Mick Garris' directorial entry for the first season of Masters Of Horror was Chocolate and sadly it's widely considered one of the worst efforts from the first batch of shows. Unfortunately, his second effort, Valerie On The Stairs, based on a solid story from horror fiction heavyweight Clive Barker, doesn't fare much better.

Rob Hanisey (Tyron Leitso) is an aspiring young writer who has just won himself a spot in the Highberger House, a sort of 'free room and board' hotel run for writers who have yet to get their first work published. It seems the man who lived in the room prior to Rob's arrival killed himself, and as such, they're looking to fill the opening he left. Rob moves in and starts writing but soon strange things start happening and before you know it he's seeing images of a young woman who is obviously scared and in trouble of some sort. No one else seems to notice her, she really only appears to Rob. If that weren't enough, he starts hearing strange noises, has to deal with a strange old man who also lives in the building (Christopher Lloyd) and he periodically sees blood in his bathtub.

As the story goes on, Rob learns that the woman who appears to him is named Valerie (Clare Grant) and that some sinister man (Tony Todd) seems to have control over her. Rob decides to take it upon himself to find out the real story behind Valerie and her tormentor and to do what he can to allow her spirit to rest in peace. The deeper he starts to look into the mystery, the more it seems that Valerie isn't quite as innocent as she seems but Rob can't help himself, he's becoming enthralled with it all.

The premise for Valeria On The Stairs is pretty interesting and the short story that it's based on works well but somewhere in the transition from prose to picture something got lost and the end result is, to be blunt, quite dull. To Garris' credit he does pack a couple of good jump scares into the picture but they don't have any lasting effect and the first half of the movie moves along rather slowly. If the finale had a pay off that made the slow burn worth it, that'd be one thing but sadly not enough happens nor does it happen with enough impact to redeem the plodding pace of the film.

That's not to say that the movie is completely worthless, because it's not, it's that the film really didn't live up to its potential. On the plus side, Tony Todd is good as Valerie's diabolical keeper and he does a good job in his role. Christopher Lloyd is also reasonably amusing as the quirky old guy who knows more than he may seem to. These two definitely stand out from the rest of the cast who are fairly unremarkable. The movie also looks pretty good and if it isn't necessarily going to blow you away with fantastic cinematography it is well shot and it looks nice enough. That doesn't stop it from feeling vacant, however. The movie just feels limp, the story doesn't have the impact it needs to really hit home and it doesn't move fast enough for us to look past this even if there are moments where it looks like it's trying.

Video:

Valerie On The Stairs is, like every episode in the series so far, presented in an anamorphic 1.78.1 widescreen transfer. For the most part, things look pretty good on this disc. There are some mild compression artifacts present here and there in the darker scenes, but aside from that the image is decent. Color reproduction looks accurate and at times quite bold while flesh tones look lifelike and natural. There is a pretty solid level of both foreground and background detail present through the majority of the movie. Like the rest of the second season discs, this is not a flawless transfer, but it is a very good one.