Episode 9: Cutting Cards

Episode 9: Cutting Cards

Original Airdate: April 21, 1990

Written By: Walter Hill, Mae Woods

Directed By: Walter Hill

Starring: Lance Henriksen, Kevin Tighe, Roy Brocksmith

Gambling used to be something frowned upon to polite society for its sleazy nature and often diabolical hold on the addicted, malfunctioned members of the community that once were called family. Las Vegas was a crater hidden in a radioactive wasteland that mere mortals without mob ties dare not invade. Atlantic City; merely an eyesore curtained only by greater sights across the Hudson and on the shores of the bright boardwalks. By today's standards, gambling transcends black-balling as an art and sport form, finding national television coverage in various formats as well as trendy infomercials that are as educational as they are enlightening. 

When one gambles on slots, cards, or in a mathematically charged game of chance, they're typically leaving the odds in favor of the house and putting their savings on the line for a string of luck. But when one gambles against a fellow gambler, they're engaging in a battle of wits and words that can leave a man battered, bloodied, and humbled. For our two leads in the desperately greedy "Cutting Cards," they'll be leaving nothing to chance: except life and limb. 

"I don't need no intro to Sam Forney." -Reno Crevice

Reno Crevice (Lance Henriksen) has stumbled back into town looking for a little good luck to send him a long way.  Crevice, a noted gambler and avid poker player, is greeted warmly by the staff at the bar but wants to make his way back to the dealer's room for a shot at Sam Forney (Kevin Tighe), a reported big shot who no man is daring enough to face heads up. No man, of course, except for Crevice, who claims to have a long history with Forney that includes several victories and more than a few bitter battle scars. 

As Reno heads to the back table, a feeling of uneasiness is cast over the club with he and Forney exchanging barbs about their rough and sorted past. Forney attempts to call Reno out on his current "down-on-his-luck" situation, but Crevice bluffs with a large sum of money that Forney's greed, and manhood simply can't resist. The first game is dice, and as simple as it may seem to leave the fate of this bet up to chance, it is only the torrid beginning. 

"They don't come around here anymore. I cleaned them all out. I guess they weren't used to my kind of competition." -Sam Forney

"Cutting Cards" found its way to the screen thanks mostly to executive producer, writer, and director Walter Hill, who absolutely adored the idea of two men waging war in a most trivial manner. Hill, who previously worked on the season one episode "The Man Who Was Death," brought his brand of simple storytelling back to the series with a slow, tension-filled ride that stars horror favorite Lance Henriksen as well.Henriksen and Hill worked together quite often, leaving Hill's work with a great feeling of impending doom (especially if the character in question is Henriksen's).

Henriksen plays wonderfully opposite to Tighe's role as Sam Forney, and even though the two men are polar opposites in regards to how they got their reputations, they each mirror each other perfectly, making rooting for one over the other a near impossibility. In this kind of high-risk game, Writer/Director Hill tries to purvey that very message by implying that these two are simply too evil, even towards each other, to ever be trustworthy or heroic. Seeing them get what they deserve in between ounces of amazing dialogue is only fitting. 

"You wanna fuck with me? You wanna duel? Alright, let's do it. Russian Roulette." -Reno Crevice

After the roll of the dice proves inconclusive, Reno loses his cool and calls for a .44-caliber pistol to settle the score. What started as a "loser leaves town" match has turned into all-out madness as Sam and Reno reconvene in the streets in an effort to blow each other away. As the tension mounts, they each take turns pulling the trigger against their own temple and brow-beating the other as only a nemesis could. This game of chicken boils over into unspeakable rage when only one shot remains with no suicide apparent.

Reno, last to act, shows how much of a man he is by pulling the trigger and revealing the final shot to be a dud. Both Sam and Reno are terribly unsatisfied, accusing each other of cheating in a game that is otherwise unbreakable. When a final, conclusive game is called for, Sam suggests the aptly-titled "Chop Poker." For those unfamiliar with the concept, it doesn't take long to understand. A dealer menacingly shuffles the deck over a meat cleaver with the intention of not only dealing out the cards for each and every torturous hand, but also the pain to the loser of such a dastardly game. 

