Episode 7: Dead Right

Episode 7: Dead Right

Original Airdate: April 21, 1990

Written By: Andy Wolk

Directed By: Howard Deutch

Starring: Demi Moore, Jeffrey Tambor, Natalia Nogulich

If horror movies, novels, and shows have taught us anything about how to live life and go through the motions, then you must know this golden rule: Never trust gypsies. Whether they be fortune-telling sorceresses or bottom-feeding street urchins, to put your faith in these deceiving minstrels is to eliminate all hope for a better future. They are foreboding warnings of a time in which life will take a turn, most likely ironic, towards complete hellfire.

In this instance, Madame Vorna (Natalia Nogulich) is our prophetic symbol of absolute misfortune, and Cathy Finch (Demi Moore) is our not-so-innocent patsy. Cathy pays a visit to Vorna in an effort to get a simple fortune telling, but discovers that Vorna is much more than a hoax. Vorna's initial vision sees Cathy getting fired from her current job and finding a new one in the same day. A farfetched and completely outlandish premise, Cathy leaves unfazed but is late returning to work from her lunch break, leaving her boss Mr. Clayton (Earl Boen) to fire her on the spot. Sure enough, as she exits, she immediately receives an offer from Al (Troy Evans) to wait tables in his nightclub.

"Every exit is an entrance someplace else." -Madame Vorna

Surprised and curious, Cathy returns to Madame Vorna to learn more of her upcoming fate, only to hear conflicting reports that she will soon marry a man and inherit a large sum of money. Cathy's gold-digging tendencies lead her to believe these prophecies, but she is also warned that he will die violently after receiving the aforementioned dough. With the promise that she will meet him tonight, a large man approaches with an offer of absolute devotion. Enter Charlie Marno (Jeffrey Tambor), a bus of a man with a not-so-subtle appetite for all things Cathy. 

"Are you playing hard to get?" -Charlie Marno

The success of the first season of Tales from the Crypt led the quintet of executive producers to jump headfirst into a profitable second season that would premiere in the late Spring for the Home Box Office (HBO) channel. While the first six episodes made a wonderful trail with captivating and bizarre stories that stuck to their comic book source material, the producers were looking to broaden the horizons just a bit at the onset of the second season. Established television actors had been cast for most of season one, but the star power would kick up a notch with "Dead Right" and several other entries soon after. 

Howard Deutch returned to direct his second episode with headliners Demi Moore and HBO mainstay Jeffrey Tambor. Moore is an all-too-realistic gold digger that doesn't see past her own greed more than five feet. Her destiny is sealed from the moment she takes Madame Vorna's apparitions as truths and disregards any minor (or major) details that could stand in her way. Tambor, meanwhile, is the definition of diminutive and devoted, crossing the line between sleaze and slumber as a bloated buffoon. Without Tambor playing an unlikely hero twitter-pated at the very sight of his future darling, you find yourself rooting for his wretched soul in marital discourse. 

"I ain't got much now, but I got good prospects and I, um, I'm crazy about you." -Charlie Marno

Cathy may find Charlie utterly disgusting, but she presses on several dates with him in hopes that the fortune teller was right. Cathy stretches the lengths of her better judgment and decency by staying with the elephant, even creating a sense of warmth by agreeing to marry him. Charlie, ecstatic and increasingly grotesque, continues to push Cathy for more as their relationship wears as paper thin as it can. Cathy has put herself through countless dinners, dates, and awkward conversations, yet the continued guarantee of Madame Vorna's prophecy leads her to believe it is all part of the plan. 

Her agreement is predicated on the knowledge that someone in Charlie's family is rich, believing that they will soon pass and leave Charlie a great fortune. Her realization that she may have to go through with even more dedication and romance, even the act of sexual intercourse, shows what great lengths Cathy's masquerade escalate towards. The days and weeks pass by as Cathy plays housewife to her husband's insatiable delights. She cooks, she cleans, and Charlie Marno lives up to the fat slob stereotype he's been saddled with all through life. Cathy's patience has disintegrated, and now she's turning to Madame Vorna for definitive answers.

