting is mostly mediocre at best. The best performance in the episode comes from Rachel Miner, who also recently appeared in the Showtime series Californication. Her sort of monotone overly articulate delivery really worked for the character and the slight sign of hope that appears on her fact toward the end of the episode is well done. The dialogue delivery is probably more her personality than it is acting or an attempt to bring something to the character because she delivered lines in almost the same manner in Californication with the only difference being that she wasn’t as browbeaten in that series as she is here. The other actors and actress’ aren’t terrible; they just aren’t all that great either. The direction here is as basic as it can get offering nothing new or innovative to the road worn story making it all feel even more tired.

It is mind boggling why the marketing team responsible for Fear Itself would choose to air this episode first – they had three to choose from that are already in the can. It appears that this episode was picked because of the voluptuous Monroe, who wears the most dipping neckline and is in a few scenes that could be cut into ads to make the episode appear to be more sexually driven than it actually is. Why else would they have decided to start with this bottom of the barrel presentation? The characters lack any depth and the story comes off as bland and “paint by numbers” in the writing, directing, and acting. As previously mentioned, there’s one good gag in the episode and there are a couple of good special effects shots that save this episode from being a complete failure. Hopefully, it can only get better from here.