Main cast: Miguel Ferrer (Mitch Bruckner), Teri Hatcher (Stacy), Kyle Secor (Devlin Cates), and John Kassir (The Crypt Keeper)
Director: Fred Dekker
When it comes to women, Tales from the Crypt only recognizes two types: the moron and the maneater. Both lure men to their deaths, although to be fair, the men that meet such fate are often either lecherous villains themselves or are lacking in the brainpower department. You have to admit, though, having several episodes in a row in which the woman is the cause of the havoc that ensues can make one wonder about the kind of complex the folks behind this show have when it comes to the fairer sex.
When The Thing from the Grave opens, photographer Devlin Cates drives like a madman during the night, to stop in front of Mitch Bruckner’s place to demand to know whether “she” is okay. Mitch’s response is to pepper a few bullets into Devlin and oops, dead. And then Mitch buries Devlin a short distance from his house, with the parting words. “And before you go to hell, remember: she’s mine, not yours.” That’s some quality writing there, even for this series. Oh, and what kind of moron buries the evidence of his homicide so close to his place anyway?
It’s then flashback time and we meet Stacy, the “she” that causes the whole mess. She’s a model, and seriously, Teri Hatcher is gorgeous before the Botox syringes and what not descended upon her. Unfortunately, Stacy is written like a flake. She knows Mitch can get nasty, but she goes ahead and starts an affair with Devlin without doing a good job hiding it from the manipulative Mitch. In fact, she is soon arguing with Mitch whether Devlin’s feelings for her are true, when she should at least try to end things with Mitch if he’s really that bad a boyfriend. She comes off like someone who wants the cake and to eat it too.
And while Mitch is a manipulative freak with violent tendencies, there is no reason why he has to do what he does to Stacy for the denouement. He’s already winning, as he has had Devlin out of the picture. He’s on his way to convincing that moron girlfriend of his that Devlin lied to and used her, after all.
And then, the “climactic” moment. Oh god. Does a corpse decompose that quickly? How can it use one hand to bury itself and its victim six feet under? Why didn’t that victim jump into that car and dash off instead of running into the woods like an idiot? And why on earth can’t Fred Dekker, who also wrote the script, come up with a better climactic moment?
The cast is perfectly fine, mind you, it’s just too bad that this episode is a total dud, way too stupid from start to finish in every way.
