Korman's Kalamity
When drawing monsters leads to drawing blood.
Crypt Keeper: (illustrating a Droste Image of himself) Oh... Hi there, fright fiends. How do you like my rancid rendering? Not bad for an amateur. Hopefully, it will give you an inkling of what tonight's fungusy photo-play is about. Because long before my eerie offerings appeared on your silver screen, (pulls out a stack of old Tales From the Crypt issues and puts them on his table) they were a magazine called, get a load of this, "Tales From the Crypt!" So tonight, let's take a behind-the-screams look at a struggling artist named Jim Korman, who one day got a little too... drawn into his work.
Jim Korman (Harry Anderson), a cartoonist who works for Tales From the Crypt, grows immensely frustrated at Mildred (Colleen Camp), his domineering nag of a wife. Since one of her biggest peeves with Jim is the fact that he is unable to give her a child, she forces him to take experimental, non-FDA approved fertility pills. Soon after, policewoman Lorelei Phillips (Cynthia Gibb) is saved from an attempted rapist's late-night ambush when a monster suddenly appears out of nowhere and tears the offender's head off. Having heard that similar monsters were recently sighted throughout the city, and after seeing the same monsters on an issue of Tales From the Crypt, Lorelei visits Jim, whom she believes is making the monsters come to life. As Jim tries to decipher his connection to the monsters, he also struggles to juggle his developing feelings for Lorelei while avoiding Mildred.
Tropes:
- Accidental Hero:
- The monster with the overbite helps itself to the first person he can grab. Said person turns out to be an attempted rapist.
- Both versions of Mildred qualify. The real Mildred is about to kill Jim for being unfaithful, only to be distracted by the sudden arrival of her monstrous counterpart. The monster soon menaces Jim and is just about to grab him, but then Mildred openly insults it, leading it to turn on her. Jim is able to slip off in all the confusion.
- Adaptation Name Change: By necessity, as the original comic story ("Kamen's Kalamity!") was about EC artist Jack Kamen and featured his colleagues. It was completely different from the episode, anyway.
- Agent Mulder: Monsters keep being spotted all over the city. Lorelei sees one for herself and notices that it resembles the artwork on one of the Tales from the Crypt covers Jim drew. She's immediately positive that Jim is somehow bringing them to life, and she's absolutely right.
- Art Initiates Life: Thanks to the experimental fertility pills Mildred has been forcing on him, Jim can make anything he draws come to life if he thinks about it hard enough. As Mildred is being killed by her monstrous counterpart, Jim throws the pills in the trash, ensuring there won't be any more monsters.
- Asshole Victim:
- Mildred, Jim's shrewy nag of a wife who constantly belittles him.
- The man who tries to rape Lorelei. On grounds of being, y'know, a rapist.
- Attempted Rape: The thug in the laundromat intends to rape Lorelei, only to find she's more than capable of defending herself. Before he can try anything else, though, the monster with an overbite makes short work of him.
- Awful Wedded Life:
- Mildred is constantly browbeating Jim, dismissing his occupation as a cartoonist, accusing him of cheating on her, and blaming him for their inability to conceive (to the point of forcing him to take medication that hasn't been approved by the FDA). Despite this, she stays with him purely to deny him the chance to be with anyone else.
- Bob remarks that his wife is even less forgiving than Mildred.
- Badass Normal: When cornered by the thug in the laundromat, Lorelei reveals that she's a cop, then busts out some kung fu moves to knock him to the floor when he thinks her badge is a dimestore novelty.
- Berserk Button: One that applies to both sides occurs when Mildred blames Jim for their inability to conceive a child. In what is notably the only time he asserts himself against her, Jim angrily reminds Mildred that the doctor said it could be either of them, prompting her to give him a Death Glare for even suggesting she could be at fault.
- Blatant Lies: While on the phone, Jim assures Mildred that all the secretaries have gone home for the day, just as a buxom blonde one hands him some drawings.
- The Cameo: The Crypt Keeper himself, as an inanimate puppet, can be seen in the Tales From the Crypt offices.
- Card-Carrying Villain:
- The thug who tries to rape Lorelei at the laundromat is cartoonishly sleazy. Given that he's seen on the same cover as the monster that kills him, it's likely that he was so evil because he was also one of Jim's drawings brought to life.
- Mildred qualifies as well, as her behavior throughout the episode is guaranteed to have the viewers cheering for her death.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Mildred is positive that Jim is only working on Saturday because he has a bimbo on the side at the office, promising to slap her silly in addition to him for being unfaithful.
- Death as Comedy: Mildred's death is played this way, especially as Lorelei shows up at the door when Jim is in a hurry to leave, where we can see her monstrous counterpart killing her in silhouette.
- Death Glare: The not-so-happy Jim and Mildred have these exchanges in the first scene.
