Trust us, that is NOT what you think it is. Not even this show would sink to that kind of horror.
Crypt Keeper: (dressed as a beatnik and seated before an audience of skeletons; in a beatnik accent) Hey, cats. I call this one "Painted into a Coroner Blues". (over a jazz and bongo accompaniment) "When I think of you, my heart goes flopsy. As I contemplate your sweet autopsy. Your skin is green and blue, whatever would I do; without my fine cadaver. The love in which I know I'll fall starts with the unkindest cut of all." (the audience applauds) Thank you, thank you. They don't call me the creative writing corpse for nothing. Thank you. My next poem is a little ex-terror-imental number I've been working on. I hope you like it. It's about a real ghoul dude named Clyde, who's about to try a little die-ku of his own in a vile verse I call: Staired in Horror.
Clyde Beaudreaux, a man on the run from the local sheriff and an angry mob, flees on foot through the Louisiana swamp before finding his way to an old, decrepit mansion. He persuades the building's sole occupant, an equally decrepit old woman, to let him hide out until the coast is clear. Clyde claims that he had to flee after the sheriff caught him in a relationship with his daughter, but the sheriff soon arrives at the front door with the truth: Clyde is wanted for armed robbery and the murder of a shopkeeper. The old woman sends the sheriff away, saying that Clyde hasn't come by.
As Clyde is about to cave her skull in with an antique pistol, the woman tells him not to bother, as he will need her to show him the way out of the swamp in the morning. She offers to let him stay the night, but asks him to stay downstairs while she sleeps upstairs. After she goes to bed, Clyde wanders toward the stairs and finds a beautiful young woman looking down from them. She introduces herself as Lillian Charbonnet, and warns him not to climb the stairs, as the mansion has a peculiar set of "rules". He goes to pour drinks, but is shocked to find the old woman coming to him in Lillian's place. At his angered insistence, she begins to lead him up the stairs and tell the truth.
During the Civil War, Lillian's husband Harlan had gone off to fight for the Confederacy, leaving her alone. One day, a handsome young gentleman came across the mansion, whereupon Lillian invited him in. Driven by the loneliness Harlan's departure had left her, Lillian and her visitor began to make love in her bedroom. When Harlan came home and caught them in the act, she snatched up a pistol and shot him. With his dying breath, Harlan placed a curse on the house to get revenge on Lillian, as well as all gentleman callers who aimed to romance her. The curse makes it so that no young man can ever climb the stairs, nor could Lillian descend them in a state of beauty.
Clyde realizes that the old woman is Lillian herself, and that the stairs have reverse aging effects on each of them - she ages as she descends, he ages as he climbs. They discover that they both retain their youth as long as they remain between floors, and start to make love on the stairs. When they are interrupted by the sheriff's return, Lillian sends Clyde to the second floor so that he can age and appear unrecognizable to avoid capture. The trick works, and after the sheriff leaves, Lillian hurries upstairs to get Clyde, only to discover that he has gone up to the attic in search of another way out.
Clyde discovers far too late that the curse applies to the entire house. He is left lying on the attic floor, ancient, withered, and barely able to move. When the door slowly swings open, he musters all of his strength to "scream" in horror at the very sight of Lillian, who is now a baby and unable to help him.
Tropes:
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Lillian explains that during the Civil War, she had been alone at home while her husband Harlan was off fighting in the Confederate Army. When a young gentleman stopped by, she invited him in and the two of them started making love in her bedroom. This ended badly when Harlan returned home from the war alive and caught Lillian and her lover in bed together, leading him to put a curse on both her and their house.
- And I Must Scream: Clyde manages to evade the sheriff, but by climbing into the attic, he's aged so much that he can only crawl feebly in an attempt to move. According to the Crypt Keeper, it took him years to find a way out of his situation.
- As You Know: The sheriff tells Lillian about Clyde's crimes to inform her, and the audience, of why he's being hunted down like a dog.
- The Atoner: Lillian has spent every moment since Harlan cast the curse on their house reflecting on why she did what she did, left with nothing but time to stew in the guilt.
