User Reviews

I really love this episode it's one of my favourites, I think for what it is it has some well done themes about artistic inspiration and creativity, and there's almost a gently strange atmosphere to this tale of an evil woman who runs a mysterious art gallery that she uses to lure in impressionable young artists to complete her unfinished works of art and regain their inspiration while doing so, only the fiendish Mrs Briar is also sacrificing the girls to her freaky severed voodoo head idol in exchange for eternal life and the final touch they give to the paintings is their very souls! The horror aspect is a very subtle with this tale, the threat is certainly there from Vivian Reis who gave a fine and rather elegant turn as the wicked Mrs Briar, and the most creepy thing about this tale is probably the wizened old severed head that she gets her magic from which I personally found a bit too goofy looking to be scary, especially near the end when the thing comes to life and starts talking! Cody's initial reaction to it makes me laugh, the way she just shrugs it off, perhaps mistaking it for one of the more out there pieces of Art Deco? It's a weird floaty kind of an episode but I love it, I'm enchanted by the ambiance and all the lovely paintings, I love the glowing camera effect they used for Cody's dream sequence, it made the scene look all ethereal and almost like a painting come to life! Great fun and a visually beautiful scary tale of art gone bad that I still love and is for me a real series' gem, it's definitely Picasso to me! x