Main cast: Dee Imber, Brian Daniels, E Amour Jr, Thomas J Ryan, and Rip Torn (Narrator)
Director: Joe Wiecha
James Rowe is a disgraced journalist that is reduced to writing about Elvis sightings, elves, and unicorns for a tabloid, five years since he was caught fabricating news for his publisher. Well, this episode is set in the 1990s. If it happened in real life today, the US news networks would start a bidding war on this fellow. Even then, his publisher is down on James because even his fake headlines are boring and clichéd. Meanwhile, he is struggling to finish his novel. Nothing seems to be going well for him at all.
Then, an opportunity arises when he is inspired by the sight of a colleague accidentally staining his shirt with chocolate, to write about long-executed serial killer Dominick Palmer returning as a ghost to terrorize a hospital. Even better, Palmer was one of James’s last exclusive stories as a legitimate writer, so his publisher wants a long-term series of articles based on this premise. As James’s stories become increasingly lurid and violent, a problem comes up. It seems like someone is a bit too inspired by his stories, as a series of violent murders that mirror Palmer’s technique and style starts to crop up in the neighborhood…
Beware the Muse is the usual journalists-are-scums episode that every anthology series is apparently obligated to have, and this one actually isn’t too bad for a Ghost Stories episode. This one boasts the usual horrid acting, especially from that woman that plays the publisher. My goodness, that lady is completely off in every scene she is in, and her lines are spoken in such a way that what little emotion present is almost always the wrong one for that particular scene. Fortunately, the guys playing James and Palmer are pretty good, and they make up for the awful miscast that is the lady publishing the publisher.
In case you are wondering, I have no idea which actor plays which character. The credits never specify such details, and I can’t find any online sources (not even IMDB) to help me figure that out these things. IMDB does tell me that, like nearly every actor that has appeared in Ghost Stories, nearly all the cast members have only this episode on their CV. I am starting to suspect that the show find its cast members from drinking holes or bargain bins.
Anyway, this episode gives away its twist way too early, and the whole thing is pretty predictable. Still, the whole thing is well put-together and mostly well-acted, so it’s not too bad in the end. Sure, it’s a subpar episode for most other spooky anthology series, but for Ghost Stories, this one is a three-oogie baby.
