I don't like dummies, they're nasty. ~So~ creepy. They can be the stuff of nightmares to a child. This is one of those sweet magic episodes, all the way through! Absolutely one of the best, most fun Tales From the Crypt's ever! It's only slightly tarnished by a far too nonsensical finale. Everything else is just perfect. I love The Ventriloquist's Dummy because it begins as one type of episode and becomes a completely different kind of one by the end. At first it plays as a pretty standard evil dummy tale until it gets to the big reveal about Morty the "dummy." At which point the episode very suddenly descends into a mad little maelstrom of insanity, blood, and a demonic right hand... Nobody could possibly have seen the big twist with the dummy coming. You think the obvious: that the Don Rickles character is an insane, split personality ventriloquist, that the dummy is really alive somehow. They're even careful not to spoil it on the little comic book picture the Cryptkeeper holds at the beginning. What is revealed is a truly great twist and a novel surprise, one of the very best in the history of the show. I would have thought that the Siamese twin thing is a rip-off of Basket Case, especially as all the troubles were because the mutant twin couldn't get any! But no, it's taken off some comic, isn't it? I tend to forget that.. I think it's great whenever this tiny genre of horror is brought back every now and then and kept alive this way. X-Files did the same thing with the excellent episode named "Humbug." TFTC itself tried to replicate the magic of the "twin brother reveal" to much lesser effect in the horrible season 5 episode People Who Live in Brass Hearses. When Morty, who is revealed not to be a dummy, but in fact an insane parasitic twin where Mr. Ingles right hand should be, madcap insanity ensues. After a battle of wills with his brother, he is soon hacked free of his moorings, and the episode is thrust into a total cuckoo clock!!! Morty the freak is one scary looking little dude. He's one of the most bizarre freaks you're ever likely to see in any horror feature. He looks a bit like Kuato from Total Recall! It's such a wonderfully loony scene as he hilariously scurries across the floor, insulting Bobcat, and making him madder and madder as he chases him around with a baseball bat! And what's that hysterical thing Bobcat calls him at one point? An "inbred f*****g cabbage patch kid!" Classic. Don Rickles is great in his role as the tortured Mr Ingles. He is of course hilarious, bitter, crazy, then, at peace. In that order. Both him and Goldthwait had good comic chemistry together and for me are both what truly make this episode great. I think it was most likely Rickles who was the voice of Morty, because right at the beginning, when he's doing his standard funny man stand up act, for a split second he sounds just like him. Bobcat Goldthwait is great also, playing a nervous timid wannabe ventriloquist. His character changes radically when he gets all raged up in the tale's best sequence. Both comedians capture both the horror and the humour in the horror, in equal measure very well. The reason I give this silly, sick, and sweet little offering a 9, rather than a perfect 10 is that final scene. That's stupid. It's a step too far, it spirals off into silliness. It makes no sense! How the hell would Morty merge with Bobcat's hand like that? Maybe because he was some kind of mutant he had some weird ability, I don't know... Who cares! Ha, I just love how during the scene there's still a couple of people in the audience watching when most of them have run away screaming! Apart from that, it's a hugely enjoyable episode if you're a fan of evil dummies, and/or evil mutant killer twins. I know I am! They brought the two horror mini-genres together so beautifully. Such a weird, twisted little episode, but I love it so. Thank you and goodnight everybody!
