Man, why does Mary Lambert hate cats so much?

The last episode of season 1, this starts with the Crypt Keeper saying, “Before I get to tonight’s terror tale…I’d like to introduce you to my pet, Peeves. He has a terror tale of his own. Tonight’s skin-pimpling story is about a couple with their own pet peeves. I call this chunk of chilling charnel chatter “Collection Completed.””

Based on the story in The Vault of Horror #25, written by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein with art by Graham Ingels, this is not the story to check out if you love animals.

Jonas (M. Emmet Walsh) is retiring after 47 years of working at a tool company. He didn’t want to be done, but that’s the way it went. He’s supposed to be relaxing, but he soon learns that his wife Anita (Audra Lindley) has kept from being lonely all these years by having animals all over the house.

She starts treating him like one of them, giving him his pills in food and feeding him cat food. She even names a dog after him, which is the point he goes insane and starts killing all of her animals and stuffing them. Yet when he tries to kill her cat Mewmew, she uses the gold hammer Jonas was given for his retirement to take care of him. And then she stuff him.

This episode was written by A. Whitney Brown, who some of you may remember from Saturday Night Live.

With that, we end the first season of this show. Anyone interested in season 2?

Directed by Tom Holland and written by Steven Dodd and Michael McDowell (Beetlejuice, Thinner), “Lover Come Hack to Me” is based on the story “Lover, Come Hack to Me!” Haunt of Fear #19. That was written by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein with art by George Evans, colors by Marie Severin and lettering by Jim Wroten.

“It’s good to have you back, you horror-hungry humans. You know by now who’s here to feed your fear. It’s me, the Crypt Keeper with another flesh-creeping scream story for your shivering pleasure. I’m calling this bite of bitter bile: Lover Come Hack to Me. So plump up that coffin pillow and settle back your bones. We’re going to take a little ride to honeymoon hell!”

Peggy (Amanda Plummer) has married her fiancee Charles (Stephen Shellen), who informs her aunt Edith (Lisa Figus), who worries about her rich niece that she’s out of a place to live after the honeymoon. On the way to that vacation, their car breaks down and they end up in an abandoned house where they make love and notice a gigantic axe on the wall. Charles actually falls for her, overcome by a woman he was never attracted to. That night, Charles has a nightmare where he watches Peggy kill another lover. It’s actually her mother and he tells her about what he saw when he wakes up. It was all not a dream and he pulls out a gun. There are no bullets and she kills him, secure that he has given her the gift of a daughter and that she won’t need a man ever again.

Amanda Plummer would play a killer again — spoiler — in So I Married an Axe Murderer.

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall… who’s the fearest of them all? Looks like I just bought 7 years’ bad luck! Speaking of bad luck, it’s time for another nasty little terror tale from my crawly collection… and this one’s got a message, too. It’s a story about greed, death and a girl, who learned that beauty… is Only Sin Deep!”

This story originally appeared in Haunt of Fear #24. It was written by Otto Binder and drawn by Jack Kamen.

Sylvia (Lea Thompson) is a call girl who sells her beauty to a pawn shop operator named Joe (Britt Leach) so that she can get the money she needs to lure Ronnie Price (Brett Cullen) into marrying her. Joe uses a plaster cast of her face to bring his dead wife back and tells her in a few months, if she doesn’t pay him back, her face will start to lose its looks. The problem is, she forgets when the money is due and suddenly needs a hundred thousand to get her face back. By this point, no one recognizes her, not even her rich new husband, who she shoots to get the cash. But alas — it’s way too late to fix anything.

Thompson’s husband Howard Deutch (Pretty In Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, The Great Outdoors) directed her in this story and she was friends with Cullen for a long time, which made the love scenes somewhat hard to film. This episode was written by Fred Dekker and Steven Dodd.

I have to confess, I’ve had a crush on Lea Thompson forever and seeing her be a cruel woman who kills a pimp and uses a rich man, well, that adoration is not leaving me any time soon.

“Poor Sylvia, eh, kiddies? Guess she heard the old saying, “if looks could kill”… so she did! Haha! Just goes to show ya, if you wanna sell yourself, take a look in the mirror, first. Eurgh! Well, see you next time, boys and ghouls!”

“Good evening, fiend fans, and welcome to my crawly crypt. This little drama is about one of life’s unexpected pleasures: dying, that is. Most of us only get to do it once, and it’s all over before you can really enjoy it. But one man did get to die again. And he liked it so much, he started doing it for a living. This is the story of Ulric the Undying, a sideshow performer who found death not only fun, but profitable. In fact, he’s dying to put on a show for you… right now!”

Originally appearing in Haunt of Fear #21 in a story written by William Gaines and Al Feldstein and drawn by Jack Davis, this is the tale of Ulric the Undying (Joe Pantoliano), who has been given the nine lives of a cat by Dr. Emil Manfred (Gustav Vintas). Or eight, as the cat had to die to get its gland.

Working in a sideshow, Ulric dies for money over and over, assisted by a barker (Robert Wuhl) and Coralee (Kathleen York). He’s not to be trusted, as he kills Manfred and instead of being about research, these shows are now just for cash. Money that Coralee steals after stabbing him, but he has a few lives left. How many? You’ll find out soon.

Directed by Richard Donner and written by Terry Black and Steven Dodd, the show creator, this is an episode in my head when I think of this show. It gets everything that makes it work — bad behavior is rewarded with a horrible ending for the villain — and is pretty funny, too.

It’s hard for me to be objective about this episode as this story — which originally appeared in Vault of Horror #35 — is also my favorite part of Amicus’ Tales from the Crypt movie. No matter how good this is, I mean, I wrote a song once called “What Are Those Purple Bruises On the Throat of Joan Collins”?

“Ho, ho, ho, kiddies! Just your old pal the Crypt Keeper having a little holiday fun. Why else would I be in this getup…unless there was a Claus in my contract? In fact, I’ve got some Christmas goose for you…goose bumps, that is. Yes, indeedy. A little terror tale, chock-full of holiday fear…I mean cheer, of course. So get a gander of a Yuletide yelp-yarn that goes a little something like this ‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house.”

Elizabeth Cayman — not named Joanne Clayton from the original movie version, while the comic story’s protagonist is unnamed — is played by Mary Ellen Trainor, the mom from The Goonies and the kidnapped woman who sets Romancing the Stone in action) has just killed her husband (Marshall Bell) and is keeping it from her daughter (Lindsey Whitney Barry). What she doesn’t know is that a killer (Larry Drake) has escaped the mental home and is considered extremely dangerous. She’s pretty rough herself, much more capable than the other two versions of the character even if they share the same fate.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Fred Dekker and Steven Dodd, this episode is actually closer to the comic — Elizabeth is blonde — than Amicus was. There’s even a reference to EC publisher Willam Gaines — it takes place in Gaines County — and the cop’s name is Feldstein, which is for Al Feldstein, the reason for so many EC Comics stories.

Perhaps the best part of this episode is the Crypt Keeper dressed as Santa, which is something that has gotten me through so many holidays.

If you’re wondering why it looks so good, just look to who did the cinematography. Dean Cundey.