SO MUCH FOR BEING A FAMILY MAN By: SASHA SLAUGHTER

Well hello there!!! How nice of you to stop by! Sasha Slaughter here with you for the final time this week to bring you one last dose of randomness. Today I'll be reviewing, “ Fear Itself: Episode 6: “Family Man.” It was written by Daniel Knauf and directed by Ronny Yu. It runs just about 42 minutes and the series aired on NBC in 2008. So let's get to it shall we?

Dennis Mahoney and his family are the typical "perfect family". Perfect house, perfect wife, perfect kids. He’s a responsible loving father and everything’s perfect (Until life decided to bend him over and give it to him right in the butt that is. Oops, was that too gross?) He has a loving wife and children and they attend church together every Sunday. But everything changes one afternoon when Dennis is on his way to work. His wife calls him and asks him to bring milk home. Just as he says he will, another car races through an intersection and slams into Dennis's car.

 In the hospital room, Dennis, dressed in a hospital gown sees his family in the waiting room. He taps on the glass to get their attention but no one acknowledges him. Another man comes up beside him and says,  "She can't hear ya bro". He turns to see a man in a flannel shirt whom he recognizes as Richard Brautigan. He tells Dennis that she can't see them because they’re both dead.

Later on, Dennis wakes up chained to a hospital bed. He asks the nurse for his family and a sheriff is standing above him says "Family? You don't have family unless you count the ones you slaughtered". Dennis turns to look at himself in the mirror and realizes that he is in Brautigan's body.

 He’s later released and returned back to prison. While talking with his court appointed attorney, explains his situation. But all his attorney can say is that spiritual transmigration is a really crappy defense. He then shows him a photo of himself (as Brautigan) in a newspaper labeling him as the "Family Man", a prolific serial killer.

 Dennis comes face to face with Bruatigan, who is now  in Dennis's body.  Brautigan informs Dennis that he has taken over his life and lives at home with Dennis's family. Brautigan then suggests that they help each other. He offers to help Dennis get used to life on the inside, if Dennis will help him with life on the outside. Dennis refuses and Brautigan leaves.

 During his next visit with his attorney, Dennis learns that the police have found tapes of Brautigan raping, torturing, and murdering his victims. The attorney tells Dennis if he wants to avoid the death penalty he needs to tell where the bodies are buried. When his attorney begins to leave, Dennis tells him again to check out his story, and he says if the details don't check out, he will cooperate with the police. The attorney tells him he already checked and all of the details are right but he knows that Brautigan (in Dennis's body) has been visiting and could be feeding him details.

 Pressure begins to mount for Dennis as he faces a death sentence and Brautigan begins to lose his temper with Dennis's family. Dennis has a dream in which he sees that it's only a matter of time until Brautigan hurts his family. He wakes up and tells the guard that he will show them where the bodies are located. They put Dennis in a police car and he tells them to stop in front of the church. An officer gets out and opens Dennis's door. Dennis gets out and take the officers gun and hits him in the head and then hits the sheriff.

He unlocks his cuffs and runs towards his house by the church. The sheriff shoots him in the side but Dennis keeps running. He goes into his house to find Brautigan doing dishes. Dennis asks where his family is and Brautigan tells him they aren't home. Just then Dennis sees him starting to wash a knife with blood on it. A fight ensues between the two men and Dennis throws Brautigan into a glass table and chokes him until he loses consciousness. Dennis senses someone behind him and turns around and is immediately...

 OH NO!!! What will happen next??? Well, I'm not gonna tell you! Those days are through buddy! If you wanna know, hop on over to Netflix and watch Fear Itself: Family Man. This episode was ok. Not as sucky as some, but not as good as others. There was a good amount of blood, especially in the operating room. It was just pooling under Brautigans hospital bed. And the way they froze time in the hospital when Brautigan was showing Dennis their bodies was pretty cool too.

You could see the pool of blood where it was splattering on floor..ughh I can't explain. You just have to see it! Overall I'd give Family Man a 3 out of 5. No, there was no nudity and no cussing (In fact someone said turd instead of shit...haha), but it's all good! It was still a decent episode. The plot was great and the acting was too.

I mean, spiritual transmigration? Who woulda thought?? And the one scene with the little girl in the bumble bee suit wiping blood all over her arms and then with blood coming out of her mouth was a little on the creepy side. Although if I hear the song "Amazing Grace" one more time, I'll scream. I swear I heard it like 3 or 4 times. 

 Yeesh!! It's gonna be stuck in my head all day!!! But I would highly recommend this episode to you. And if you haven't watched Fear Itself yet, I suggest you start. Now that you know how I feel, you can go ahead and check out what Zombie Zane has got going on. Whatever it is, I'm sure he'll let you look at it!! And as always, check back next week for more stuff at Dead End Horror.

Sasha Slaughter