- Baby Morph Episode: The episode's ending has Lillian regress to a baby by Harlan's curse as she reaches the attic to find Clyde.
- The Bad Guy Wins: A posthumous, partial example. Harlan's curse works perfectly, keeping Lillian young only when she's upstairs and preventing her from finding happiness. At the end of the episode, the curse continues to affect the house.
- Beatnik: The Crypt Keeper plays one in his framing segments, where he recites some morbid (and at the end, physical) beat poetry.
- Bedroom Adultery Scene: How Harlan discovered his wife's infidelity and was subsequently killed, which led him to put the curse on the house.
- Big Fancy House: The house where the story is set, which dates back to the Civil War at least. It's also cursed so that anyone who goes upstairs either grows older or younger depending on their gender.
- Big "NO!": The elderly Clyde utters several of them as he sees Lillian approach him as a baby.
- A Bloody Mess: As Clyde and Lillian walk up the stairs, the camera reveals that a painting, part of the wall, and part of a mirror splattered with Harlan's blood, having never been cleaned since the day he died. Lillian herself despondently reminisces of how the blood was everywhere that day.
- Bottle Episode: The episode is set entirely inside Lillian's house and the swamp that surrounds it.
- Can't Use Stairs: Harlan's curse intends for any man who tries to come upstairs and have sex with his wife to rapidly age so long as they stay there, with Lillian having the opposite happen to her when she comes down.
- Cobweb Jungle: The interior of the house is covered with layers of dust and webbing, illustrating how it's been largely untouched since the 1860s.
- Covers Always Spoil: The episode's cover clearly spells out the ending in advance.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Clyde tells Lillian that the sheriff is hunting him out for dating his daughter. The sheriff disproves his claim by revealing that he's wanted for murder.
- A Deadly Affair: Harlan was killed by his wife upon accidentally catching her in an affair, but he managed to put a curse on Lillian and the house before dying.
- Deep South: The episode is riddled with Southern scenery and references. It's set in the outskirts of a Louisiana swamp town, everyone has the requisite accent, protagonist Clyde is revealed to be on the run from the sheriff and his posse for killing a shopkeeper, and Lillian's husband Harlan was said to have fought for the Confederacy over a century ago. Even the sountrack is appropriately Southern-styled.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- He had been shot, admittedly, but as Lillian tells Clyde before they start, Harlan didn't realize people can have sex on the stairs between floors, thus the curse not affecting them.
- Clyde almost murders Lillian when her back is turned, only for her to say that if he does kill her, he'll be left with no-one to tell him how to get back out of the swamps.
- Downer Ending / Belated Happy Ending: The end of the episode reveals that Harlan's curse extends to the entirety of the house, as Clyde has turned himself into an ancient old man when he reaches the attic. Lillian is unable to help him get back downstairs, since she regresses into a baby when she reaches the attic herself. However, the Crypt Keeper assures us that Clyde did manage to make it out of the attic after a few years, and is currently waiting for Lillian to "gruesome." Considering that anyone inside the house is effectively immortal, he has nothing but time.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: The sheriff hunting Clyde sounds like one of these, considering he's R. Lee Ermey.
- Dying Curse: Harlan, Lillian's husband, was shot by his wife when he caught her and her lover in bed and nearly killed said lover, and he planted the curse that affects the house with his last breath.
- Everyone Lives: No one dies onscreen in the episode. Clyde is said to have murdered a shopkeeper before the episode began, but that's as far as it gets.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: The sheriff's dog Gator keeps circling Lillian's house while Clyde is hiding out inside it, bringing the sheriff himself back to the place.
- Gator is apparently able to also detect the curse Harlan put on the house, since he goes from barking to hoarsely wheezing when he starts climbing the stairs, then runs down whining.
- The Farmer and the Viper: Lillian takes pity on the injured Clyde and lies to the sheriff to keep him safe. He rewards her by trying to bash her head in, but she stops him from doing so, able to sense what he was up to.
- Fate Worse than Death: Clyde vows that he'd rather kill himself rather than turn old and useless.
