Episode: Treehouse of Horror XXII The Treehouse of Horror episodes are usually an annual treat of movie pastiches, gratuitous violence and non-canon deaths. But then along came a spider...which bites Homer, leaving him paralyzed. Lisa then discovers that her father can only communicate through farting, and so sets about decoding his er, messages, by having him fart his way through the alphabet. Remember, this is The Simpsons - not South Park. We've come to expect a little more than this over the last twenty five years. Having apparently run out of horror films to feast their fangs upon, the show has instead turned its attention to a puzzlingly lowbrow parody of acclaimed French film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (in which a man suffers a stroke and can only express himself by blinking his left eyelid), a feature that doesn't exactly scream 'comic potential'. And especially not when the punchline sees another spider bite transform Homer into a still-paralyzed Spider-Man, shooting webs from his rear end. All of this wouldn't be so bad had it been only a passing reference; instead the show decides to devote a quarter of its running time to what is essentially a fart joke - easily becoming the worst part of the worst Treehouse of Horror episode yet.
Yorkshireman (hence the surname). Often spotted sacrificing sleep and sanity for the annual Leeds International Film Festival. For a sample of (fairly) recent film reviews, please visit whatsnottoblog.wordpress.com.
