Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on May 16, 2006, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
There were entries in Masters of Horror’s first season more graphic or gross overall than Mick Garris’ Chocolate, but perhaps none contained a single scene as transgressive as one that arrives about a third of the way through Garris’. In it, hero Jamie (Henry Thomas), who has been receiving psychic sensory flashes from a woman he doesn’t know, finds himself being, er, well, to use Garris’ words, “vaginally penetrated” telepathically by the woman’s lover—all while not only his new girlfriend but his ex-wife and young son look on. Perhaps not since Re-Animator’s “giving head” setpiece has there been such a “What must it have been like shooting that scene?” moment, and on Anchor Bay’s Chocolate DVD, Garris complies by going into detail about the circumstances of what was an “uncomfortable” (no kidding!) filming experience.
Chocolate represents the culmination of Garris’ nearly two-decade desire to adapt his short story of the same title to the screen. Clearly, he’s had a lot of time to think about translating the tale, and it shows in his thorough and well-spoken commentary, nicely moderated by Perry Martin. Addressing the story’s expansion to a feature-length script and then contraction to the hour-long Masters format, the writer/director details the visual schemes he used to create an “experiential” piece for viewers and express Jamie’s state of mind. (The 1.77:1 transfer and 5.1 audio are up to the quality standards set by Anchor Bay’s previous Masters discs.) Garris also drops anecdotal tidbits (the later portions were always intended to be set in Vancouver, even before Masters made its home base there) and recalls the usual low-budget/tight-schedule travails and how he overcame them. The show was shot entirely on real locations, for example, and seaplanes and onlookers caused sound-recording troubles that were overcome by the series’ crack postproduction team.
Garris’ status as Masters of Horror’s creator means that the series in general is also covered in the commentary, as well as in a Sweet Taste of Fear career retrospective and Working With a Master tribute featurette. He receives due praise for providing the opportunity for assorted genre specialists to create minifeatures unencumbered by the need to utilize a common style or subject matter—to do their own thing, and make their contributions distinct—and also for just being a nice guy. (There’s a funny bit, included in both an interview segment with female lead Lucie Laurier and a Behind the Scenes montage, with the director and Laurier getting into a heated mock argument.) Sweet traces Garris’ journey from his early-’80s Fantasy Film Festival interview segments for LA’s Z Channel through his lengthy professional relationship with Stephen King, and Working contains testimonials from such cast collaborators as Desperation’s Ron Perlman, Steven Weber and Annabeth Gish, The Stand’s Matt Frewer (who relates a hilarious story about visiting a strip club in full “Trashcan Man” burn makeup) and his actress wife Cynthia Garris. (King himself, however, is conspicuous by his absence.)
The on-set interviews with Laurier and Thomas are fairly dry and straightforward—even when Thomas discusses a Chocolate moment in which he experiences and expresses a female orgasm. Similarly, the Behind the Scenes footage doesn’t show us anything terribly revelatory—the best moments here involve KNB EFX’s Howard Berger setting up the torso-slicing and hand-impalement gags—and the still gallery is similarly standard-issue. More fun, in a time-capsule sort of way, is a Fantasy Film Festival segment in which Garris chats up a Battle Beyond the Stars-era Roger Corman. The B-movie mogul tells a few of the familiar stories; more pertinently—for the time—addresses the studios’ co-opting of B-movie formulas (Friday the 13th had just become a hit); and, when Garris asks, “Are you New World Pictures?”, gives credit to his collaborators.
There’s a touch of irony when the young host asks if Corman plans to direct again—the latter was going to helm a Masters before health concerns caused him to drop out—but not as much as there is in a Garris quote about the ill-fated Amazing Stories (on which he got his first break as a writer) that’s part of Richard Harland Smith’s text biography. “Its style changed from week to week,” Garris says of the show, “and I think that may be one reason for its demise.”
