Masters of Horror/The Fair-Haired Child

The Fair-Haired Child
Season 1, Episode 9
Airdate	January 6, 2006
Written by	Matt Greenberg
Directed by	William Malone
← 1x08 Cigarette Burns	1x10 → Sick Girl
Masters of Horror — Season One

The Fair-Haired Child is the ninth episode of the first season of Masters of Horror.

A girl is kidnapped by a family for a dark sacrifice.

Cast: Lindsay Pulsipher (Tara), Jesse Hadock (Johnny Ruric), Lori Petty (Judith Ruric), William Samples (Anton Ruric), Walter Phelan (Johnny Thing), Haley Morrison (Teenage Girl), Ian Wallace (Teacher)

Plot Overview

Socially awkward student Tara, who lazily draws dragon and amazon illustrations in class, is stalked from a distance by a mysterious man in a van. During a bicycle ride home from her school in Greenwich, CT she is briefly distracted in the forest and is struck violently by the van. Dazed, she asks for help but is dragged to the back of the van and knocked out by chloroform.

Tara wakes in a hospital bed and finds a nurse is looking after her. The nurse, Judith Ruric, tells her that the police found her drugged in Stowe, Vermont and had brought her to the hospital. She lets Tara call her mother, who is unconcerned about Tara's absence and still under the influence. Judith asks Tara a number of questions under the pretense of a medical questionnaire. But as the questions veer into whether Tara is a virgin and if she'd been baptized, Tara gets suspicious. She looks at an address label on a magazine and finds that she's in Maine. She tries to screen but Judith tells her that they're very isolated. In a panic, Tara runs and falls down a flight of stairs, falling unconscious. She's taken by Judith and the man who kidnapped her, Anton Ruric, and thrown down into the cellar as Judith notes that she 'fits the criteria' although Tara is the first girl.

In the darkened basement, Tara wanders around trying to get her bearings and hears the sound of taut rope swinging. She finds a boy her age struggling and swinging by a noose. With her cooperation, the boy is able to get the noose off of his head although the damage to his neck appears to prevent him from talking. The boy writes his name in the dust as Johnny and the two of them share a similar story of being drugged and waking up here. Exploring the basement, they find several etchings of warnings on the walls and discarded furniture including 'Get out before it wakes up' and 'Beware the fair-haired child'. That final warning is on a door to another room and inside they find a bloody bathtub and many old school backpacks from other children suggesting that they are far from the first to be abducted.

Anton Ruric is very clearly losing his grip on reality and reflects, in surrealistic fashion, the death of his son by drowning. On his 15th birthday, his son went boating on their private lake and fell in. Judith jumped in quickly to try and save him but Anton couldn't swim. Overcome with grief, the couple performed an occult ritual and receive instructions from a mysterious power that if they 'feed' twelve young people to their son he will come back to them. Noting that, as Nietzsche said, anything done out of love is beyond good and evil they've killed eleven children and that this final one will complete the ordeal.

In the basement, Johnny has a series of seizures accompanied by lightning and other strange sounds. In an attempt to warm him up and keep his spirits high, Tara talks to him. She tells him about her fantasy world where a desperate woman befriends evil creatures. Johnny, wracked by a new seizure, writes in the dirt that 'It's coming' and then falls unconscious. As Tara preoccupies herself with finding a way out, Johnny is transformed into a devilish version of himself moving with unnatural speed and able to see in the dark. Tara sees the creature and hides before she is discovered. Distracting it briefly, she hides in the inactive boiler and is chased into the duct work when she is discovered. Falling back down into the boiler after the creature has given up its chase, Tara finds Johnny returned to human form and futilely trying to stab himself.

Tara, realizing that Johnny is a reluctant monster, deduces that his parents have been keeping him drugged to help him forget about his undead state. As Johnny tells her that eleven have died before, one a year, and that Tara would be the twelfth and last, he says that he doesn't want Tara's blood on his hands. Tara briefly considers suicide but knows that another child will take her place. As Johnny feels another seizure taking on, signaling another transformation, he writes 'Forgive me'. Tara is torn to pieces by the creature.

Hearing the violence stopped, Judith and Anton go down into the basement and find the body of Tara and a piece of paper next to her where she's written 'I forgive you Johnny in her own blood'. Johnny, in human form, is sitting in the middle of the basement someone catatonic. They take Johnny outside and walk him through a ghoulish gazebo decorated with bones and each step returns Johnny closer to humanity. He steps out fully returned to what he looked like 12 years ago.

Some amount of time later, Johnny asks his parents to meet him in the recital room. There he remarks about his parent's talent for music and his own personal talent, which he tells them is bargaining. As the devilish form of Tara bursts into the room and kills them, he tells his parents that he was able to bargain with the forces of the underworld for Tara's life in exchange for two adult lives. Tara wakes some time later, drugged and with mild amnesia, in a bed. Johnny is there to meet her and tells her that she'll come to remember bad things but that they'll face it together.

Notes

• Deaths and Gore: Tara is hit by a van and is chewed to pieces by the creature. Judith is splattered against a window from the resurrected Tara. Several remains, including skulls and bloody body parts are found around the basement and disposed of by the Rurics in vats of acid.

Trivia

Behind the Scenes

• Lesser known director William Malone has previously worked on the horror films House on Haunted Hill, a remake of the Vincent Price film of the same name, and Feardotcom as well as episodes of Tales from the Crypt and Freddy's Nightmares.

• Writer Matt Greenberg is best known as the creative talent behind the well regarded television series The Invisible Man. He has also writer of the films Halloween H20 and The Prophecy II.