Chocolate (2006)

Excellent but underrated film

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Absolutely Fantastic

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Well..., this MoH episode is about a man who sees through an incredibly hot chicks eyes, sees what she sees and even feels what she feels emotionally, physically, whatever, and witnesses her commit a murder through her eyes. Then..., I don't know, he's trying to f*** her by blackmail, marry her..., I don't know, but he seeks her out and tells her his psychotic tale about how he is her.This may not be a completely terrible idea, I just didn't like this whole thing. I'll tell you where it lost me. The part where the lead actor hooks up with that hot chick from the market, takes her home and has sex with her and the next morning, this f***er has visions of being this chick getting f***ed by her boyfriend. That is..., appalling. I'm sure there was some kind of message that was suppose to be delivered by this, but after that, while I kept watching (the chick that this guy got f***ed as her is really, really, incredibly hot...), I just became incredibly annoyed by the whole thing. The characters (except for the chick the lead was obsessed with because he liked her boyfriends c***) are just very irritating to me. I can't recommend this, but that's more out of personal distaste for it. Hell..., most other people probably love the s*** out of this crap.

Not a lot of people will remember the somewhat clunky thriller EYES OF LAURA MARS from 1978. Laura Mars was a fashion photographer who recreated scenes of death and mayhem to show off the latest fashions. Because of this, she suddenly develops a psychic link with a serial killer through whose eyes she can "see" as he stalks and murders his victims. CHOCOLATE, a Mick Garris entry into the MASTERS OF HORROR lineup, gives the LAURA MARS story a makeover, with E.T.'s Henry Thomas playing the unwilling 'witness' this time around.Thomas plays Jamie, a chemist who creates new flavors and smells for major food companies along with his quirky co-worker and sidekick, Wally (a completed squandered Matt Frewer.) One day, while working on a project involving chocolate, the flavor and smell transport him without warning into the consciousness of a young woman. Everything she sees and feels, he does, and that includes dining, lovemaking...and murder.In spite of what he knows about this cold-blooded bitch, Jamie falls harder for her every time they connect, as the episodes all but tear apart his personal life. Soon, he has nothing left to do but track down this "mystery woman" - with the usual harrowing circumstances surrounding falling in love with someone you should have nothing to do with.I wish I could say that the story plays as well as it sounds, but it doesn't, which is unfortunate considering that Garris, who is also one of the better adapters of Stephen King material, also created the MASTERS OF HORROR series. If anybody should be "bringing it" to show how a great episode should be done, it's Garris. But CHOCOLATE, though an interesting premise, falls short in more than a few ways.MOH episodes are only an hour long each, and shot with a limited budget on roughly a ten-day schedule, so we can give Mick some of the benefit of the doubt. But the main problem lies, as always, with the way the characters are written. Though Matt Frewer gives one of his patented, reliably quirky performances, his Wally really has no purpose to the story, except to 'freak out' during one of Jamie's episodes. As much as I like Frewer, and obviously Garris does, too, his presence breaks one of the Writing Commandments: never have a character who doesn't serve some kind of purpose to drive the story forward, even if he or she is only a "McGuffin." The time spent with Wally could've easily gone to doing more to enrich the story's suspense.Then to make matters worse, is it me, or is every woman that Jamie is involved with, including his ex-wife, a self-serving bitch? Jamie's "episodes" sometimes seem like seizures, and at a crucial point in the story when he has one, both a young lovely he's been seeing and his ex-wife act as if he PEED WITH THE TOILET SEAT DOWN. Movies are not reality, I understand that. But if this were the reactions of two real people, I would have to question why they're still part of my life.Was that one of the points that Garris was trying to make? I don't know, but it took a lot of the starch out of the story for me. Not to mention that as gorgeous as the actresses involved are (and yes, there is an ample amount of T & A), their acting wasn't much to write home about. Good thing Thomas carries most of the weight on his slender but capable shoulders.This wasn't by far the worst of the MOH episodes, (for me, personally, HAECKEL'S TALE wins that dubious honor), but I would recommend CHOCOLATE with strong reservations. (See my favorites, HOMECOMING, DEER WOMAN or PICK ME UP instead.)

Masters of Horror: Chocolate starts as recently the divorced Jamie (Henry Thomas) wakes up one morning with the taste of chocolate in his mouth for no apparent reason, then shortly after his own hearing goes & finally his sight which are replaced with those from a mysterious woman whom he falls in love with. However this psychic connection isn't all good as while 'inside her' he witnesses her commit a murder, Jamie is now determined to track her down & get to the bottom of everything...This Canadian American co-production was episode 5 from season 1 of the hit-and-miss Masters of Horror TV series, the first of two episodes so far to be directed by the show's creator & regular producer Mick Garris this particular story didn't do much for me. The script by Garris based on his own short story could be described as When Harry Met Sally... (1989) crossed with Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) & as far as I'm concerned it's not a match made in heaven. I will concede that the basic story is quite good but I found it rather slow going, I was disappointed by the lack of horror & supernatural elements as it plays more like a straight thriller & overall Chocolate never really drew me in. The mystery side of things are OK but the viewer knows who committed the murder so in that regard it's not exactly a mystery & I felt the ending is rather abrupt & unsatisfactory. Still, at least it's not as bad as The Screwfly Solution from season 2.Director Garris does a good job, it looks nice enough although it's not the most visually stylish 60 odd minutes ever committed to film/video. There is a distinct lack of exploitation in Chocolate despite an amusing scene where Catherine is sexually pleasing herself in the bath with the shower head & Jamie can feel her orgasm, there's the usual female nudity & sex but gore wise all we get is a knife slicing a stomach open & a shot of a spear going through someone's hand. Since Chocolate doesn't really play like a conventional horror film there's no scares or tangible atmosphere.Technically Chocolate is very good, it has nice production values & as usual for Masters of Horror it looks better than most made-for-TV stuff. The acting is alright although Matt Frewer dressed as a punk rocker complete with Mohawk hairdo looks a tad silly.Chocolate isn't the worst Masters of Horror I've seen but yet again it just disappoints as being average at best & boring nonsense at worst, in truth it's maybe somewhere between the two in my opinion. Worth a watch if your a fan of the series but others may want to give it a miss.

This is not the best of The Masters of Horror episodes but then again it is not the worst either. I love seeing Henry Thomas acting and I feel this is up their with all his other fine performances, OK maybe not quite up their with E.T but still good acting. Any one who could deliver the fake orgasm he does on screen and not break into laughter has to be an acting mastermind. Who I feel sorry for on this episode is Mick Garris. He creates the Masters of Horror show but can't deliver the goods himself. It's sad because we know this guy can do good, look at Sleepwalker, The Stand, Psycho IV: The Beginning, Rideing The Bullit, and Critters 2: The Main Course. Why could he not make one of the better episodes. My theory is that the disaster that was the production of Desperation combined with the added stress of producing 12 other episodes of the series led him to fail at this show. This one would have been much better if he had put more effort and blood into it. But since I respect what he has done before and think he was just tired I'll give his episode a seven when maybe it deserves more like a six or five. Watch this for Henry Thomas and maybe try to forget it's supposed to be a horror show. If watched as a mystery it plays much better.