We open on a guy — let’s call him Chester Caruso (Paul Dooley) — whining into a rotary phone to his unseen wife, Marian. He’s stuck in a blizzard, definitely not cheating (wink, wink and his car is currently being hooked up to a tow truck. Chester leaves his room to wander into the lobby and immediately starts hitting on anything with a pulse. He tells a fellow guest he’s a lingerie salesman and decides to get a room, asking for cottage 7, a place where a murder happened just last week.

Chester walks into his room and finds a woman named Carol (Kathy McLain) waiting for him. She thinks he’s Harry. Instead of leaving or calling the cops, they start dancing. He tells her his ballroom-dancing skills are why he’s called Soft Shoes, and it’s all very surreal and artsy until Chester mentions his wife. Suddenly, the mood shifts from The Twilight Zone to Fatal Attraction.

The woman pulls a gun because Harry or Chester has broken her heart for the last time. Bang! Chester runs to the owner, screaming about being shot and dames with revolvers. The owner just sighs, looks at Chester’s breath and tells him to go sleep it off.

The woman comes back, rambling about the good old days while Chester realizes he’s stuck in a narrative loop he can’t escape. We wrap up with the manager (John Fiedler) and the law (Patrick Farrelly) standing outside, basically admitting the room is cursed. Their solution? Demolish the place.

This shows up in the direct-to-video release Stephen King’s Golden Years, which has five Tales from the Darkside stories with only one — “The Word Processor of the Gods” — written by King. It was directed by Richard Friedman, who also made Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge, Doom Asylum and Scared Stiff and written by Art Monterastelli.