Main cast: Amanda Plummer (Peggy), Stephen Shellen (Charles), Lisa Figus (Aunt Edith), Richard Eden (Allen), and John Kassir (The Crypt Keeper)
Director: Tom Holland
Lover Come Hack to Me is easily one of the most irritating episodes in the entire Tales from the Crypt series. Amanda Plummer’s squeaky voice becomes even more grating when the script has her mouthing lines that contain the words “perfect” and “love” so often that one can start a drinking game to that. And then there is her character Peggy’s first orgasm scene, which is played for laughs but to such a high-pitched dog whistle decibel that I feel like my eardrums shattering along with the glass panel on the clock.
Peggy seems like a naïve young lady whose greatest dream in life, it seems, is to fall in love with the perfect man and have the perfect wedding night, after which she’d have the perfect daughter for the rest of her perfect life. If you think that sentence is annoying, wait until you watch this episode. “Love! Perfect! Love! Perfect! Love! Perfect!” – don’t blame me if you toss yourself out a window after all this. Anyway, back to this episode – to Charles, Peggy is the perfect mark. He’s married her, and now, he just has to kill her on the wedding night to gain his hands on her money. Her Aunt Edith may disapprove of him, but she’s inconsequential.
A heavy storm begins shortly after they leave for their honeymoon, so the newlyweds decide to spend the night in what seems like an empty rundown house. That’s when Charles realizes that Peggy is not what he thinks she is…
The twist is given away both in the title and the artwork of the episode, so I don’t see the point of hiding it now: Peggy is demented, raised by her equally demented man-hating aunt to believe that, after she’s had the perfect wedding night with the perfect man and conceived the perfect daughter (don’t ask me what happens if she’s not pregnant or she’s carrying a boy), she’d hack her perfect love to pieces in order to preserve the love in its most perfect form. Perfect, perfect, perfect; love, love, love. I tell you, what I wouldn’t give to take a few whacks at the scriptwriter Michael McDowell myself for the pain inflicted on my senses. Love! Love! Love! Perfect, perfect, perfect!
There are a few chuckles to be had from some of the puns and bad jokes here, and despite everything, both Ms Plummer and Stephen Shellen put on appropriately campy performances that match the absurd tone of this episode perfectly. But it doesn’t matter – my senses are fried after one too many “Love! Perfect! Love! Perfect!” and I just want to kill somebody myself.
