I guess it’s true that a light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and despite season four of Tales From The Crypt being probably the most consistent batch of soul searing stories the Crypt Keeper has delivered thus far, it seems that the fourth go-round has finally withered and succumbed to age and lumped it’s weaker offerings at the back end of the batch. In some ways, it’s totally fitting, as Elliot Silverstein’s “Curiosity Killed” also deals with the degrading, caustic effects of growing too long in the tooth.
If you haven’t been keeping up, Silverstein has frequented the Crypt before, as the director of Cat Ballou helmed the season 3 entry, “The Reluctant Vampire”; a quaint, but rather busy entry that overcame any shortcomings by being surprisingly sweet. However, sweet isn’t the word that comes to mind when dealing with an episode about a pair of hateful oldies squabbling over the secret to renewed youth.
Let’s not beat about the bush, after forty-five years of marriage, Jack and Cynthia are a couple who fucking hate each other. In fact, the two pensioners have been bickering, arguing and threatening each other for so long, it’s less of a union and more of a decades-long hate campaign caused mostly by the fact that Cynthia has grown increasingly bitter about her advanced years. Picking on her traumatised husband for every single thing he does (whether he’s actually done it or not), their animosity has actually increased thanks to the fact that they’ve taken their RV into the woods for a camping holiday with Jack’s old war buddy Harry, and his spouse Lucille.
Needless to say, Harry and Lucille have a far better relationship (not exactly hard) and they have something of an ulterior motive for inviting Jack to these particular woods. It seems that Lucille dabbles in voodoo and the time has come for a certain flower to bloom in the area that can help the human body regain its youth. Harry feels like he owes his friend a solid after Jack saved his life during Guadalcanal, but all conspire to keep the awful Cynthia from discovering what they’re up to. However, you should never underestimate the nosiness of a mean old lady, and after witnessing Harry harvest the bulbs from the corpse of his murdered ex-wife, she believes that this whole trip was orchestrated to bump her off.
However, once she discovers that Jack, Harry and Lucille all plan to be young again while leaving her to wither away, she enacts a hurried vengence that sees her stealing some potion for herself while spiking the main batch with vodka. The result is Jack, Harry and Lucille painfully aging into dusty husks leaving Cynthia free to regain her youth – however, Jack’s dog probably hates her even more than his expired master did, so she doesn’t have long to enjoy her new vitality before she’s torn to shreds…
Maybe with some clearer direction and less busy performances, “Curiosity Killed” could have been a contender for one of the more interesting and personal stories the show has ever delivered. The last time Crypt noticably dealt with moody pensioners raging against the passing of time was Mary Sheldon’s “Collection Completed” way back in season one, but rather than focusing on a freshly retired M. Emmet Walsh gradually going insane, it’s both Kevin McCarthy and Margot Kidder nagging each other into oblivion. The episode actually has a lot going for it despite featuring yet another black-woman-with-a-Jamacian-accent-being-into-Voodoo trope, but frustratingly, Silverstein tries to go too deep into overblown camp when a bit of straight drama might have proven to give the story far more impact than it ultimately does. Weirdly enough, one of the aspects that makes the episode work is also the exact same thing that eventually torpedoes it.
With every actor plastered in varying degrees of puffy old-age makeup, the standout here is Margot Kidder who, thanks to the layers of latex and an extremely convincing old woman voice, is utterly unrecognisable as the actress who was so iconic as Lois Lane in Superman. As she hobbles across the screen, humiliating, emasculating and continuously screeching at her husband, she truly is evert inch the odious, embittered crone, and cult legend McCarthy gives as good as he gets, hollering back with the frustration of a million henpecked husbands. However, the issue is that Silverstein has them often do it at the same time, and the constant shouting over each other not only swamps out a lot of the dialogue, but ends up being genuinely annoying.
This also means that while you lavish all the necessary hatred on Cynthia, it’s fairly impossible to feel for Jack either, which kind of leaves us in a moral limbo – especially when you discover that Harry and Lucille have murdered Harry’s ex-wife in order to provide the necessary corpse to grow the voodoo ingredients. Having an episode where every single character lacks impressive amounts of empathy isn’t new in Tales From The Crypt (in fact, most of the time it’s vital), but it feels that maybe someone within the episode should have been somewhat likable just to make the ending more tragic.
Also, the episode has some storytelling issues that results in a little confusion. There’s seems to be a lot of moving parts in order to deliver the characters, explain the ritual and deliver the payoff, but rather than keep things simple, Silverstein has his characters wander around incessantly, making things needlessly complex. As a result, a few important details slip through the cracks such as the exact nature of Harry murdered ex, or the history between Cynthia and Jack’s dog, which proves to be actually important when setting up the twist (she’s been abusing it over the years, hence that final act mauling). Also, there’s a few other issues that chip away at the overall quality, such as some of the characters not looking particularly young after their transformation – and why would let the notoriously petty Cynthia run free with the knowledge that she’s not going to get de-aged when you’ve left your highly delicate potion sitting out where anyone can get at it?
Still, alongside those pretty good old-age makeups, there’s some cool disintegration effects after Jack, Harry and Lucille discover too late they’ve been duped, and a neat little gore gag as we have a closing pan over Cynthia’s dog-ravaged remains. But unfortunately, “Curiosity Killed” ends up being something of a weak ending to a fairly strong season despite featuring a decent amount of plus points.
While “Curiosity Killed” certainly isn’t the least season four has to offer, it’s a shame that a stronger episode wasn’t chosen to play us out with a bit more pizzazz. In fact, it’s a bit odd that a season with so many good episodes would play out its final two weeks with a pair of markedly lesser offerings. Still, Kidder’s old bitch routine is to be cherished as the Crypt Keeper’s fourth batch of tumultuous tales enters retirement.
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