It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Opening episode of the second season has an interesting premise, the atmosphere of mystery and tension gradually rise promising an excellent horror film, and then collapse into one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. Within the genre, it might be able to pass with a five out of ten, but the ending is unforgivable. Instead of some sort of resolution, an unexpected twist or anything meaningful, the film ends as an episode of the regular TV series. At the most exciting moment movie stops and closing credits begin, and to see how the story ends you have to wait for the next episode. Only this is not a regular show and there won't be the next episode. Idiocy.3/10

With all due respect, I honestly can't consider Tobe Hooper as a "Master" of horror anymore, especially not based on his accomplishments of the last two decades. Every Hooper film since 1990 is a complete mess, and that's especially frustrating since the basic story ideas are usually quite good and full of potential. It's just his elaboration and trademarks that are far too hectic, incoherent and often just downright amateurish. Personally, I thought "Dance of the Dead" was the weakest entry in the first season of "MoH" and, although I haven't yet had the chance to see them all, "The Damned Thing" is so far my least favorite of season two as well. And, again, the script material really can't be blamed for this. The story is a good hodgepodge of effective horror elements and actually offers the opportunity to narrate a good old-fashioned atmosphere driven tale of creepiness, but the whole set-up is ruined by a generally careless treatment, including too much sensationalism and horrible CGI make-up effects. I realize the target audience of the "Masters of Horror" series expects a minimum of gore, but this is a fine example of a tale that should have remained mysterious in terms of ambiance and suggestive in terms of bloodshed. The story opens in the year 1981, with a cozy family dinner to celebrate daddy's birthday. All of a sudden, and seemingly for no apparent reason, daddy becomes "possessed" with some sort of evil force. He mumbles something about "the damned thing found me …" and sadistically butchers his wife before literally being destroyed himself. 25 years later, his son – who narrowly survived daddy's maniacal rampage – grew up to become a paranoid and overly protective Sheriff in a small Texan town. On the day of his birthday, strange occurrences appear all across town. Respectable people suddenly go berserk and massacre either themselves or their relatives. The evil force is clearly after Sheriff Reddle and his family, and we learn the grudge is related to an old curse dating all the way back to his grandfather. "The Damned Thing" has the terrific idyllic small town setting, complete with bizarre supportive characters (Ted Raimi as the creepy reverend!). The "dark secret from the past" is also intriguing, but sadly underdeveloped. The approaching of the evil force gets illustrated by a demonic wind and a pool of oil leaking from the ceiling. Tobe Hooper should have stuck to those images and then bodily possession, but apparently they found it necessary to throw in a ridiculous looking 'oily maniacal' CGI monster near the end. The violence is also extremely gratuitous and uncompromising, including harsh shotgun killings and someone who smashes his own face to a bloody potpourri with a hammer. These are pretty disgusting sequences and they sadly prevent "The Damned Thing" from being what it could have been: a marvelously suspenseful and disturbing tale of the macabre.

As is the case with most second-season "Masters of Horror" episodes, 'The Damned Thing' is simply a downgrade in all departments: a poorly structured, generally ineffective tale suffering from a muddled plot, one-dimensional characters, and effects that come off as absurd in their own exaggeration (the ep opens with an overblown disembowelment and only gets sillier from there). The actors are done no favors by Richard Christian Matheson's script (a loose adaptation of an obscure story by Ambrose Bierce), which stitches together disparate moments of somber exposition and hyperactive bloodletting in a story that never really comes together: in 1981, Kevin Reddle witnessed his father go on a rampage, murdering his mother in cold blood on his birthday; 24 years later (and now a lawman played by Sean Patrick Flanery), a vague, possessive evil rises up to transform the residents of his sleepy Texas town into bloodthirsty maniacs. While Matheson seems to be making a social comment on man's reliance on fossil fuel turning civil society to pandemonium (echoes of Katrina and the Iraq quagmire), his method couldn't be less subtle. Also problematic is Flanery's portrayal of Reddle--mumble-mouthed and listless, his performance borders on sleepwalking, and a cliché-ridden voice-over does nothing to help us sympathize with him (especially when he unconvincingly heads into Jack Nicholson territory in the last reel). With so much working against 'The Damned Thing' my middle-ground rating comes from Hooper's direction: while 'Dance of the Dead' (his season one entry) combined the horrific and sleazy with pathos and social insight, the director weaved it into a dazzling barrage of nightmarish imagery through his spastic technique; similarly, 'The Damned Thing' shows him operating well within his limited resources--even if the other elements aren't up to snuff, Hooper knows when to shake the camera, and when to keep it perfectly still. But that alone really isn't enough to warrant repeat viewings.

First off this has little to do with Bierce's excellent short story other than *mild spoiler* an invisible monster, however this doesn't detract from a superbly crafted bit of horror far superior to anything from the first season, other than perhaps John Carpenters 'Cigarette burns'.Hooper, not known for his subtlety, while still churning out a moderate amount of gore manages with this to gradually (after the prologue) build a growing sense of horror altogether in the tradition of Bierce or Lovecraft before reaching a conclusion which I found not only made perfect sense but left me with a broad grin as he credits suddenly rolled.Given the time constraints this was a wonderful effort.Absolutely recommended.