"No chips, no pot, just play the hand and see where it falls." -Sam Forney

The game is a simple 5-card draw poker, but with one exception: the loser of each hand loses, at minimum, a finger from the blade of the cleaver. The first to quit, be it from pain or fear, will be the loser and will never be allowed to show his face again. Things start slowly, with Reno taking the upper hand (mind the pun) after showing a set of Queens to best Sam's two pair (tens and eights). With no hesitation nor remorse, Reno takes off Sam's right pinky finger. On the second hand, Reno continues his winning ways with a Full House (Aces over Sevens). 

By the third hand, Reno believes himself to be in full control until he's bested on a pair of tens by Sam's pair of Jacks. And it goes on like this. Sickly and slowly, Sam and Reno continue to destroy each other as neither are willing to relent to the other. In the final moments, we cut to the two facing off in a different sort of game: checkers. They're playing in what appears to be a hospital, each with gowns on and lacking several appendages. And unsurprisingly, they're still arguing over who stands tall, even without legs.

"I told you, I've always been a lucky kind of guy." -Reno Crevice

Parallels to the EC Source Material: 

"Cutting Cards" was originally published in Tales from the Crypt #32. In this version, the names have been changed to Gus Forney and Lou Crebis, but the basics remain the same. Gus and Lou jump straight into the game of death when they play a game of high card (instead of dice), yet both come up with Aces. When the two change the game to Russian Roulette, the same outcome befalls the characters as it did in the episode. 

In a slight change, they alternated who won hands, whereas the first two in the episode belonged to Reno (named Lou in the comic). At the end of the day, however, both ended up in the same place as was originally intended, even maintaining a clever joke about passing the chewing gum for one last zing.

Horror Alumni Roll Call: 

-Lance Henriksen (Reno Crevice) is a popular horror and science fiction actor whose credits include Mansion of the Doomed, Damien: Omen II, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Visitor, Piranha Part Two: The Spawning and anthology film Nightmares. Of course, all of that was before his biggest breakouts in The Terminator, Aliens, Near Dark, and Pumpkinhead. In the 90's, Henriksen appeared in Alien 3, The Pit and the Pendulum, Man's Best Friend, and an episode of The X-Files. As if all that isn't enough, he continued to make waves, appearing in Scream 3, The Mangler 2, The Invitation, Madhouse, Alien vs. Predator, Hellraiser: Hellworld, and two more Pumpkinhead films. There's about a dozen films in there that weren't name, so you've got a lot of catching up to do.

-Kevin Tighe (Sam Forney) managed to avoid horror for most of his career until participating in an episode of The Outer Limits and the Stephen King miniseries Rose Red. In 2009, he returned to the genre with an appearance with the horror all-star cast of My Bloody Valentine 3D.

-Roy Brocksmith (Bartender) is making his third appearance in nine Tales episodes. In fact, by once again playing the bartender, one could infer that this story and "The Man Who Was Death" take place in the same town during the same time period.

-Diane Cary (Hostess) appeared earlier in her career in V and V: The Final Battle, keeping with television until a recurring role in Forever Knight.

-Allan Graf (Driver) made most of his keep as a stunt actor throughout his career, notably appearing in Poltergeist, RoboCop, Total Recall, and a recent episode of Supernatural. 

-Alisa Christensen (Blonde Woman) may have had a very brief appearance in this episode, but it's worth noting that she also made acting spots in several B-movie projects, notably Troma films Terror Firmer and Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV.

-Walter Hill (Director, Writer) worked with Lance Henriksen numerous times in his career, not just this episode. He helped write Aliens, Alien 3, and is working currently on the sequel to Prometheus. As previously mentioned, Hill was also an advocate of action pictures, directing both installments of 48 Hours and The Warriors.

-Mae Woods (Writer) is more of an assistant to Walter Hill, but does have three screen credits in writing, all for Tales from the Crypt. 

Number of puns delivered by the Cryptkeeper: Four (though his love of alliteration is at an all-time high).