- Faux Affably Evil: Clyde, who murders a shopkeeper offscreen at some point, puts on an act of desperation and injury to trick Lillian into letting him in her house, lies about why he's being hunted by the sheriff, and prepares to kill her when her back is turned. He ends up slowly turning over a new leaf when he learns Lillian's backstory and genuinely falls in love with her.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Lillian has been stuck inside her cursed house ever since the days of the Civil War, so she's not familiar with modern technology like cars or phones, frustrating Clyde when he asks for said things as a way to escape.
- Flashback: A unique variation occurs when Lillian explains her history and the circumstances of the curse to Clyde; there are no images of any characters, only sounds and dialogue in the locations where they once were, and over paintings of the people in question.
- Forced into Evil: Clyde prepares to bash Lillian's head in so he can escape her house, but she can tell what he was planning while her back was turned. She then tells Clyde that she doesn't think he's a bad guy for being so desperate, not blaming him for killing the shopkeeper.
- Foreshadowing: Notice how the comic cover for the story includes a baby and a decrepit old man, despite the story seemingly having nothing to do with them? That's Lillian and Clyde at the end of the story.
- Fountain of Youth: The house's curse restores the youth of men and women who travel down and up the stairs, respectively.
- Hates Being Alone: Lillian, having cheated on her husband with a stranger just because she couldn't bear the thought of being alone any longer.
- Hot Pursuit: Clyde is introduced being hunted by the sheriff and his posse, just before he comes to Lillian's house.
- Identical Grandson: Gender-flipped and subverted. Clyde sees Lillian on the stairs and assumes she is the great-granddaughter of the elderly woman who let him in. He only finds out the truth when she descends the stairs and becomes much younger.
- Immortality Field: The house's curse renders Lillian and anyone else that might enter immortal, for as long as they choose to stay in it.
- In Name Only: The episode has a completely different plot than the original comic, which was just a standard zombie revenge story that had a staircase play a role in the climax.
- Ironic Echo: As Clyde tells Lillian: "I'd put a bullet in my brain before I get old and useless like you!" The end of the episode has the quote repeat itself when Clyde ends up incredibly aged in the attic.
- Ironic Hell: Clyde brazenly boasted that he'd rather shoot himself than grow as old and useless as Lillian, only to meet that very fate when he enters the attic.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Lillian was quite a beautiful woman back in her day, but she's grown horrifically old in the present. Of course, that's only when she's downstairs.
- Karma Houdini / Laser-Guided Karma: Downplayed. Clyde may not have been arrested for his murder of the shopkeeper or his other victims, but he's left stuck as a withered old man in a dusty attic. Even then, the Crypt Keeper states that he eventually got out of the attic, anyway.
- Lighter and Softer: This story has no onscreen violence or death, and is portrayed as a romantic tragedy involving a two lovers and an enchanted staircase.
- Loophole Abuse: The curse makes it so that no man will ever be able to go up the stairs to make love to Lillian because they would grow too old, nor would Lillian ever be able to go down the stairs to make love to someone there because she would grow too old. In Lillian's words, there's no side effects that can occur by making love on the stairs.
- Military Mage: Harlan is said to have fought in the Confederate Army, and he was able to place a curse on his and Lillian's house as a last act of revenge for being shot and cheated on.
- Missed Him by That Much: By the time Lillian sends the sheriff on his way, Clyde has already moved to the attic, unable to hear her tell him that the coast is clear.
- Moment Killer: Lillian and Clyde prepare to have sex on the stairs as a method of countering Harlan's curse, but it's cut short when the sheriff suddenly returns to the house.
- Nice Girl: Lillian, whose only sins were basically cheating on her husband and killing him to save her lover. When Clyde meets her, she sees he's injured and lets him stay in her large house, even lying to the sheriff to keep him safe. She also believes that he's a good man who didn't actually kill the shopkeeper he is said to have killed before the episode.
- No Indoor Voice: The sherriff issues a concerned and cautious warning about Clyde to the seemingly elderly Lillian in a loud and stoic tone. Given that he's played by R. Lee Ermey, it's only natural.
