Jack Sholder has directed some of my favorite movies like Nightmare on Elm Street 2, The Hidden and Alone in the Dark. Working from a script by Steven Dodd, Jonathan David Kahn, Michael Alan Kahn and Don Mancini, he tells the story of Bobby Thornberry (Jon Clair) being sent to live - but mainly be free labor - for his funeral home owning Uncle Ezra (Moses Gunn), who is already abusing his other worker Clyde (Teddy Wilson).
"There you are sportsfiends. You know dead people like me make excellent point guards. When we can't get off a shot, we simply pass... away that is. Speaking of which, allow me to be your fearleader for tonight's half-time show. It's a putrid playlet about my personal favorite sport... being a mortician. I fittingly call it Fitting Punishment."
Ezra is a horrible person, using water instead of embalming fluid, reusing coffins and stealing gold teeth out of corpses. But the worst thing he does is beat Bobby into a lifetime limp by using a crowbar, as well as selling his Air Jordans to pay for medical bills. Sure, he told people Bobby fell down the steps, but will they believe it when he knocks him down the steps and buries his dead body in a coffin way too small, cutting his legs off to fit his body inside?
Total spoiler warning but I have never seen the reanimated legs of a dead man attack someone while wearing Jordans. What a wild episode.
"Fitting Punishment" is based on the story of the same title from Vault of Horror #16. It was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Graham Ingels. Like many EC stories, it's actually a ripoff of another one, in this case H. P. Lovecraft's "In the Vault." Unlike the comic book, this episode has an entirely black cast.
"There you are sportsfiends. You know dead people like me make excellent point guards. When we can't get off a shot, we simply pass... away that is. Speaking of which, allow me to be your fearleader for tonight's half-time show. It's a putrid playlet about my personal favorite sport... being a mortician. I fittingly call it Fitting Punishment."
Ezra is a horrible person, using water instead of embalming fluid, reusing coffins and stealing gold teeth out of corpses. But the worst thing he does is beat Bobby into a lifetime limp by using a crowbar, as well as selling his Air Jordans to pay for medical bills. Sure, he told people Bobby fell down the steps, but will they believe it when he knocks him down the steps and buries his dead body in a coffin way too small, cutting his legs off to fit his body inside?
Total spoiler warning but I have never seen the reanimated legs of a dead man attack someone while wearing Jordans. What a wild episode.
"Fitting Punishment" is based on the story of the same title from Vault of Horror #16. It was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Graham Ingels. Like many EC stories, it's actually a ripoff of another one, in this case H. P. Lovecraft's "In the Vault." Unlike the comic book, this episode has an entirely black cast.