- Denser and Wackier: Make no mistake, there are horror elements, but the over-the-top performances, wacky-looking monsters, zany music, and the heavy meta plot make this the most off-the-wall episode in the whole series. There's even a short scene that features a bunch of kids leaving one of their own's dorkier little brother out of their game, and even though one of Jim's monsters appears where they play and Lorelei is called to the scene, it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the episode aside from making it more kid-friendly; just a little more like a comic book.
- Drugs Are Bad: The episode happens because of the experimental fertility pills Mildred has been foisting on Jim.
- The Dreaded: Jim's not the only one who can't stand Mildred. The minute she appears at the door, his coworkers make themselves scarce.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Jim finally manages to get rid of Mildred and goes on a date with Lorelei. If the Crypt Keeper is believed, they'll also be getting married pretty soon.
- Establishing Character Moment: For both sides of the conversation, when Mildred first shows up at Jim's office.Jim: (flatly) Hi, honey.
Mildred: Don't "Hi, honey" me, you pompous jackass! This is Saturday, when do you plan on coming home? - Evil Is Hammy: Mildred, who never once lowers her voice.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Phil thinks that Lorelei's "monster with an overbite" story is crazy, citing other claims like a man who saw a two-headed ogre and a housewife who saw a dinosaur in her Volkswagen. In the next scene, Lorelei comes across covers depicting all three monsters, and decides to pay a little visit to Jim.
- Foreshadowing:
- The opening shot of the episode briefly pans over Jim and Mildred's wedding picture. Mildred has an ear-to-ear smile while Jim looks stone-faced.
- One of Bob's ideas for a story is of an old woman cleaning out her fridge and finding the long-dead corpse of her boyfriend. Jim later draws this same ghoul under Lorelei's direction to test his ability to bring his drawings to life, and it manifests inside an old refrigerator in a junkyard.
- Funny Background Event: Lorelei arrives at the office just as Mildred is being attacked by her monstrous counterpart. She and Jim talk as we see the silhouettes of the ongoing fight.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Mildred getting mauled by her monstrous counterpart is shown as a Funny Background Event and otherwise kept off-screen. After Jim and Lorelei leave, we see a splatter of blood hit the drawing that Jim had been working on.
- Gosh Dangit To Heck: Given the zany, comic-book style of the episode, Mildred largely curses this way.
- Hate Sink: Mildred, Jim's comically obnoxious and overbearing wife. She belittles her husband at every opportunity, rakes him over the coals for not giving her a child, and only stays with him to prevent him from finding any other woman, getting her jollies by watching him squirm. She's ironically taken out of the picture by a more (physically) monstrous version of herself.
- Henpecked Husband: Mildred just won't give Jim a break.
- Idiosyncratic Wipes: Appropriately, the episode's scene transitions resemble a flipping page, given the comic book motif.
- Immune to Bullets: Mildred tries to shoot the monster version of herself as it closes in on her, but it shrugs off every bullet.
- In Name Only: The original comic story was also a Metafiction, but a Self-Deprecation tale about a new artist finding the EC staffers are violent lunatics, becoming one himself, and having an All Just a Dream ending. The episode is about an artist that accidentally develops the ability to make his creations come to life.
- Irony:
- Mildred wears garishly colorful outfits in all of her scenes, despite having a pitch black heart.
- The opening scene is set to a love song about how lucky a man is to be married to a wonderful woman. Jim's situation is the exact opposite of the song's, but it soon matches once he meets Lorelei.
- It Came from the Fridge: One of Jim's drawings is of a slimy, cobweb-covered ghoul emerging from a refrigerator. The creature manifests inside an abandoned fridge in a junkyard, giving a good scare to the kids who were playing there.
- Karmic Death: Mildred is about to fill Jim with lead for being unfaithful, only to end up provoking one of her husband's creations (a horrifically unflattering caricature of herself, no less) and being killed in response. Hell, she was the one who forced Jim to take the pills that made it possible for him to inadvertently bring his drawings to life in the first place. Even the Crypt Keeper points out that Mildred brought about her own death by being an insulting and bitter shrew to a husband that had actually been pretty nice to her.
- Lampshade Hanging: As quoted above, Jim questions his being able to bring his drawings to life thanks to experimental fertility pills.
- Let Me Get This Straight...: Phil, when trying to understand Lorelei's claims of a monster crawling out of a washing machine and attacking the thug who was about to rape her.
- Look Behind You: Subverted. At the laundromat, Lorelei genuinely tries to warn the rapist thug threatening her that something just crawled out of the washing machine, but he thinks it's a bluff. He soon pays for not heeding her warning.
- Metafiction: The episode revolves around Jim, an artist working for the Tales From the Crypt comic book, from which the TV show draws inspiration.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Mildred repeatedly accuses Jim of fooling around behind her back, well-before he meets Lorelei and falls for her.
