Fear Itself: Spooked (2008)
* 1/2 (out of 4)
Director Brad Anderson (The Machinist, Masters of Horror: Sounds Like) takes hold of this second episode but delivers a pretty bad film on all levels. The film tells the story of a cop (Eric Roberts) who will kill and torture anyone to get evidence he needs to solve a crime but this eventually costs him his job. Fifteen years later he is working as a private detective and he gets a new case where a woman hires him to spy on her husband who she feels is cheating. Roberts does a stakeout in the house across the street but soon haunted visions appear. I've only seen one of Anderson's previous films (the Masters of Horror segment) but so far I really haven't been impressed but I'm not sure I can blame him too much here since the screenplay to this thing is just downright horrid every step of the way. For starters, we've seen this type of film so many times and the screenplay makes sure to go for every cliché known in the horror community. The film is never scary and it doesn't contain a single inch of atmosphere. I was bored from the opening scene to the closing one and the only moment that does work is a flashback sequence where we see why Roberts' is the way he is. Roberts gives a fairly good performance here but the screenplay doesn't give him too much to work with.