In Summation: "Cutting Cards" clocks in at just over 20 minutes, making it easily the shortest episode in the Tales from the Crypt production run. But the perfection of this episode comes in the very succinctness of such short breaths. Who knows where our two lead protagonists (or is it antagonists) would be if they hadn't reached to such depths so quickly? You don't need to look too far to realize how deceptive, greedy, and deadly the game they continue to play will become. Even without limbs, they prove to be a continued danger to one another and society, so the briefer the experience around them, the better life is apart from them. You almost get the sinking feeling that this Cold War will never end, continuing with each generation of hard-headed kin like some kind of macabre Montague vs. Capulet street fight. The gun doesn't have to be loaded in only one chamber. You could easily place a bullet in all six to see what the end result for two addicted gamblers will be. 

-Benjamin M. Benya

Episode 8: The Switch

Episode 8: The Switch

Original Airdate: April 21, 1990

Written By: Michael Taav, Richard Tuggle

Directed By: Arnold Schwarzenegger 

Starring: William Hickey, Rick Rossovich, Kelly Preston, Ian Abercrombie, Roy Brocksmith

To what lengths would you go for love? Not money, power, greed, or glory, mind you, but love? For Carlton Webster (William Hickey), a wealthy geriatric living through his remaining years, he would do almost anything he had to do. Carlton is completely and totally in love with a young woman named Linda (Kelly Preston) and seems fully intent on bringing her youthful exuberance into his home with a marriage vow. Though his butler Fulton (Ian Abercrombie) warns that she may only be out for his money, Carlton has no intention of advertising just how wealthy he is, or how he will only marry her if it is true love.

When Carlton visits Linda with said proposal on the table, he deflects the value of his property and is instead scorned by Linda's all-too-obvious refrain: you look too old. In denial of his current predicament (and perhaps science and logic as well), Carlton intends to visit a plastic surgeon to remove as much of his age as is possible. But he become dissatisfied with the lack of immediate gratification he would get and pursues other options to completely rebuild his face for the youth Linda so desires. And he'll go to any lengths to capture that glory.

"Life is cheap, doctor. But youth, youth is very, very precious." -Carlton Webster

Carlton eventually finds himself a mad doctor (Roy Brocksmith) willing to perform a controversial operation wherein he will receive the face of a young man named Hans (Rick Rossovich) for a nominal fee of one million dollars. Recognizing that the overall sum could bankrupt him, Carlton is blinded by his lust and proceeds with the front to science, nature, and general decency. Thinking he has succeeded, Carlton visits Linda once more with his new features, but only stands to horrify her further thanks to his intermediate changes.

Carlton's return to the doctor's laboratory finds him even deeper in debt as he requests a new torso and an upgrade on his face. Surgery continues to be a flowing success as the doc and Hans milk the old man for all he's got whilst Carlton continues to upgrade his youth, so to speak. Now, his entire upper half is that of the ripped Hans he met earlier, and all it cost him was $3 million cash. Things with Linda begin to turn around when Carlton takes her out for weightlifting and a walk on the beach. Unfortunately, since he only covered the top half, Linda finds herself further repulsed when things get hot and heavy. 

"But your face, it's so different and bizarre, and your body is still old and decrepit." -Linda

Arnold Schwarzenegger became the first full-fledged celebrity to step behind the camera and direct an episode of Tales from the Crypt, and it feels as if he couldn't have been pegged for a better interpretation. "The Swtich" delves into a warped world where beauty equals power and money can be had from anyone willing to sell from their own devices. It isn't short on sympathetic characters or morality plays; quite the contrary, in fact.

You find yourself feeling for the lead's desperate and blinding love all around him. He'd do anything for his beloved, making William Hickey a more than appropriate fit for the role. The man reeks of sorrow and the inclusion of an almost disconnected Kelly Preston adds to the calamity. At the time of filming, Tales from the Crypt had taken off after an impressive first run to levels that made HBO quite a profit. Bringing in Schwarzenegger may have felt like a money gouge, but he did a more than serviceable job with an intriguing and almost ironic plot.

"Love conquers all." -Carlton Webster

The dark spiral continues from here on out. Carlton's continued pursuit of Linda leads him to spend more and more of his database away in an effort to make himself look and feel young. As cryptically predicted by the mad doctor just scenes earlier, the parts continue to come from Hans whilst Carlton transforms into a completely different person...on the outside. Is love as blind as Carlton Webster assumes it to be?

