I never cared for Treat Williams too much as an actor, but he does play ruthless and charming quite well, and I do totally buy him in this tale as a murderous conman who's just a little too psychotic somewhere to ever love anything but money and who kills anyone whom he suspects of threatening his scheme as he woos and romances one rich old lady after another until they sign over their wealth and then he discreetly murders them and moves on to his next target, until the night when he walks into a trap and finds that all of his past wives have inexplicably returned from the grave to get one last ghoulish midnight rendezvous with their 'beloved' Howard and make him pay for so cruelly playing with their affections and betraying their lonely hearts... Tom Hanks did a decent job directing this episode, and like the directors of "The Switch" and "The Trap", he even puts in a quick cameo, and it's one of the funnest parts of the episode as he gets his pompous head shoved through a TV screen! I really didn't like the weird effect they did when they replay the moment with a triple-cut, which they do again when the young gravedigger gets killed with the shovel, I don't know what they were going for but the effect just looked laughable and was just a cheap way of trying to make violent scenes appear more impressive. I guess it's just a case of the good old E.C. dark karma at work, but I still don't get why the old ladies came back from the dead, there's nothing supernatural that's so much as hinted at in the story, things just take a hard right turn into zombie horror right at the end, and as awesome as it is, it's just a bit confusing. They should have snuck in a quick scene with the gravedigger practicing voodoo or something.. Anyhow I love the ending and I love the makeup done on the zombie biddies, especially the really messed up one that's some kind of puppet, with the mouth full of worms, skeleton arms, and the rotting eye that falls out of the socket, that one was awesome! Always great to see a few zombies grace the hallowed dank halls of the Crypt! To me this isn't one of the best ever season openers of the show but it's still a fun and entertaining little romp nevertheless, I mean what's more horrifying than randy old ladies? It ain't too bad at all for an old wives Tale! X
