Fair-Haired Child
"Fair Haired Child" is the ninth episode of the first season of Masters of Horror. It originally aired in North America on January 6, 2006. A 15-year-old outcast named Tara is kidnapped by a strange couple and locked in a basement with their son who has a dark secret.
| "Fair Haired Child" | |
|---|---|
| Masters of Horror episode | |
 DVD cover for Fair Haired Child | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 9 |
| Directed by | William Malone |
| Written by | Matt Greenberg |
| Featured music | Nicholas Pike |
| Production code | 109 |
| Original air date | January 6, 2006 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
Lori Petty | |
Plot
Tara (Lindsay Pulsipher), though a pretty and talented teenage girl, is not liked at her school and has no friends. Upon returning home one day, she is kidnapped and drugged. She awakens and attempts to escape but the kidnapper (William Samples) throws her into the basement, where Tara finds a young boy (Jesse Haddock) hanging from a noose, close to death. She saves him, and the two form a bond. The boy, Johnny, is sweet and kind but cannot talk; he has to communicate by writing in dust. With Johnny's assistance, Tara uncovers cryptic warnings on the walls, such as "Beware the Fair-Haired Child!" The two discover a room with numerous backpacks and a bloody bathtub, showing that they are not the first victims.
Johnny begins to breathe hard as a great gust of wind shakes everything and undergoes a transformation from a normal boy into the hideous demon dubbed the "Fair-Haired Child" (Walter Phelan). Frightened, Tara hides from the creature until it reverts into Johnny, who then reveals his shameful secret: Twelve years ago, Johnny died by drowning on his 15th birthday. Desperate over the loss of their son, Johnny's parents (the kidnappers) made a deal with a demon, and performed a ritual that involves them providing a sacrifice of one child per year until the quota of twelve is reached; Tara is the last before Johnny can become human again. However, Johnny has come to care for Tara and desperately asks her to forgive him. She embraces him as he begins to change, and the demon performs his final kill by disemboweling Tara. Soon afterward, Johnny's parents descend into the basement to find Tara's corpse covered in an old newspaper, with the words "I forgive you, Johnny," written on it in her blood. The couple then happily performs the final stage of the ritual, transforming him into the beautiful blond boy he was before his death.
Johnny later looks over Tara's drawing, while his parents play instruments. Speaking for the first time, Johnny informs his mother that his talent is bargaining, making it clear that he has struck a new deal with the demon: Instead of needing twelve kids to perform a resurrection, he managed to narrow it down to two, and they don't have to be children. As Johnny smiles sadistically, Tara appears as a female version of the demon and gruesomely kills his parents.
The alive-and-well Tara is shown waking up, curiously observing a bandage on her arm, indicating Johnny injected her with something to make her temporarily forget what had happened. The two introduce themselves again as he takes her for a stroll, and the camera pans to the graves of Johnny's parents in the garden.
External links
- Fair-Haired Child at IMDb
- Review for Fair-Haired Child at Dread Central
- Review for Fair-Haired Child at Slant Magazine