I like this one, I can enjoy the stories that are centred on themes of artwork and I like how this story gets into just how serious real artists can be when it comes to their work and creativity. I've always tried to put a little bit of my self into these silly things, including all of the uh, magnificence that you see, before you(!) Tim Roth is very good and I will say that it is his performance that holds this entire episode together and makes it noteworthy, but I also reckon that his naturally intense and deep style of acting kinda makes him stick out like a sore thumb in the kooky world of the show. He might have tried playing up to the fun of his rather crazy character a little! But if I didn't know better, I'd say that he looks bored out of his mind. But nevertheless he's still effective as a struggling artist desperate for inspiration who's a former alcoholic who still has major anger issues, and who slowly loses what little sanity he has left as he discovers the deadly muse that gives him what he's looking for: By murdering people and sketching out their last moments... He meets a disquieting and very rich man who's obsessed with imagery of death and who pays him handsomely for his macabre works of art and who urges him to fulfil his what he sees as his greatest potential and deliver his true masterpiece at any price. I think I see some slight similarities to that grimiest of 80s classics "Driller Killer" "Jack" isn't exactly a sympathetic type of guy, as you soon find out in the story he's a pretty ruthless murderer, but there's still something moderately sad about the ending, absurdly hackneyed though it is even by Crypt standards! So the overly-nice girl from his support group who could've possibly been the one to save him from himself, upon discovering just what he uses to paint with, finally gets a clue that she's in over her head and flees in terror, only to promptly get hit by a car and suffer brain damage that requires a very specific kind of doctor to hopefully fix, except then Jack, needing the money for her operation, kills a man in the hospital parking lot in order to 'paint' the results, and he delivers the splatter of gore on a canvas and gets the money, but then it turns out to have been the guy who could've saved her life! And, by leaving his little paint brush at the scene of the brutal crime he leads the police right to him as you see in the great closing shot that has Roth staring right into the camera as the hospital blinds close around his face. You've gotta love that wonderful classic E.C. cruel karmic sense of justice! My favourite thing about this tale is William Atherton of Ghostbusters fame as "Mr.Mayflower", an elegantly sinister fellow who's an avid collector of the depiction of human death and misery of all kinds, and who makes a Faustian bargain of sorts with Jack as he encourages him to give in to his violent impulses if he must in order to create what he considers true art. It's almost as though he wants him to paint his own dark soul so that he can claim it as his own... This is a very straightforward story that doesn't really have any surprises that most won't see coming, but to me it's a very well done, grim and edgy episode of the third season that's very worth seeing once in a while. Later, and please don't ever be tempted into making a killing by making *a* killing!!
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