John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns
| "John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns" |
|
|---|---|
| Masters of Horror episode | |
DVD cover for Cigarette Burns
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| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 8 |
| Directed by | John Carpenter |
| Written by |
Drew McWeeny Scott Swan |
| Featured music | Cody Carpenter (composer) |
| Production code | 108 |
| Original air date | December 16, 2005 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
|
Udo Kier |
|
Udo Kier
Christopher Redman
Norman Reedus
Gwynyth Walsh
John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns is the eighth episode of the first season of Masters of Horror. It originally aired in North America on December 16, 2005.
Deeply in debt to the father of his late wife, rare-films dealer Kirby Sweetman (Norman Reedus) has less than a month to produce $200,000 in order to keep his small theater afloat. He is hired by an old cinephile, Mr. Bellinger (Udo Kier) to find the only existing print of a rare 30-year-old movie titled, La Fin Absolue du Monde (French: The Absolute End of the World). The film supposedly has supernatural power to anyone who views it which led to a homicidal riot during its premiere at the Sitges Film Festival, after which it was destroyed.
Bellinger leads Sweetman to a hidden room in his mansion, which contains an emaciated pale man (Christopher Redman) in chains. The wounds on the man's shoulders appear to be the source of a pair of angelic wings. The chained man explains that his existence is bound to the existence of the film. Bellinger then offers Sweetman $100,000 to find the film, which Sweetman increases to $200,000. Sweetman begins his research and gets his first lead: a critic who wrote a review of the film. The mentally-sick critic gives Sweetman an audiotape of an interview with the film's director.
Sweetman listens to the tape and has a hallucination of his late wife in the state of her suicide. Sweetman's friend tells him that he was the projectionist at a secret screening of the film. He was spared death and insanity because he turned away from the film as it played. Eventually, he tried to stop it, but blacked out, only to wake up with his left hand burned. He sends Sweetman to a warehouse, where he meets a deranged filmmaker. Sweetman is seized, injected with an anesthetic, and blacks out, waking up tied to a chair. The filmmaker explains to Sweetman that an angel was sacrificed in the film, and the evil of that horror affects all who view the film. Sweetman experiences another vision and when he comes to, he finds himself holding the machete. The filmmaker has his throat slashed. Before the man dies, he says, "Katja".
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