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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 7, No. 9 |
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AMERICAN GOTHIC |
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Creepy goings-on down
among the magnolias
By RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
Sometimes a TV show is just way ahead of the public and nobody develops a taste for it until it's too late and the network has gone and dumped it in the ashcan.
Case in point: CBS' "American Gothic,"
which arrived on Sept. 22, 1995, and was dead and buried by July
11, 1996. Not enough folks were watching and that was that.
But some of us who knew what a nifty little horror show CBS had
going on Friday nights at 10 have been groaning ever since the
ax fell. CBS tried the one-hour spook show on three different
Wednesday night time slots, too, but nothing worked. When "Gothic"
was dumped, it still had four episodes ready that nobody ever
saw.
Until now, that is. Late last year Universal home video came out with a boxed DVD set containing the complete run of "American Gothic," including an extended version of the pilot, the four "lost" episodes and 15 scenes that were either trimmed or deleted by the network.
I've been wallowing in the show ever since my copy of the boxed set arrived in the mail. (I ordered it way in advance so I could get it right away.) It is not just as good as it ever was; it's way better. The high quality of the DVD visuals reminds me that I saw many of the original episodes on cheap network video tape dubs, so I could write reviews of them before they aired. Production quality, music, effects--they're all top drawer.
I remember how puzzled I was when I first learned "American Gothic" was created by Shaun Cassidy. Shaun Cassidy? The bubble gum pop star from the 1970s? David Cassidy's little brother? Though I'd always liked Shaun since I first met him in 1977 on the set of ABC's "The Hardy Boys Mysteries," I just thought he was a polite young actor. He was modest, articulate and a much nicer guy than his jerky co-star Parker Stevenson. But Shaun Cassidy a writer? Hard to believe.
Well, I was happy to discover he was not only a writer, but a darned good writer. He loved horror stuff and did a fine job at creating some of his own. He's still at it, by the way, as the creative talent behind both ABC's "Invasion" series and The WB's "Supernatural."
For "American Gothic," he teamed up with a horror specialist, producer Sam Raimi, the producer-director who brought us the "Evil Dead" movies and both "Spider Man" and "Spider Man 2." His star was Gary Cole, always an interesting actor. Cole has played many heroes, as he did in NBC's "Night Caller" series, but he's best as an evil character, like the surgeon-murderer in NBC's miniseries "Fatal Vision."
What's the show all about? Figuring it out is part of the fun. Cole plays Lucas Buck, the sheriff in a little town called Trinity in South Carolina, a place where almost nothing seems to function normally. There's a cloak of mystery over the people who lived in one tragedy-laden old house in the country. When we first meet the family, the drunken father is threatening his mentally-disturbed teenaged daughter who just sits there on a chair, rocking back and forth and saying, "Someone's at the door! Someone's at the door." Her little brother, Caleb (Lucas Black), a weird little guy who looks permanently frightened, wants to get her out of the house before something bad happens. The father fnially comes after them both, prepared to bash their brains out.
Well, something REAL bad happens, all right. Caleb goes running through the woods to get help from a neighbor and bumps into Sheriff Buck, who promises to take care of the situation right away. He does, all right--and when you see what he does, you'll be wondering: "Wait a minute--This guy is the freakin' law around here? What kind of town is this after all?"
Is Sheriff Buck really Satan? Or maybe a loose demon of some kind, who missed the turnoff to Eerie, Indiana? And why is he after Caleb? Does he eat little boys--or, worse yet, is he Caleb's real father? Is he the one who threw Caleb's mom out a window to her death? And, finally, has Stephen King been working under the name Shaun Cassidy lately?
I'm not telling what I know, which probably wouldn't satisfy you anyway. The important thing to know is that "American Gothic" is like a horror serial that keeps leading you on, even though each episode wraps up its storyline rather neatly. It's fiendishly entertaining and scary, but Cassidy and the writers always seem to be smirking in the background, too, because it has a lot of funny stuff going on in between grotesque murders.
Caleb is the prey in this series and Lucas Buck is the hunter. Along the way, Caleb is sheltered by a cousin he never knew, a pretty young woman named Gail Emory (Paige Turco), who comes to Trinity to save Caleb. She takes up with local doctor Matt Crower (Jake Weber), who's been standing in Buck's way on a lot of things and suspects he isn't quite what he seems to be. So, we have at least those two to root for and possibly Caleb, though he starts getting weirder as the series goes on.
There's also a nasty lady in town named Selena Coombs (Brenda Baake), who teaches grade school by day and seduces most of her students' daddies by night. She and Sheriff Buck have a "special relationship," sort of the kind Dracula has with his steady girl friends. She does her part to spread sin and evil around town and, believe me, it's fun watching her set these rednecks on fire, so to speak.
But Sheriff Buck is the center of "American
Gothic" and Gary Cole eats the role up. Buck is all-powerful.
He really runs Trinity and he doesn't suffer fools gladly. In
my favorite episode--"Meet the Beetles"--he proves
that when he comes up against a federal investigator, played
by Sam Raimi regular Bruce Campbell. Campbell has faced lots
of demons, living corpses and what have you in his many Raimi
films like "Army of Darkness," but this is the one
where he's locked in a coffin filled with flesh-eating beetles.
I don't know what they paid Bruce for that particlar scene, but
it sure wasn't enough.
"American Gothic" is awesome in its ability to create
a spooky mood. For example, you never can tell when Caleb's murdered
sister Merlyn may drop in to give her brother a little spiritual
advice. She isn't exactly all-dead, you see. Caleb figures that
out when he sneaks a peek at her corpse in the morgue and a big
tear comes out of her eye as he talks to her. It's a tear of
pure blood, by the way.
Merlyn (Sarah Paulson) also is likely to appear carrying the birthday cake she never got to eat on the day she was murdered, candles still blazing. She keeps delivering one never-ending word of warning: "Someone's at the door." You will be amazed at how many times she's right.
If you can find a copy of this boxed set, add it to your collection and start enjoying it. You'll discover these episodes can be played over and over and still deliver new thrills and insights. It's a show that was just too smart for its audience in 1995. Now, a decade later, maybe we're finally ready for its creepy messages. In the meantime, make sure your door is locked. Someone may be at it.
©2006 by Ron Miller.
The illustration from the DVD cover of "American Gothic"
is courtesy of Universal Home Video. This column first posted
Feb. 13, 2006,
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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