Recap / Tales From The Crypt S 6 E 11 Surprise Party

And here's the guest of honor...

(a sign is shown reading "DANGER: UNSTABLE SNOW")

Crypt Keeper: WAAAAAAUUUGGGH! (he crashes into the pole the sign is nailed to offscreen, causing the sign to become crooked; he groans as he tries to get his bearings, revealing that he's dressed to go skiing) Greetings, thrill shriek-ers! Care to join me on the scare lift? Good! Your pal the Crypt Keeper's quite the ex-scream skier. I just love the feeling of going fester and fester. Talk about hack-xhilarating! Which is kind of how the man in tonight's terror tale feels. He's just started down a black die-mond run of his own, in a nasty nugget I call: Surprise Party.

Ray Wells (Adam Storke) seeks to inherit property from his dying father, Desmond. Reminiscing on the last time he talked to his father, Ray remembers that Desmond told him the property he stood to inherit is being willed off to charity. The property happens to be a piece of land, where the ruins of a house that burned down after a tragic accident many years ago still lie. Not paying any attention to Desmond's warnings, Ray kills his father by cutting off his oxygen supply, then burns his unfinished will to get his hands on the property. When he goes off to look at his new inheritance, he is told by a local woman that mysterious lights can be seen every night in the windows of the supposedly abandoned house, thinking the property to be cursed ground. Enraged, Ray storms the place, only to find a motley crew of teenagers dressed in 1970s attire throwing a party inside. As Ray resorts to more and more underhanded means to get what he believes to be a bunch of rowdy kids out of the house that's "rightfully" his, he ultimately learns that he shares a dark and horrible connection to the party and its guests, who make sure he's treated as the guest of honor at a celebration "to die for".