- My Biological Clock Is Ticking: Mildred desperately wants a child and blames Jim for being unable to conceive. She demands that he take the experimental pills to increase their chances and threatens him to shape up.
- Mythology Gag:
- Jim says that he's burned out on horror comics and suggests trying a romance story instead. The original comic story was about a romance artist having to switch over to horror stories.
- A collection of issues from the original Tales from the Crypt's sister series, Vault of Horror, can be seen next to Jim's wedding picture in the opening scene.
- No Indoor Voice: Mildred, so much so that it's incredibly easy to hear her yelling at Jim over the phone.
- Noodle Incident: Prior to the episode, and Lorelei's encounter with the laundromat monster, Phil tells her (and by extension, us) that there have been all sorts of monster sightings throughout the city for the past month, including a man encountering a two-headed ogre, and a housewife who found a dinosaur in her Volkswagen.
- Offscreen Teleportation:
- The monsters are shown to spontaneously manifest in random places.
- The thug who harasses Lorelei, who may possibly be one of Jim's drawings brought to life, also appears in the laundromat when the power goes out, claiming that he shorted out the fuse box.
- Mildred is suddenly seen in front of Jim's desk as he calls Lorelei and asks her out on a date.
- Off with His Head!: In the laundromat, the monster with an overbite attacks the rapist thug and ends up ripping off his head.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Lorelei, when she passes by a magazine stand that holds issues of Tales From the Crypt on her beat. She gets another one when she finds that said the covers of said issues depict the monster she saw at the laundromat, as well as the two-headed ogre and the dinosaur in a Volkswagen Phil talked about.
- Jim, when Mildred surprises him with a gun.
- Phlebotinum Pills: The experimental fertility pills that Mildred forces Jim to take, which he says aren't approved by the FDA. We don't know what's in them, but they can make Jim bring his drawings to life as a sort of side effect, to the point where quite a few people in the city have spotted monsters recently. When Mildred is being killed by her monstrous self, Jim throws the pills in the garbage to end the possibility of monsters.
- The Power of Love: The episode ends with Jim and Lorelei having a romantic dinner. The Crypt Keeper suspects that this "sappy ending" will soon give way to the happy couple getting married.
- Properly Paranoid: For all the crap she gives Jim about fooling around with other women, Mildred's claims come true when he falls in love with Lorelei.
- Quip to Black: In the laundromat, courtesy of Lorelei's co-worker Phil, when discussing her claims of a monster attacking the rapist.Phil: Have it your way. But if there was a monster, I've got one thing to say about it: he's got one hell of an overbite.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- Upon seeing Mildred's distinct silhouette at the door, Jim's colleagues immediately hide in their offices.
- As the monster with the overbite attacks the thug, Lorelei runs out of the laundromat as quickly as possible, only coming back with a number of cops.
- Seen It All: Jim's utterly bored response to Mildred accusing him of cheating on her indicates that this routine happens a lot.
- Self-Deprecation: Jim remarks that the plot itself, an artist somehow managing to bring his drawings to life, is a really weird leap in logic.
- Shout-Out:
- Lorelei tells Jim that the monsters he draws have been "popping in from The Twilight Zone."
- The episode's page-flipping transitions are borrowed from Creepshow, which was similarly inspired by EC Comics.
- The laundromat thug mocks Lorelei's karate prowess as "Bruce Lee shit".
- Sympathetic Adulterer: As we see in quite a few scenes, Jim is relentlessly hassled and insulted by Mildred, and she spitefully makes it clear she won't ever leave him just to rob him of his happiness. Jim immediately hits it off with the far more pleasant Lorelei, meeting right after a rather unpleasant phone call with the missus.
- Too Dumb to Live: Sure, Mildred. Go right ahead and insult the monster version of yourself that your husband created right before your eyes. That'll end well for you.
- Wolf Whistle: After pitching a story from the perspective of a rabid dog, Art does this in response to a sexy secretary entering, to which she is displeased.
- Woman Scorned: Thinking that her suspicions have finally been confirmed, Mildred grabs a gun out of her car and is fully prepared to shoot Jim for being unfaithful.
- World of Ham: The episode is rife with overacting, fitting its loopy and zany comic-book stylings.
- "You!" Exclamation: Jim and Lorelei, when they recognize seeing the other in passing at the laundromat.
- You Monster!: After Mildred storms out of the office, Bob refers to her as an utter monster. As it happens, Jim agrees and suddenly feels inspired to finish drawing a monster.
Crypt Keeper: (illustrating the closing scene of Jim and Lorelei on their date) Well, how's that for a sappy ending? Was it a little too graphic for you? Oh, well. Next thing you know, Jim and his new ‘gal pal’ will be walking down the easel together. I guess he learned that life imitates art, after all. As for poor Mildred, she learned that death imitates art, too. Maybe if she'd been nicer to him, she wouldn't have ended up... a monsterpiece! (cackles)
