Being an aspiring writer, knowing aspiring writers, and being apart of a world filled with aspiring writers, “Valerie on the Stairs” was really an interesting installment that spoke about how ideas and imagination can tend to die with a horrible writer, and on how some ideas can be housed somewhere. In “Valerie on the Stairs,” we visit a home for aspiring writers whose own abode has become the breeding ground for a monster who perhaps may be a figment of imagination taken shape. Garris’ installment is a provoking little humdinger, with slight shades of subtlety, explore the condition of being a writer and the suffering that becomes apart of it. What happens when unfulfilled imagination manifests and rebels violently against its creators?
Is it possible for imaginations to be strong enough? It’s possible, but Garris’ neo-noir hazy fever dream is a fascinating episode with some of the quietest symbolism about writing and ideas that I’ve ever seen. It took many a conversation with fellow movie nerds to explore the symbolism, and surely you’ll either think this was one of the worst, or one of the best. I was in the middle ground. Garris and Barker present some original concepts that are both tense and entertaining in fleeting doses, and KNB provide some excellent make up effects with Tony Todd performing at eleven, as usual.
Barker and Garris also manage to serve up a pretty interesting second half that will leave its audience rethinking not only the sequence of events, but the entire episode altogether. But then, while watching, I wondered. Did Barker and Garris just completely rehash “Dreams in the Witch House” and turn it into something completely? Granted, I really disliked “Dreams in the Witch House,” so why did I have to see it again? “Valerie on the Stairs” comes off a lot like a sequel to “Dreams” with the same inept man, with a goal, who moves into a weird building, with strange residents, who finds himself entangled with the specters behind and within the walls. What’s really the point of rehashing a truly weak episode anyway?
When its not rehashing the original garbage, there’s Christopher Lloyd who doesn’t serve much a purpose except to channel Doc and gaze in his usual befuddlement as an eccentric old man bearing witness with his young cohorts. “Valerie on the Stairs” presents some truly original ideas and concepts, but Garris never manages to add an appealing spin to them venturing into the often cheesy and unbearably hokey time and time again. Surely, it’s not “Dreams” but it’s not as good as I expected, either. It presents many original ideas, but ultimately just feels a lot like a rehash of “Dreams in the Witch House,” and I didn’t enjoy that episode. It’s a decent episode for the ideas it presents, but can never pull itself together to be engrossing, or entertaining.