Main cast: Chad Lowe (Andy Harris), William Atherton (William Price), Michael Rapaport (Harlow Winton), Ken Pogue (Henry Matson), and Henry Rollins (The Host)
Directors: Thomas J Wright and Ian Toynton
In Hate Puppet, mild mannered Andy accidentally ran into and spill some coffee onto a mysterious scary-looking fellow that proceeded to yell at him what seems like a hex in a language that Andy doesn’t understand.
It’s likely a hex, as the people around Andy, even his friends and family members, soon get overcome by rage and try to beat the crap out of and maybe even murder him!
He soon realizes that his life is playing out like the lead character in horror writer William Price’s book, so could it be that he’s not real but a figment of that author’s imagination? If yes, can he convince the author to reverse his fate?
I’m not going to lie: I’ve always like Chad Lowe much more than his brother, mostly because he tends to get beefier and more emotional roles and acquit himself very admirably in each one. Here, his sad puppy dog portrayal of Andy elevates an otherwise generic and done-many-times-before story.
William Atherton is solid too, but his role is minimal. This is Mr Lowe’s segment, and he makes this one work very well despite the story being a rather forgettable one.
The next segment, Darkness, is the shorter of the two, and it cements the theme of this episode as hapless nice blokes thrust into grim and dark situations.
This one opens with the discovery of the gruesome corpse of Harlow Winston’s great-uncle in the man’s place.
Oh now nice, this means that Harlow is the sole inheritor of that big, big mansion of that old man as well as everything else!
The old man’s will requires Harlow to live at that place, with a generous monthly stipend so long as he does this. This doesn’t seem so bad at all… until poor Harlow learns of the, ahem, dark secret of that place.
The biggest issue I have with this one is that no one wants to be straight up with poor Harlow and explain what is happening, they just try to push him around, so it is a surprising that he digs his heel in and resist these people’s bossing around of him? This only leads to all kinds of trouble on the poor guy, so I feel that he’s getting the short stick here.
The script tries to soften this blow by having Harlow turn from a mild-mannered guy to an asshole to justify his eventual fate, but the transformation doesn’t feel organic—it’s all too abrupt to be believable. Also, Michael Rappaport doesn’t portray an asshole in a believable manner here.
All in all, both segments don’t have particularly memorable stories, although the second segment has an intriguing premise that doesn’t translate too well in execution, but at the same time, they are still watchable enough to be a pleasant way to spend an hour or so.
