Just what the hell does director Mary Lambert have against animals anyway? Not only did the filmmaker helm not one, but two Pet Sematary movies which saw various cats and dog eradicated only to be reborn as furry, undead, agents of chaos, but her Tales From The Crypt episode, Collection Completed, also sees various pets targeted by surely the most destructive and restless force in the populated world – a bored white guy.
While Tales’ first season was packed with con artists, gold diggers, opportunistic maniacs and a dessicated corpse with a penchant for atrocious puns, it initially seemed a strange choice to close out the six episode run with an installment about an old, retired couple with nary an ill-gotten inheritance or a crime of passion to be seen, but in actuality, the shift of tone proves to be just the big finish the Keeper’s final tale needs to close his leathery tome in style. Just maybe don’t show it to any animals lovers, yes?
After dedicating forty plus years of his life as a salesman, Jonas now is staring into the uncertain void of forced retirement after being nudged out of a job that’s been virtually his entire existence for the majority of his life. While the aging coot is understandably salty about this turn of events, his peppy wife, Anita, is happy to actually spend some time with her husband, even if, for the most part, he’s a miserable old bastard who is taking his lurch into his golden years incredibly badly.
Making things worse is that despite being the dutiful workhorse for so long, Jonas has never actually considered how loney it can be as a housewife to a man whose soul joy is work. As a result, not only has the old dear gone a little bit… shall we say eccentric – but she’s channeled her loneliness into the adoption of any stray animal who happens past her doorstep. Needless to say he’s stunned to find just how many animal friends Anita has and Judy how much they mean to her.
As time goes on, Jonas gets more and more irate by how well his dottier half treats her furry companions as soon finds that she starting to treat him the same, even going so far to accidently feed him cat food in a sandwich and hiding a headache pill in his lunch so he’ll eat it. Inevitably (for Tales From The Crypt, anyway) the stress of trying to fill his days while his wife seems so blissfully happy with her pets causes something to give and in an act of spite, Jonas starts a new hobby that will no doubt throw the stuffed cat among the pigeons.
With his new love of taxidermy in full swing, Anita is horrified to find that her husband has been gleefully killing and displaying her beloved animals and discovers that once she takes her swift revenge, taxidermy may just end up giving her the tranquil home life she’s been hoping for…
One of the most noteworthy aspects concerning Collection Completed is just how different it is to virtually the entirety of the rest of the first season. Over the past five episodes we’ve seen a glut of scumbags and money grabbers plot, scheme, slaughter and steal just to make a frenzied grab at what their entitled asses feel that they’re owed. We’ve seen vigilantes take the law into their own hands, murderous wives see their murder plots unravel at the arrival of a killer Santa and we’ve seen a man use his special abilities for devious financial gain, but at no point have we spent quality time with and older couple as their marriage and sanity both come apart at the seams. As a result, Mary Lambert’s Crypt entry proves to be something of a welcome breath of fresh air (not literally, or course when you consider the smell of animal poop and dead old person smell is going to cling to that house like a limpet) as it proves to be completely different from everything we’ve seen before. Admittedly that means that Collection Completed moves at a noticely slower pace when compared to, say “And All Through The House”, but while it doesn’t have fiendish plans snaking through it’s plot, it actually ends up being a very relatable, slow burn as a grumpy husband has to face an existence where he actually has to spend time with his spouse.
As a humorous character study, it’s hardly subtle, but the Tales have never been overly concerned with matters of seriousness and as a result, we get the treat of watching veteran character actors M. Emmet Walsh and Audra Lindley bounce off each other like some sort of weird-ass sitcom. The decor is cheap, the performances broard and all it’s missing is the awkward canned laughter; in fact, it’s even got a random neighbour character, Roy, who wears grotesque shirts and constantly wanders in from next door at the drop of a hat to offer useless advice, but while there’s an argument to be made that Collection Completed may have the most satisfying comeuppance of season 1, there’s some actual, real, deep stuff here to mine.
While in both TV and comic form, Tales From The Crypt has always been something of an exaggerated morality tale, there are more nuanced lessons to be learned from the spectacular breakdown of Jonas and Anita. For a start, thanks to the fact that Jonas is something of a neglectful piece of shit, their relationship had broken down long before he started mutilating his wife’s animals and in a telling exchange with Roy, it’s been revealed that Anita’s been fairly “off” for years. Now, I get that the older generations (of which I’m rapidly becoming) have that legendary, cast iron work ethic, but the major downside is that thanks to his obsessive work rate, Jonas not only has no idea how to properly relate to his wife, he actually has no idea – or interest – as to who Anita is as an actual person; something that away from the heightened reality of the show is all too familiar.
Of course, I could get all serious about the nature of married relationships gone horribly sour, but that would mean that I would have time to mention that wickedly funny ending. To be fair, after turning Anita’s beloved bulldog (also named Jonah) into a ghastly remote control toy and decades of general neglect, you’re positively itching for Walsh’s whining curmudgeon to get his – even though it’s never explained how Jonas managed to stuff and mount so many of Anita’s pets without her noticing. But the final sight of a crudely stuffed Jonas, with bugged glass eyes, a stitched on grin and doomed to wear a hideously cheerful suit for all of eternity us incredibly worth it. I’m just hoping that Anita gets to keep some animals wherever the Hell she ends up after commuting murder with Jonah’s own retirement gift.
And with one final wry, creaky aside from the old Crypt Keeper, we close the tome of the first season of the EC Comic adaptation with a sense of real achievement. Considering that approximately 95% of Tales end with karma booting someone clean in the unmentionables, it’s pretty amazing that the all-star procession of directors managed to deliver such an impressive variety of stories and tones considering that they all basically have the same ending. Anyway, see you next next time boils and ghouls – we’ve still got a helluva lot of issues left still to flick through.
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