A newlywed couple take shelter in an old mansion in "Lover Come Hack to Me", the fifth episode of Tales from the Crypt from June 21, 1989. Amanda Plummer and Stephen Shellen play the couple in this story which offers a devious twist on the standard tale of a rogue marrying the virginal, nerdy maiden for her inheritance.
It's based on an issue of Haunt of Fear, another horror anthology comic produced by the same people who made the original Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror comics, all three series originally running in the 1950s. The stories in these comics often gave me the impression that the writers just let their imaginations roam wildly not so much out of artistic impulse but because they were always sleep deprived and under a time crunch, needing to produce something quickly. So in this particular story about marriage fraud, we also have the guy encountering the ghost of his new wife's mother, also played by Amanda Plummer, and her murder victim/lover. Since both women look like Amanda Plummer, he believes he's witnessing his wife having sex with another guy. His conclusion is that the younger Amanda Plummer lied to him about being a virgin, apparently forgetting that he'd broken her hymen in the previous scene.
Amanda Plummer was perfect casting and she's both impressively deranged and oddly sympathetic when just deserts are served with excessive brutality.
Tales from the Crypt is available on Shudder.
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