"He's just a fat, penniless pig. That's all he'll ever be!" -Cathy

Her last visit to Madame Vorna reveals that she takes a particular glee in Cathy's disposition, but warns that the prophecy of his inheritance is still very much real. And then, out of the blue, the pieces start to fall into place. Cathy's visit to the Hudson Automat cafeteria reveals that she is their one-millionth customer, giving her a prize of a cool million dollars instantly. Feeling she no longer needs to live through this charade with her new riches, she confronts Charlie with the news of not only her winnings, but her true feelings on Charlie's depressingly awful lifestyle. 

Charlie begs and pleads to keep her, acting like a puppy left out in the rain. But Cathy remains staunch in her beliefs, and her riches, leaving Charlie with few options on the matter. As she departs, he unexpectedly pulls a knife and proclaims that if he can't have her, no one will. His repeated stabs at the heart of his wife leave Charlie to receive his last rites on death row while Madame Vorna watches the reports on television in absolute vindication. 

"Vorna is right. Vorna is always right." -Madame Vorna

Parallels to the EC Source Material: 

"Dead Right" was originally published in the EC release SHOCK SuspenStories #6 (which, itself, featured one of the most controversial covers of the EC era). The story is, nearly even word for word, identical in it's adaptation for television. All characters and scenes remain the same, right down to the bitter end. In fact, the only big difference (and we're really nitpicking here) would be the name of the cafeteria where Cathy wins her riches.

Horror Alumni Roll Call: 

-Demi Moore (Cathy Marno) qualifies as one of the bigger names to appear on an episode of Tales from the Crypt to this point. She got her big break in 1982, starring in the horror film Parasite before getting real recognition as a late member of the Brat Pack and in the classic Ghost.

-Jeffrey Tambor (Charlie Marno) is one of the more notable character actors of television and film, appearing in hundreds of different productions since the 70's. He had a role in the spoof film Saturday the 14th, as well as the 80's version of The Twilight Zone. But his horror luster would take a backseat to his two biggest television contributions, HBO's The Larry Sanders Show and Arrested Development.

-Natalia Nogulich (Madame Vorna) continued the trend of television stars on Tales with various appearances in both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She even did individual episodes of Charmed and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, but broke free of her typecasting in the made-for-TV film Locusts.

-Troy Evans (Al) found a way to play a law enforcement officer in nearly every horror and sci-fi movie he'd been in, including Deadly Dreams, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, The Lawnmower Man, Demolition Man, The Frighteners, and the Stephen King miniseries The Stand. He even has a credit in a second episode of Tales, though not as a cop.

-Kate Hodge (Sally) may only make a brief appearance in this episode, but her horror lineage lives on with Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, The Hidden II, and the series She-Wolf of London.

-Earl Boen (Mr. Clayton) has a dizzying screen credit list that includes such sleepers as The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. But as horror comes and goes, Boen found himself cast in the Troma film Chopper Chicks in Zombietown in 1989, The Dentist in 1996, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003.

-Andy Wolk (Writer) would do more directing than writing for the genre, returning in 1991 to direct a season three episode of Tales as well as dozens of other TV shows throughout the last two decades.

-Howard Deutch (Director) made this his second Tales episode behind "Only Sin Deep." He was also at the helm of an episode of the SyFy Network's Warehouse 13.

Number of puns delivered by the Cryptkeeper: 2 (He mostly just jokes about himself, not that this is any better).

In Summation: What have we really learned here? If you're watching "Dead Right" for the very first time, you'll see a classic example of Tales from the Crypt ripped straight and perfectly from the pages of the EC counterpart. But what we're really focusing on here is the constant struggle curious and often times greedy folks must deal with when their contemplative prophecies become full-grown realities. Believing in your dreams is one facet of adolescence that becomes harder and harder to shed as you grow up and evolve through time. Breaking free of these trends is, in essence, the easiest way to avoid civil disappointment and see new opportunities behind every door. Maybe that's what Madame Vorna was really warning Cathy of when she mentioned that every exit is simply an entrance elsewhere. Too bad Cathy couldn't escape the malignant tumor she implanted in her head that everything would tilt in her favor if she simply saw this fortune as profit instead of doom. And perhaps that's why, by the conclusion of this grim, deceitful tale, we're left wondering just what the future holds for each of us as well. 

-Benjamin M. Benya