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"Grave Encounters" was a pleasant surprise. The premise is hardly innovative, nor is the found-footage format, and the trailers made it seem bland at best, but I found it, contrary to all expectations, holding my attention from start to finish. The setup is simple. A ghost-hunting reality show (clearly Ghost Adventures with the serial numbers filed off -- from its opening narration to its lead investigator, Lance Preston, who's really pretty good at channeling Zak Bagans) conducts an investigation of a supposedly haunted insane asylum. The crew find themselves trapped inside, besieged by ghosts, hallucinations, shifting corridors and distorted time. It's not a great film, but it works. Starts off slow, a nice sense of buildup, and then, in a refreshing change of pace from most found-footage movies, things actually happen. The second half of the film picks up nicely, the manner in which the ghosts are depicted is legitimately scary, and the sense of helplessness as the characters descend into insanity and the asylum becomes increasingly distorted and Silent Hill-ish is solidly executed, even if none of these people are particularly likable. A good horror film for a lazy afternoon -- not amazing, but nor is it a waste of time.

I question William Malone's status as a "master" of horror, but that goes for the majority of the directors Mick Garris has assembled to helm the series. "The Fair-Haired Child" is a middle-of-the-road episode with a lot of potential that's largely wasted. The music hall setting is atmospheric but underused. The monster is unsettling and well-designed, but we don't see enough of it. It's been a while since we've seen Lori Petty, who's starting to show her age, and she's not given much to work with here; it seems odd to give an actress primarily known for her kinetic goofiness such a stiff and humorless character. "The Fair-Haired Child" is one of those episodes that could have been better as a feature-length film. It certainly would have benefited from a less irritating protagonist; the kidnapped girl is unbearably shrill and seems to get dumber as the episode progresses. There were a few mildly frightening sequences here, and some skillful visual direction from time to time, but I can't justify a rating higher than a 6. It's not bad, but it's far from masterful.

Norman Reedus (of "Blade 2" and the bafflingly overrated "Boondock Saints") plays an amoral theatre owner and finder of rare film prints, hired by a mysterious collector (the ubiquitous Udo Kier) to recover a particularly elusive film, "Le Fin Absolue du Monde," whose single screening engendered a sudden and unspeakably brutal homicidal mania in its audience. If this sounds familiar to fans of the genre, it should; "Cigarette Burns" is essentially a splicing of three films, "8MM," "The Ninth Gate," and Carpenter's own "In the Mouth of Madness," which was perhaps the last decent film he made prior to this first entry in Showtime's "Masters of Horror." It's also entertaining in its own right, with more dialogue and mystery than one would expect of Carpenter and a few sly and gory jabs at the pretentious extremes independent filmmakers are often willing to descend in order to create "art." If "In the Mouth of Madness" was a direct tribute to Lovecraft, "Cigarette Burns" is a fine take on the modern weird tale. In the 1920's and 30's, it was often the printed word that drove hapless protagonists mad; in the 21st century, film is the new Necronomicon. As such, I felt this might have been a stronger piece if it were left entirely up to our imaginations what horror "Le Fin Absolue du Monde" showed its unfortunate viewers. The unknown and the unseen are far more frightening than a "Ring"-like sequence of apparently random art-house brutality. Otherwise this is a strong entry, perhaps the best season one has to offer.