Fear Itself

Fear Itself is a horror anthology TV show from the creators of Masters of Horror that aired on NBC in 2008.

Fear Itself was created by Mick Garris after the demise of Masters of Horror. It is basically the same as the previous series, taking famous horror directors and asking them to create a scary one-hour TV show. It lasted 13 episodes before it was cancelled.

The series takes its title from a quote by Franklin D Roosevelt: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. (Sometimes this is misquoted as “There is nothing to fear but fear itself”.)

The Best Episodes:

Skin and Bones

A cattle herder and his hunting party get lost in the woods for 10 days. When he returns to his farm, he is alone and he just doesn’t seem the same. He is extremely thin and has an insatiable hunger for flesh and blood. Soon, his family realizes that he is in fact possessed by a terrifying monster from Native American legend, The Wendigo. His family are forced to kill their own husband and father in order to save themselves.

The Eater

A rookie policewoman is forced to spend her first night shift watching over a crazed serial killer who is locked up in one of the precinct’s cells. The serial killer is nicknamed “The Eater” because he is a cannibal. It turns out that whenever he consumes the flesh of one of his victims, he is able to shape-shift and make himself look like that person. Pertty soon the female cop is having a hard time telling which of her fellow officers is really “The Eater” in disguise. Directed by Stuart Gordon of Re-Animator fame and starring Elizabeth Moss from TV’s Mad Men.

Family Man

A decent, hard-working father is in a terrible car accident. He wakes up to find that he has somehow switched bodies with another patient in the hospital. Unfortunately, that patient is a dangerous serial killer. He is known as the Family Man because he has a habit of slaughtering entire families. The man must try and protect his own family from the serial killer who has stolen his body and is now living with his wife and children.

The Sacrifice

Four criminals hide out at an old abandoned fort that seems to be trapped in the past. There, they come across three weird sisters who watch over the place. One by one, the criminals are led into the barn by the seductive young ladies and they discover the strange, snaggle-toothed thing that lives in the barn.

The Rest of the Episodes:

New Year’s Day – A woman makes a surprising discovery while trying to survive a world overrun by zombies.

The Circle – A group of people that meets every Halloween to tell scary stories realizes that they’re living one of the stories.

Echoes – A young man moves into an apartment where he believes he lived in a past life, but he realizes that in his previous life he was a serial killer, and he must keep that life from bleeding into his present one.

Chance – A man embarks on a battle of will when he comes face to face with his evil doppelganger.

The Spirit Box – Two high school girls contact a dead classmate with a Ouija board and learn that she was killed by a teacher with whom she’d been having an affair.

Something With Bite – When a veterinarian is bitten by a large, strange animal brought into his clinic, he begins to see the world and his stale life differently.

Community – After moving into a new neighborhood, a young, married couple watch their “American Dream” slip into a deadly nightmare.

Spooked – A brutal cop is kicked out of the police force for his violent and murderous behavior. He tries to make money as a Private Investigator and his first case sees him on a stakeout in a haunted house.

In Sickness and In Health – On the eve of her wedding, a young bride receives a mysterious note that reads: “The person you are marrying is a serial killer.”