FEAR ITSELF Episode Review: "Chance"
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"Chance", is another one of the "Fear Itself Five", the five unaired episodes of NBC's cancelled series which was a watered down version of Showtimes old "Masters Of Horror" show. The episode stars Ethan Embry as Chance, a down-on-his-luck guy, who needs quick cash. He makes a deal to acquire a specific piece for an antique collector, in exchange for a large sum of money which will give a quick fix to his financial troubles. But more than that, will help show his girlfriend that he can do something right. But when the antique collector doesn't pay up, Chance in his desperation attacks the man and ends up killing him. During the struggle, Chance smashes a mysterious mirror which he looked into as he entered the mans office.
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Post-murder, Chance soon finds himself haunted by a doppleganger of himself, a doppleganger which causes the body count to keep on growing, and gets Chance in a very tight predicament. This is a doppleganger horror story, but to be honest not a very good one. We've all seen evil twin stories where a spineless person is confronted by their inner evil twin who has more courage and balls than they do. And won't let people walk all over them or do whatever they want to them. And we've all seen how these stories turn out where a murder occurs, and the innocent guy is fingered for the crime his murderous twin commited. "Chance" is pretty much the same deal, but Embry manages to keep the episode afloat somewhat with an above average performance.
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The gist of the episode is basically..."How much trouble can evil Chance get Chance into?" Obviously, a whole lot. Which is exaclty what happens here as Chance's twin just systematically begins killing people and Chance, because he's yet to figure out what's going on, and on many levels fears his twin, is pretty much powerless to stop him. But during the course of the episode, you feel sorry for Chance because the guy is really a good guy who just gets taken advantage of a lot, and is now probably gonna go down for a series of murders he didn't commit. |
One good thing about Dahl's "Chance", is that it's a very dark and hopeless episode, which strengthens the horror elements within it. It's not a happy episode which goes dark and dismal for awhile, and then gives you a sunshine and roses ending. It starts off sad and solemn, then gets dark, and then ends on an extremely dark and tragic note. Embry as I said above, keeps this episode from going completely over the cliff, despite it's lack of gore, lack of a strong story, and lack of many different facets which can keep things from becoming monotonous and boring. It's really a performance driven episode, and if you're into evil-twin-horror and dark and moody doppleganger stories, you should love it regardless.
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