"Cigarette Burns" is the eighth episode of the first season of Masters of Horror. It originally aired in North America on December 16, 2005. Synopsis Deeply in debt to his dead wife's father, rare-films dealer Kirby Sweetman (Norman Reedus) has less than a month to produce $200,000 to save his small theater. An old cinephile, Mr. Bellinger (Udo Kier), hires him to find the sole print of a rare 30-year-old film titled La Fin Absolue du Monde (). The film supposedly sparked a homicidal riot during its premiere, after which it was destroyed. Bellinger leads Sweetman to a hidden room in his mansion, which contains an emaciated, pale man (Christopher Redman) in chains. The wounds on the man's shoulders appear to be the source of a pair of angelic wings. The chained man explains that his existence is bound to that of the film. Bellinger offers Sweetman $100,000 to find the film, which Sweetman increases to $200,000. Sweetman's first lead is a reclusive critic who wrote a review of the film. The critic, who has become obsessed with the film to the point of madness, gives Sweetman an audiotape of an interview with the film's director. Sweetman listens to the tape and hallucinates his wife's suicide. The following day, Sweetman meets with film archivist Henri Cotillard (Julius Chapple) who tells him that he was the projectionist at a secret screening of the film. He was spared death and insanity because he turned away as the film played. Eventually, he tried to stop it but blacked out, only to wake up with his left hand burned. He sends Sweetman to a contact, a filmmaker named Dalibor (Douglas Arthurs) who might know where the film is. Sweetman is seized, injected with an anesthetic, and blacks out, waking up tied to a chair. The filmmaker explains to Sweetman that an angel was sacrificed in the film, and the evil of that horror affects all who view the film. Sweetman experiences another vision, and, when he comes to, he finds himself holding a machete. The filmmaker has his throat slashed. Before the man dies, he directs him to Katja, the director's widow. Sweetman tracks down and speaks with Katja (Gwynyth Walsh). She gives Sweetman the only remaining copy of the film. When he asks how the director died, Katja reveals that he died in an attempted murder-suicide that she survived. Sweetman brings the film