---

Tropes

• Adaptation Name Change: In the comic, the protagonist was named Jerry Adams.
• Adaptational Heroism: The ghostly partygoers. In the comic, they're nice to Jerry up until he tells them his last name, where they immediately spring upon him to enact their revenge (it should be noted that unlike his TV counterpart, Jerry's only crime was being related to their killer). Here, they at least give Ray the benefit of the doubt, and don't do anything to him until he proves to be worse than his father.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the comic, Jerry was just a guy looking for some fun and had the misfortune of being the descendant of the man who deliberately set the fire. Ray, in contrast, murders his own father to get the property he deems he rightfully deserves and repeats the very same actions of his father.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Ray becomes one due to murdering his father for the sake of inheriting a plot of land and the house on it that he covets.
• Asshole Victim: Ray. The ghosts inhabiting the house he "inherits" were all burned alive by his father, so they burn him alive instead. Seeing how Ray is just as bad as and undoubtedly worse than his father, even murdering the poor guy in the hospital, their revenge is justified.
• The Atoner: Desmond's tone as he lays dying seems to hint that he shows hefty remorse for what he did to the house in '73 and must have been aware of the ghosts. He hoped his son doesn't go there.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • In the comic, Jerry goes inside the house looking for fun and gets more than what he hoped for upon arriving there.
  • Ray goes one step further, as he murders his dying father and burns his will since he has his heart set on inheriting a plot of land with a burned house on it. Once he arrives at said house, he ends up getting burned alive when he repeats what his father did.
• Big "NO!": Ray, as he's dragged back into the house and set on fire.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Ray, when Josie can't stop screaming after Frank is shot.
• Blatant Lies: Ray tells the elderly innkeeper about how he inherited the house from his father when he died. A flashback in the next scene reveals that he actually killed his father and burned his will before it could be finallized so he could take the house by force.
• Body Horror: The ghosts have third degree burns on their skin when they reveal their true natures to Ray. There's also the closing shot of Ray's corpse, after the ghosts get revenge on him via burning him alive.
• Cassandra Truth: Any advice Ray is given against going into the burned house goes in one ear and out the other.
• Chekhov's Gun: A literal example comes into play with the revolver Ray concealed in his luggage, which leads him to shoot Frank when he confronts him.
  • There's also the lantern Josie carries upstairs, which she and the ghosts use to light the kerosene they dump on Ray. Ray himself almost uses it to spill kerosene and burn the house down to cover up his murder of Frank and Josie.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Josie dupes Ray into having sex with her because she's tired of Frank's jealousy.
• Dark Secret: Desmond never told a soul about what happened that fateful night in 1973. All he says to Ray is that the place is cursed and warns him never to set foot there.
• Death by Irony: Ray is burned alive by the ghosts of the people who were killed by his father.
• Destroy the Evidence: Ray destroys his father's will so there's no way to stop him from inheriting the house that he declares to be his.
• Do Wrong, Right: What winds up earning the ghosts' ire is less the fact that Ray attempted to murder them and burn the house to cover his tracks, and more the fact that he was doing the exact same things his dad did.
  Frank: (annoyed) You know, Ray, it's one thing to be a jerkoff... (pulls out the bullet in his chest) But you could at least be original about it... (throws it to the floor)
  Ray: (confused) What?
  Josie: (utterly disgusted) Look, Frank, he's even got the same lighter his father used.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The ghosts, who have been trapped in a burned house since they died, are freed from the place after they burn the petty, selfish, and all-around Jerkass Ray alive.
• Entitled Bastard: Ray is a selfish, entitled, and obnoxious human being, who feels that he rightfully deserves to automatically inherit everything his father owns, including the house he warned Ray to stay away from, just because he's his dad's only heir.
• Evil Is Hammy: Ray, who commits patricide in the name of claiming a house he deemed was rightfully his, is prone to angered yelling throughout the whole episode.
• Evil Is Petty: Ray murders his father and burns his will simply to get his hands on a house. That burned down two decades ago.
• Fiery Cover Up: What Desmond, Ray's father, did to cover his murder of Josie and Frank. The blaze ended up killing an addtional 15 people. Ray was about to repeat his father's crime before the ghosts stop him.
• Flashback: As Ray drives up to the house, we get one to the last time he talked to his father. It's framed along the rainy windshield of Ray's car, with Ray occasionally commenting on what we're seeing.
• Forbidden Zone: The burned house is treated as this by the locals of the area where it lies, or at least to the innkeeper, who's felt the reprocussions of Desmond's crime for the last 20 years.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The very first thing Josie says to Ray after he reveals his identity?
    Josie: Damn! Where'd this hunka hunka burning love come from?
    • She later convinces him to treat the party as a sort of "house-warming".
  • The old woman asks Ray if he's related to Desmond when she hears his last name, then tells Ray that she hears music and sees mysterious lights coming from his new property, but she's too scared to check it out. Ray's father also warned Ray to never to set foot on the property because it's "cursed ground".
• Get Out!: Ray spends his first few minutes with the ghosts yelling at them to get out of "his" house, thinking that they're just a bunch of trespassers.
• Ghostly Goals: The party-goers have been waiting a long time to avenge their deaths and get their eternal rest, and the end shows the now-burned house empty, indicating they've finally moved on.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Josie, who invites Ray to have a drink that she calls "Midnight Special", named for the fact that things get "special" when it's drunk after midnight.
• Haunted House: The house that Ray "inherits" from his father Desmond, which the latter burned down in 1973 as he killed 17 people. The ghosts of those 17 people still haunt the place, which they spruce up to reenact the night of the fire. After Ray is burned to death, the ghosts get their eternal rest and the house appears burned once again, albeit with the addition of Ray's charred corpse on the floor.
• Hearing Voices: Ray hears his father's voice when he approaches the house, giving him one last desperate warning that the house is cursed and that he needs to leave.
• "Hell, Yes!" Moment: The party-goers, when Ray introduces himself, celebrate with a victorious "Right on!". We learn why they're so excited to meet him at the climax.