Linda has other ideas. His lower body becomes unsatisfactory. Then, his manhood itself is called into question. The pressure never seems to mount high enough for Carlton to think twice about his continued existence, leaving his butler Fulton to leave him after the pool he pulled his salary from runs towards a shallow demise. As the doctor continues to take from Carlton Webster, Carlton Webster continues to believe he's growing into the reflection of perfection for Linda.

"Love can also be blind, sir. I just pray you're not the only one it conquers." -Fulton

The final minutes of the episode play out like a typical cat and mouse affair. Carlton is persistent, cunning, and untamed in his quest towards the lovely Linda's heart. But with each passing hour and day, he's slipping further and further away from the reality of the situation. Carlton loses his grasp on all of reality and falls madly into a stuper that, by the time he's free to break out, he's made a grave set of decisions that there is no going back from.

When he proposes to Linda one final time, he must come to grips with the idea that her aspirations and desires have made a drastic change towards a man with financial stability and valor. That man appears to be the old Carlton, except he's introduced as Hans, and we're left to watch in horror as our fledgling romance goes down the tubes once and for all.

"You're nice, Carlton. But I needed a man of financial means who could make me comfortable for the rest of my life." -Linda

Parallels to the EC Source Material: 
"The Switch" was originally published in the EC Comics release Tales from the Crypt #45 (though it was a story from The Witch's Cauldron). And, not just to make this section shorter, but the whole story is identical to the original. The perfect companion!

Horror Alumni Roll Call: 
-William Hickey (Carlton Webster) portrayed various characters in four decades of film and television outside the Crypt. He appeared in both the Tales from the Darkside movie and television show as well as the film Puppet Master. Late in his career, he appeared in The Outer Limits, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and posthumously in Knocking on Death's Door. He is, however, best known for his role in Wings as another Carlton: Carlton Blanchard.

-Rick Rossovich (Hans) used his good looks to land roles in The Terminator and Spellbinder prior to his appearance in this episode. Later, he made appearances in horror/sci-fi mash-ups like Future Shock and the straight horror picture The Evil Inside Me.

-Kelly Preston (Linda) caught one of her first big breaks in the Stephen King adaptation of Christine. She had a cameo appearance in the cult classic From Dusk Till Dawn and would later appear in her husband's (John Travolta) work of Scientology science fiction, Battlefield Earth.

-Roy Brocksmith (Doctor) is making his second appearance on this list in as many seasons. He was known for appearing in both Arachanophobia and Total Recall. He also did episodes of Star Trek, Red Dwarf, and the children's anthology program, Eerie, Indiana before his death in 2001.

-Ian Abercrombie (Fulton) had hundreds of acting roles before his death, but horror fans remember him most for his part in Army of Darkness. He was also apart of Battlestar Galactica, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Catacombs, Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge, Addams Family Values, Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman, Star Trek: Voyager, Babylon 5, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars television show, just to name a few projects.

-Renata Scott (Female Patient) was in one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the film Stepfather II. 

-Mark Pellegrino (Punk) found a lot of minor horror work along the way, including an episode of The X-Files and the films The Lost World: Jurassic Park as well as The Number 23 and Fear Itself. He is probably best known, however, for playing Lucifer in the show Supernatural.

-Kendall McCarthy (Doorman) was also apart of the cast of Ice Cream Man with Clint Howard.

-Peter Kent (Muscle Beach Trainer) was good friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger, thus landing him roles in nearly every Arnold movie (which is too many to list). He was also in Ragewar, Re-Animator, Dead Heat, and various made for TV horror pictures.

-J. Patrick McNamara (Dr. Thorne) was notable for having made it big over a decade before Tales with his appearance in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He was also in The Fury, Phantasm II, and an episode of the spinoff Freddy's Nightmares. 

-Arnold Schwarzenegger (Director) is a household name and doesn't need much of an introduction. To list his contributions to action and Sci-Fi would be a paltry catering to your needs, so just know that he made the apocalyptic thriller End of Days.

Number of puns delivered by the Cryptkeeper: Two (though Arnold jumps in with a few as well)

In Summation: What "The Switch" lacks, if anything, is true horror and terror. The story is about normal people driven to extreme and irreverent means to get what they want. And of course, in true Tales/EC style, they find a complete irony of their situation when things go awry. Love is as blind as Ray Charles. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

-Benjamin M. Benya

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