Not a lot of people will remember the somewhat clunky thriller EYES OF LAURA MARS from 1978. Laura Mars was a fashion photographer who recreated scenes of death and mayhem to show off the latest fashions. Because of this, she suddenly develops a psychic link with a serial killer through whose eyes she can "see" as he stalks and murders his victims.
CHOCOLATE, a Mick Garris entry into the MASTERS OF HORROR lineup, gives the LAURA MARS story a makeover, with E.T.'s Henry Thomas playing the unwilling 'witness' this time around.
Thomas plays Jamie, a chemist who creates new flavors and smells for major food companies along with his quirky co-worker and sidekick, Wally (a completed squandered Matt Frewer.) One day, while working on a project involving chocolate, the flavor and smell transport him without warning into the consciousness of a young woman. Everything she sees and feels, he does, and that includes dining, lovemaking...and murder.
In spite of what he knows about this cold-blooded bitch, Jamie falls harder for her every time they connect, as the episodes all but tear apart his personal life. Soon, he has nothing left to do but track down this "mystery woman" - with the usual harrowing circumstances surrounding falling in love with someone you should have nothing to do with.
I wish I could say that the story plays as well as it sounds, but it doesn't, which is unfortunate considering that Garris, who is also one of the better adapters of Stephen King material, also created the MASTERS OF HORROR series. If anybody should be "bringing it" to show how a great episode should be done, it's Garris. But CHOCOLATE, though an interesting premise, falls short in more than a few ways.
MOH episodes are only an hour long each, and shot with a limited budget on roughly a ten-day schedule, so we can give Mick some of the benefit of the doubt. But the main problem lies, as always, with the way the characters are written. Though Matt Frewer gives one of his patented, reliably quirky performances, his Wally really has no purpose to the story, except to 'freak out' during one of Jamie's episodes. As much as I like Frewer, and obviously Garris does, too, his presence breaks one of the Writing Commandments: never have a character who doesn't serve some kind of purpose to drive the story forward, even if he or she is only a "McGuffin." The time spent with Wally could've easily gone to doing more to enrich the story's suspense.
Then to make matters worse, is it me, or is every woman that Jamie is involved with, including his ex-wife, a self-serving bitch? Jamie's "episodes" sometimes seem like seizures, and at a crucial point in the story when he has one, both a young lovely he's been seeing and his ex-wife act as if he PEED WITH THE TOILET SEAT DOWN. Movies are not reality, I understand that. But if this were the reactions of two real people, I would have to question why they're still part of my life.
Was that one of the points that Garris was trying to make? I don't know, but it took a lot of the starch out of the story for me. Not to mention that as gorgeous as the actresses involved are (and yes, there is an ample amount of T & A), their acting wasn't much to write home about. Good thing Thomas carries most of the weight on his slender but capable shoulders.
This wasn't by far the worst of the MOH episodes, (for me, personally, HAECKEL'S TALE wins that dubious honor), but I would recommend CHOCOLATE with strong reservations. (See my favorites, HOMECOMING, DEER WOMAN or PICK ME UP instead.)