• Hippie Chick: Emma, the first party-goer Ray meets.
• Hope Spot: Ray almost manages to escape the ghosts haunting his new house, even getting out of the place at one point, but one of the ghosts suddenly pops up on the trail and surprises him. Ray falls over in shock and gets dragged back inside by the ghosts, who douse him with kerosene and light him up.
• Immune to Bullets: Ray shoots Frank during a fight in the upstairs bedroom of the house, but he pops back up as Ray's trying to burn the house down to reveal the truth to him, having been playing dead as Ray was spilling kerosene.
• Inheritance Murder: Part of Ray's effort to ensure he gets to claim ownership of the plot of land with the burned house on it is by committing Patricide due to his father intending to have the land and the house donated to charity.
• It's All About Me: Ray is a selfish and entitled piece of shit, who goes so far as to kill his father and burn his will simply to get his hands on a burned house he was set to inherit.
• It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The entire episode is set in the dead of night, during a horrible thunderstorm. The only time the sun comes out is at the very end, after Ray is killed, and the ghosts haunting his so-called house having gotten their revenge on him.
• Jerk Jock: Frank, who is jealous and possessive towards Josie and guys who hit on her. He drops the jealousy, but remains mad when he reveals himself as a ghost, since it's directed at Ray for his unoriginality.
• Kavorka Man: Exaggerated. In the outro, the Crypt Keeper is sitting at a table in a ski lodge with an attentive blonde. Another blonde passes by and makes a point of lovingly addressing him.
• Killing in Self-Defense: Ray tries to claim self-defense after shooting Frank with his gun and making Josie scream uncontrollably.
• Kill It with Fire: The ghosts do this to Ray after pouring kerosene on him.
• Large Ham: Frank, Josie, and the rest of partygoers loudly spout out tired 70's lingo whenever they talk to Ray. It makes sense, given that they died in the 70s, but it's also a façade to hide their true intentions. Even then, they don't ease up on the ham.
• Last Request: Desmond says that all he wants is for Ray to never set foot on the property where he burned that house down.
• Little "No": Ray, when it dawns on him that the party-goers are ghosts that were killed by his father.
• Like Father, Like Son: Played for Drama, as Ray behaves the exact same way as his father did under the exact same circumstance, up to and including instigating a Fiery Cover Up (or trying to instigate, in Ray's case). This ends up sealing Ray's fate.
• MST: Ray recites his previous dialogue during the flashback of him killing his father as he (and by extension, us) reminisces about it.
• Monochrome Past: The flashback of Ray killing his father and burning his will to get the house, as framed along his car's windshield.
• Mood Whiplash: On a dark and stormy night, Ray hears his father's voice in his head telling him to get the hell away from the house, so he brazenly goes in to spite his late father. Once inside, he finds a wild and raucous party straight out of the 70s going on inside.
• Nasty Party: The ghosts haunting the burned house throw a wild party to reenact the night the house burned down, with the intention of killing Ray's father should he return. They settle for Ray instead, likely due to Ray acting exactly like his father under the same circumstance.
• Patricide: Ray murders his own father by way of cutting his oxygen supply, just before he burns his will in order to claim ownership of the land with the burned house on it.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Just before Ray cuts off his dad's oxygen, he tells Desmond "You can't deny me what's mine!"
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The ghosts tear Ray and his late father a new one in the climactic reveal. Desmond for shooting Frank, smothering Josie, and burning the rest of the party-goers to death to cover his tracks, and Ray for repeating the exact same thing his father did in the same situation.
• Rewatch Bonus: The party-goers' jubilation over Ray introducing himself.
  Emma: So, you can see why we've been so anxious to meet you.
• Secret Test of Character: The ghosts reenact the night the house burned down in order to see if Ray deserved their vengeance. He behaved the exact same way as his father, so their vengance was very well deserved.
• The '70s: The (ghostly) party going on inside Ray's "new" house looks like it never left 1973. Everyone there barring Ray is dressed in fashion statements from the 70s and spouting tired slang from the decade, while dancing to appropriate funky music.
• Sins of Our Fathers: The ghosts have been waiting for Ray for a long time. They likely knew that Desmond knew the property was cursed for his crime and he wouldn't dare come back. Since Ray's greed gets the best of him and he kills his own father so he can inherit the house, they settle for him instead.
• Spoiled Brat: Ray is strongly hinted to be one, spending the episode acting like an obnoxious and entitled brat who kills his father and burns his will to claim the house he was supposed to inherit, simply because he wanted everything he had for being his only heir.
• Unfinished Business: Frank, Josie, and the rest of the ghosts are a classic case, unable to reach the afterlife until they kill the man who killed them. They end up ascending when they kill Ray instead, as he already murdered the actual killer, his father, before he came to the house.
• Vorpal Pillow: Ray does this to Josie when she isn't able to stop screaming over his shooting Frank. It's subverted because she was a ghost all along. Of course, this was how Desmond originally killed her.
• Wham Line: Said by Josie after Ray seemingly kills her.
  Josie: I don't think so, Ray!
• Wham Shot: When Ray prepares to light a match after pouring kerosene from the bedroom to the stairs in order to burn the house down and cover up his murder of Josie and Frank, Josie appears on the other side of Ray while Frank, covered in burn marks, takes the bullet of out his chest and tears into Ray, telling him that he could at least have the decency to be original about his revenge, revealing that Desmond killed him with a bullet and suffocated Josie when she was screaming as well.
• Wicked Cultured: Ray is heard singing classical music as he drives to the land where the house sits, after having killed his father and burning his will to take it by force.
• You Keep Telling Yourself That: After Ray shoots Frank, Josie can't stop screaming. Ray attempts to alm her by insisting that it was a case of self-defense, since he was attacked in "his" house. However, he clearly worries it wouldn't be seen that way, as he quickly resorts to smothering Josie to stop her screaming, and then attempts a Fiery Cover-Up afterwards.

---

Crypt Keeper: (sitting in a crowded ski lodge and drinking hot cocoa with an attractive blonde) Poor Ray! Well, at least he went out in a blaze of gory. Still, talk about a pain in the ash! (cackles; another woman comes around slyly waves to him)

Woman: Bye, Cryptie!

Crypt Keeper: As for me, kiddies, I'm about skied out. Not that I didn't have fun, but these boots are killing me! Ow, ooh! (show thats his foot is violently throbbing) Oh my. Now that's what I call the agony of de-feet! (cackles)