Main cast: Brittany Byrnes (Jessie Courtney), Jessica Napier (Michelle), Boris Brkic (Mr Courtney), John Walton (Arthur Pendle), Matthew Krok (Matthew Courtney), and Bryan Brown (The Host)
Director: Stephen Wallace
Twisted Tales is an Australian effort at bringing back the horror anthology into everyone’s lives, and you know me: there can never be too many of such shows where I’m concerned! Bryan Brown, who also co-produces this series, plays the host that offers the usual pointless platitudes that bookend each episode, and it’s nice since he’s always easy on the eyes and ears. Unfortunately, even the charming Aussie accents can’t save the first episode from being a complete deal breaker.
Jessie Courtney is an annoyingly precocious girl who speaks in a way adults believe children do in order to be cute and precious. Sadly, no one ever tells her to dial it down because she witnessed her mother’s murder by a killer, Arthur Pendle, and hence everyone goes out of their way to treat her with kid’s gloves. When Night of the Monster opens, she is left at home with her babysitter Michelle, and it’s not long before she starts grating on the poor young lady’s nerves by insisting that she sees something scary outside.
Of course, there is something outside, but I can’t blame Michelle in this instance. I’m sure Brittany Byrnes is likely a nice lady when she’s grown up, but my god, in this episode, her constant “Michelle! Michelle! Michelle!” soon makes me want to put a gag over that girl and dump her inside a closet or something. The girl’s high-pitched yells that emerge every few minutes can drive anyone up the wall and then happily leap off it just to stop hearing those horrible, horrible “MICHELLE!!!” shrieks anymore.
And then the bad guy shows up, and where it’s non-stop “MICHELLE!!!” it’s now his weird constant grunts and pants. Is this guy suffering from some kind of disease that has him short of breath after taking a few steps? At any rate, the second half of the episode turns into some increasingly ridiculous Home Alone-style kid-versus-psycho showcase, featuring two characters that are constantly assaulting my ear drums with obnoxious sounds.
By the time this episode ends, I want to put on some earplugs and lie down to enjoy the silence.
Oh, and the ending is really stupid. Come to think of it, the entire episode is.