- No Name Given: The sherriff hunting Clyde down.
- Oh, Crap!: The elderly Clyde lets out a weary "Oh, no!" when he sees Lillian enter the attic as a baby.
- Pistol-Whipping: Clyde gets ready to do this to Lillian when her back is turned, only for Lillian to sense this and point out that Clyde is going to need her to navigate him out of the swamps.
- Police Are Useless: The sheriff has a pretty big bone to pick with Clyde, but he's fooled by Lillian into thinking that he isn't around twice over.
- Rapid Aging: The curse Harlan put on the house results in women growing older when they descend the stairs, and men growing older when they ascend them. Clyde ends the episode aging to the point where he can barely move or breathe when he reaches the attic.
- Scatterbrained Senior: Lillian is initially portrayed as one of these when Clyde first meets her, but she later reveals that she was pretending to throw the sheriff off his trail.
- The Shut-In: Lillian hasn't left her house for a century, and is only alive because her husband's dying curse rendered her immortal as long as she's inside it.
- The Slow Path: Stated by the Crypt Keeper to be how Clyde plans to deal with Lillian's infancy. As he can't die while in the house, he's able to eventually crawl his way over to the stairs after several years and wait for her to age enough that she can physically help him down.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The stranger who came to Lillian's house and was having sex with her when her husband Harlan came home from the Civil War, leading him to be shot by Lillian and curse the house with his dying breaths.
- Southern Belle: Lillian, but only when she's upstairs. Downstairs, she's a silver-haired old lady.
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Lillian was motivated to cheat on her husband Harlan with a complete stranger solely because of the emptiness his absence left her. Considering that Harlan's last act was to curse her and the house for doing such a thingnote , Lillian can easily be seen as one of the most sympathetic cheating wives in the series.
- Tattooed Crook: Clyde is said by the sheriff to have a tattoo of a man on his neck.
- They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: The sheriff warns Lillian about Clyde's crimes, pointing out that he looks just like a normal guy to keep her alert.
- Torches and Pitchforks: Clyde's first appearance in the episode has him being hunted down by an angry mob for killing a shopkeeper.
- Villain Protagonist: Clyde, who has a habit of killing the elderly and was chased by a mob for killing a shopkeeper.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The Crypt Keeper assures us that Clyde wasn't trapped in the attic forever. He says Clyde did manage to crawl out... after a couple of years.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Since her husband's curse keeps her immortal so long as she's inside the house, Lillian, who got sick of it long ago, is left with untold time to reflect on how she brought her fate upon herself.
- The Woobie: Lillian, a sweet and beautiful young lady whose husband left to fight for the Confederacy, leaving her plagued by loneliness and a lack of affection. After having sex with a famished stranger who came to her door, her husband, Harlan, came home from the war and caught her in the act, forcing her to kill him before she could kill her lover. With his dying breaths, Harlan put a curse on the house and herself that turns her into an old hag whenever she comes downstairs, as well as keep her immortal so long as she stays inside the house. Left with all the time in the world and no one to share it with, poor Lillian spends all her time reminiscing about what she brought upon herself.
- Would Harm a Senior: If the sheriff's warnings are any indication, Clyde has a history of preying on old people, primarily to kill them or steal from them because they're so feeble. He even holds an antique sword up to Lillian's neck when she turns old again, demanding to learn what happened to the sexy Southern belle he was just having a drink with.
Crypt Keeper: (over jazz music) Poor Clyde. I guess that's one 12-step program he could have done without. Still, you'll be happy to know kiddies, that our story has a happy ending. Clyde did manage, after a couple of years, to crawl a little way down the stairs, where he waited for Lilly while she grue-some. (laughs) You know what they say, "Age before booty!" My next poem features a rhyming scream I think you'll find interesting.
Audience member: Hey, why don't you sit down?
Crypt Keeper: Uh, excuse me, folks. (he lobs a hammer at the skeletal beatnik, hitting him in the face and making him topple over) Now, that's beat poetry! (cackles)
