**SPOILERS** Breaking his back by working long and hard hours at the construction site to make things fine and wonderful for his ungrateful wife Joanna, Jennifer Jason Leigh, the good natured hard working but somewhat naive, in what Joanna is planning for him, Clint Goodman (Tim Matheson) is unaware that his wife has been cheating on him. Joanna's having an affair with the family doctor Courtland "Court" Van Owen, William Atherton.
Wanting to have a child to add to his family Clint has been very disappointed in not having Joanna conceive feeling that maybe it was his not her fault, thats about he only bad thing that has happened to him since he married her. What Clint doesn't know is that in fact he did get Joanna pregnant but she had the fetus aborted by, you guessed It, her secret lover Dr."Court". Dr. Court, a Japanese fish and food gourmet, gives Joanna a vile of this poison from a tropical fish that he had, together with her, for dinner. Telling Joanna that it, by putting poison in his wine, will not only kill Clint but make it look like he had a sudden and fatal heart-attack. The next day Joanna, after having second thoughts about doing it, slips the poison into Clint's wine as the two have a toast to their great and happy marriage. Within seconds Clint suddenly goes into excruciating convulsions and falls to the floor as dead as the tropical fish that Joanna, and Court, ate the previous evening. Joanna is to inherit almost two million dollars from her late husbands estate but is so cheap that she doesn't even want him to be embalmed and buys the cheapest and flimsiest coffin, that you can easily put your fist through, that she could find at the funeral home which in the end will do her not Clint, who it later turns out is not really dead,in.
The story reminds me of something that I read in an old "Tales from the Crypt" comic book where Clint raise from the dead, and his grave, and comes back home for a surprise visit to both haunt and finish off his two "killers" Joanna & Court. With the help of the family dog Duke Clint has the two, after he put them both to sleep, locked in the house with Duke keeping them at bay as he sealed all the doors and windows to make sure that they don't escape. The ending is just too much even for a couple of swines like Joanna and Court when Joanna finds out that her "Lover" Court is really trying to do her in, and take off with all the money. The claustrophobia of Court & Joanna being locked in the house, like rats in a maze, had the two play right in to Clint's, wearing a black visor covering his face, hands.
Gut wrenching and horrifying ending that even made you feel sorry for the two slime-balls, Joanna & Court, who ended up where they wanted to put their intended victim Clint Goodman together with the money that was the motivating factor for them wanting to murder him.
Wanting to have a child to add to his family Clint has been very disappointed in not having Joanna conceive feeling that maybe it was his not her fault, thats about he only bad thing that has happened to him since he married her. What Clint doesn't know is that in fact he did get Joanna pregnant but she had the fetus aborted by, you guessed It, her secret lover Dr."Court". Dr. Court, a Japanese fish and food gourmet, gives Joanna a vile of this poison from a tropical fish that he had, together with her, for dinner. Telling Joanna that it, by putting poison in his wine, will not only kill Clint but make it look like he had a sudden and fatal heart-attack. The next day Joanna, after having second thoughts about doing it, slips the poison into Clint's wine as the two have a toast to their great and happy marriage. Within seconds Clint suddenly goes into excruciating convulsions and falls to the floor as dead as the tropical fish that Joanna, and Court, ate the previous evening. Joanna is to inherit almost two million dollars from her late husbands estate but is so cheap that she doesn't even want him to be embalmed and buys the cheapest and flimsiest coffin, that you can easily put your fist through, that she could find at the funeral home which in the end will do her not Clint, who it later turns out is not really dead,in.
The story reminds me of something that I read in an old "Tales from the Crypt" comic book where Clint raise from the dead, and his grave, and comes back home for a surprise visit to both haunt and finish off his two "killers" Joanna & Court. With the help of the family dog Duke Clint has the two, after he put them both to sleep, locked in the house with Duke keeping them at bay as he sealed all the doors and windows to make sure that they don't escape. The ending is just too much even for a couple of swines like Joanna and Court when Joanna finds out that her "Lover" Court is really trying to do her in, and take off with all the money. The claustrophobia of Court & Joanna being locked in the house, like rats in a maze, had the two play right in to Clint's, wearing a black visor covering his face, hands.
Gut wrenching and horrifying ending that even made you feel sorry for the two slime-balls, Joanna & Court, who ended up where they wanted to put their intended victim Clint Goodman together with the money that was the motivating factor for them wanting to murder him.