The Cutprice Guignol

Hello, friends, fans, and various freaks! It’s October, which means I have moved from “having no real reason to talk about horror all the time but doing it anyway” into “having some reason to talk about horror and doing it all the time whether you bloody well like it or not”. A couple of years ago, I put out an article about great standalone horror episodes of TV, and, since a while has passed since the first time I looked into this little niche, I figured it was time to take another look at some shortform TV spookery to squidge in to your Halloween viewing season. Let’s get into it!

A Stranger – The Twilight Zone

Jordan Peele’s 2019 reboot of The Twilight Zone was relatively patchy, but there was some real excellence buried in there – and none more excellent than A Stranger. Starring the eternally-fantastic Steven Yeun as the titular stranger, who arrives at a party held in a remote Alaskan police station on Christmas Eve, the episode is a simmering slow burn populated by brilliant performances (including my beloved Patrick Gallagher) and superb direction from Ana Lily Amirpour. The remote location adds to the slow build of tension as the Traveler’s presence and purpose is slowly unravelled over the course of the episode, and it takes its time to pick apart the small town conflicts and paranoia that’s been bubbling under the surface for far longer than just a single festive season. Amirpour brings a sensational atmosphere to this masterful little short story, the standout of Peele’s run on the legendary show.

The Dummy – Beasts

I covered Nigel Kneale’s Beasts earlier this year, a criminally underrated entry into the British horror canon from one of the defining masters of it on TV. And, of the short run, the episode that stood out to me the most was The Dummy, which follows the downward spiral of a horror movie monster actor as he navigates an identity crisis from behind a rubber mask. It’s got a distinctly modern feel to it, despite the fact it first hit screens more than fifty years ago, and the exploration of the meaning and power we lend to costume and masking as told through the lens of goofy horror monsters. It’s got a sharp sense of humour and is beautifully-acted, and feels as much like a little snapshot into the horror industry of the seventies as it does a more existential take on what it means to perform behind a mask, both professionally and personally. Oh, and that Dummy of the title? I need a film series about him yesterday.

Lab Rats – Bloodride

The Norwegian anthology Bloodride came and went without much fanfare in 2020, but if you’re a sucker of closed-location horror stories, the episode Lab Rats is exactly what you’re looking for. A pharma industry powerhouse, Edmund, invites some of his nearest and dearest to a dinner party after discovering that one of them has made of with an invaluable prototype product, and inflicts some creative psychological torture on them to shake out the answer. It’s got the fun structure of a whodunnit, with Stig R Amdam chewing up the scenery as the host-with-the-most (if by the most you mean “methods of mild mental terrorism”). The mystery unravels through this gleefully mean lens, and the black sense of humour that defines much of the show’s tone is on full display here. It’s got a sniff of the classic Twilight Zone about it, with the focus on human horrors and twisted science-forward stories, and that is the best compliment I can give it.

With all that said – let’s hear about some of your favourite standalone horror episodes below! Don’t forget to check out my last article on this topic, and some of my coverage of other anthology horror (good and bad).  If you’d like to support my blog, please consider supporting me by buying my books or dropping me a tip via my Support page.