This script comes from the mind of Clive Barker, one of my favorites. At the end I found it a typical Barker story but as always with his stories it isn't that simple to make it a flick or an episode here in the Masters Of Horror series.Rob Hanisey (Tyron Leitso) moves to a boarding house full of struggling writers waiting for their script to be published. While Rob is trying a new script he hear noises in the house and is suddenly confronted with a girl called Valerie (Clare Grant). She pleads to Rob to save her from evil. Slowly the house shows his secrets.Let me first start to say that the performance of Tony Todd as The Beast was excellent. The others weren't that bad at all and the camera did some nice shots but it's so typical Barker that you must be a fan to watch this. For a Barker story this surely isn't The Midnight Meat Train (2008) but more a Book Of Blood (2009) script. A lot of blah blah going on and here and there we do have some nasty killings. You really have to sit through the whole story and maybe even then the ending will satisfy some. There's a lot of nudity from Valerie, she even goes full frontal and there are as I said a few killings to watch (espescially the one with the backbone). Christopher Loydd is here to to see as one of the writers in the house but isn't that much in it and if he does he does what he does best, looking weird with his eyes. An entry in the series with a lot of controversy. here I go again, only for Barker geeks.Gore 1/5 Nudity 2/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

Mick Garris deserves a lot of praise for being the creator of the "Masters Of Horror" series, but it has to be said that the episodes he directed himself, "Chocolate" and "Valerie On The Stairs" both rank among the lesser entries to this generally vastly entertaining franchise. While I liked this eighth episode of the second season slightly better than Garris' boring contribution to the first season, "Chocolate", "Valerie On The Stairs" is just a bit too silly for my tastes. The episode is set in a boarding house where unsuccessful writers are allowed to reside until their works become published. In this particular house the writers' nightmarish fantasies seem to come to life, however... "Valerie On The Stairs" was adapted from a story by Clive Barker, but I guess it must have been altered quite heavily, as this is certainly not a worthy entry to Clive "Hellraiser" Barker's repertoire. While Horror does not necessarily have to be realistic, it should have a certain logic, and it should certainly NOT be ridiculous. "Valerie On The Stairs" sadly gets ridiculous at some points, which is a shame since there could have been some potential in this episode. The episode stars prolific actors Christopher Lloyd and Tony 'Candyman' Todd, and Clare Grant, who plays the eponymous Valerie is one yummy protagonist (the beauty of the female cast members is a quality that most MoH episodes have). Too bad the episode keeps getting sillier and sillier to a ridiculous point.

A young writer checks into a hotel where you are allowed to live for free as long as you like, as long as you never publish anything. The moment you get something published, you are asked to leave the hotel. Within the hotel, though, is a woman named Valerie (on the stairs) who needs to be saved from some supernatural force. What is our young writer to do? I thought the story had potential after reading the synopsis. As an aspiring writer myself, I like the idea of a place that lets you focus on your writing on your schedule, but has you enter the real world once you're done. This film is alright... except that most of it makes no sense and its very repetitive (within one hour).Clive Barker is a well-known horror writer, so we expect a lot from him (though, in all honesty, I can't for the life of me tell you much good he's produced). And we have director Mick Garris -- the man who directed "Chocolate" from season one, which many people (not including myself) consider to be the worst episode of that season. Garris is second-rate, I won't even try to defend him. He has made nothing that will leave a lasting dent on the horror community in generations to come.The best thing about this short film is the acting. The main character is alright and another housemate (Bruce) is even better. Valerie... not so much. Tony Todd ("Candyman") shows up, but sadly is given a role that doesn't really have him doing anything besides be menacing. Christopher Lloyd is yet another housemate and does a fine job with it, though there was nothing about he role that demanded the presence of Christopher Lloyd.As I've been saying, the film makes no sense, and that's the biggest drawback. We have some decent gore, scary sound effects and plenty of nudity. But I didn't follow why any of it was going on. The biggest mysteries are explained about halfway through, but others are left untouched and the ending is complete and utter nonsense. In fact, the ending being changed just slightly would have made my rating of this film go up at least a little bit.We are now through eight films of the thirteen episode season, and I continue to be unimpressed. With the exception of Landis and Argento, "Masters of Horror" has been more like "Masters of Bore". Mick Garris a great man for creating this show, but perhaps he needs to stay out of the director's chair. If his season three contribution turns out to be no better than "Chocolate" or "Valerie on the Stairs", he really should refrain from directing altogether. This episode can be missed without little loss on the viewer's part.

Not a very good entry in the Second Season of the Masters of horror season.I am a huge Clive Barker fan but really don't see his creative imagination at work in this drivel of a story about a unemployed & unpublished writer staying in a hotel that is for a group of writers to live in until their published. He starts to see some naked girl named Valerie who is pulled away each time by a demonic being(played by Tony "Candyman"Todd).Turns out their characters that were written by 3 of the tenants & the Beast doesn't want to be written away or written that he is killed as he loves owning Valerie & doesn't want things to change. And is the main character guy really himself or is he a character from the story? Just not your usual awesome Clive Barker work. What? Out of all of his amazing stories this was what they picked? This reeks of Mick Garris's work & only his.Maybe Clive just produced & Mick thought more people would be interested if he added Clive's name to the project as this is supposed to be Masters of Horror. It has a few good gore scenes but that doesn't redeem this piece of crap. If they don't better this horror anthology series,I personally don't see it coming back for a 3rd season. And that sucks as cable can do so much that network TV can't. * out of *****