A funeral home is such a great setting for a horror tale, and I really love how well they used the one in this and how you could subtly tell right away that there was something a little off-kilter about it, it's run by an abusive skinflint with a murderous streak. Well this is definitely one of the darkest ever episodes of the show, but it's not without a little dark humour, the warped Bible quotes of uncle Ezra are quite funny, as is a lot of his dialogue for such an evil-spirited man. The tale begins kind of light-hearted and gets progressively darker as it goes. I thought Moses Gunn was excellent and best thing about the episode as the cruel and money grubbing, then later in the story coldly murderous Ezra Thornberry, probably the foulest villain to ever grace the show. It's genuinely horrible when he injured his own orphaned nephew's back with the crowbar. It seriously makes me wince! Worse follows as Ezra later kills the poor unsuspecting Bobby with his own basketball by knocking him down a flight of stairs and then desecrates his corpse by first draining him of blood on the mortuary slab while humming to himself in a truly chilling way, and then by using an electric saw to remove Bobby's long legs because he won't fit into the cheap knock off coffin that started all the trouble. To me it's all a bit of an unbelievably horrific sequence! Ezra is such an unrepentantly nasty person that eventually everyone turns their backs on him, and then when he's quite alone in the hell that he's created for himself, his vengeful nephew comes-a-callin' from beyond the grave... I also liked Teddy Wilson as Clyde the gentle organ player who leaves in quiet disgust when he knows of Ezra's crime but cannot prove it. Jon Clair was also quite good and sympathetic as the unfortunate Bobby. The character goes from positive and a little naive, to bitter and angry at his abusive uncle. A most heartbreaking and suspenseful little scene is the one of Bobby's death, where the newly crippled boy slowly and painfully drags himself up the mortuary steps to his doom. The finale of the episode is one that always stuck in my mind and is one of my absolute favourites, the way it's put together with the brilliant driving score, the rising atmospheric fear amid the incredible sound mix, the timing, the colour scheme, all of the magic put together...it blew me away, took me right back to exactly where they wanted the show to be, like I was watching a loving live-action homage to the EC Comics of the 50s. It's quite amazing how perfectly and classically creepy that ending really is, it's my favourite one, and this is most definitely one of my favourite ever episodes, I think it's fantastically put together with a sadistic villain you can't wait to see get his very just desserts and a pitch and picture-perfect ghoulish ending, absolute series classic. Rip! X
Review of Fitting Punishment
