Such a strong story in this one and a strongly realised episode all around, pretty much all of the performances are great, the antique and the moral dilemma it raises is very involving and interesting, it feels like it could've made for a superb classic 80's horror movie and is easily one of my favourites of the series. Stephanie Morgenstern is terrific in her role as Rachel Horn, a girl who is paralysed from the neck down after being struck by a car while fleeing from a gang of would-be teenage rapists, and is left broken in more ways than one, until a mysterious and seemingly benevolent stranger offers her the means to avenge herself and take the law into her own hands... I find the early scenes very saddening that show the state of Rachel's life as she spends her days silently staring out of windows as her loving mother tries to keep her spirits up. She's very good as you get a little emotionally invested in her character in a limited amount of time, and you see her slow corruption as she embarks on her revenge and takes more glee in her attacker's deaths with each killing, and as is usually the case whenever the cursed antiques are involved it ends in disaster for all but the Devil. It feels like a real tragedy at the end. I have more sympathy with her than for the punks that she kills - or rather scares with a ghost-like astral projection double of herself until they freak out and kill themselves in fatal accidents. Excellent squishy makeup effects used with the first victim, who manages to liquidate himself with the various acids found in a laboratory! And she truly goes past the point of no return when she single-handedly murders the one boy who tried to defend her and although he may have been a coward for not doing the right thing and turning himself and the rest of them in when the attack happened, he definitely wasn't one who deserved to die. Steve Monarque was also great in this episode that I think was partly supposed to get the audience to perhaps warm a little to his still fairly new character. He mostly carries the plot by himself without any backup from the other characters, and I love the scene where he slams the worst of the boys against a wall and snarls: "How bad do you really want it, pretty boy?" It's a strong moment, and there's no way I could see John De Lamay pulling off the same scene and having you take the character completely serious. But the best performance and my favourite thing about this story would have to be the enigmatic and subtly sinister old man excellently played by John Gilbert who brings real awe and pathos as he plays the perfect eerie stranger with a Faustian bargain and answer to the lost girl's prayers. He was a bit of a tricky character to figure out because he didn't come off as an outright evil villain, but just a humble sort of twisted old man who really seemed to care for Rachel's plight and have her best interests at heart, and he appears genuinely regretful when she ends up dead at the end. Something that bugged me a little was that it got kind of confusing as midway through the episode it's glaringly obvious that the man was some kind of ghost and keeper of the cursed wicker wheelchair who passes it from person to person - but for a lot of the scenes he's there as if he's a regular person and at one point a woman calls him her father? Pff, oh Whatever! His gentle non-threatening demeanour was so compelling, and he made an interesting point about the benefits of the wheelchair and made it sound so clear-cut and easy. He was very persuasive and even manages to manipulate Johnny into giving the chair back to her at one point. And that's something that I really like about this episode and others that are similar to it, that it makes you question if it really is so bad for someone to get revenge against someone who ruined their life? Well I'd say yes and no because she definitely deserved to have her revenge, but she also loses her soul and innocence in the process. And I absolutely love the final scene where the old man reveals his malevolent nature when he laughs and taunts Johnny as he futilely tries to destroy the chair with an axe and reminds him that even if he locks it away and by extension all the antiques, it doesn't really matter in the long run as they're cursed and will long outlive him and will probably one day be released to spread evil and pain once more. I find the closing image of Johnny repeatedly hacking at the chair which merely bounces back to be a pretty powerful visual metaphor for the series as a whole. An exercise in futility... Fare thee well my fellow connoisseurs of the macabre, I'll see you in your nightmares!!!
4 Reviews
Revenge episode
mattkratz15 January 2021
This episode starts off with a teenage girl who becomes paralyzed while trying to escape from some would-be rapists. A cursed wheelchair obtained from a mysterious old man enables her to regain her mobility while getting revenge on her attackers.
I loved the character of Rachel and the revenge scenes, which I found at the same time violent and a little gruesome. It was a little tough to tell whether getting back at them was making her as bad as them. Most of the episode focused on Johnny, whom I feel like they were trying to integrate into show as a regular.
Overall, a very effective episode.
*** out of ****
I loved the character of Rachel and the revenge scenes, which I found at the same time violent and a little gruesome. It was a little tough to tell whether getting back at them was making her as bad as them. Most of the episode focused on Johnny, whom I feel like they were trying to integrate into show as a regular.
Overall, a very effective episode.
*** out of ****
You Want a Little Rape With Your Horror?
Gislef8 December 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Nothing like opening an episode with an attempted rape to get the audience's attention. And that's what "Crippled Inside" does. Yes, rape is horrible. But it goes a bit far and putting real-life horror in the same show that primarily uses Satanic cults and over-the-top villains. Also, it's a bit tropish: the three white boys rape Rachel, and black teen Scott hesitates. So writer Brian Helgeland takes on real-life rape, but makes the black kid sympathetic to avoid real-life racism. Isn't that convenient?
Jack is conveniently out of the country, recovering the Shard of Medusa from last season's "A Friend to the End".
Is it just me, or would anyone else like to see the stuffed armadillo that they keep showing in the title sequence, as a cursed antique?
The episode is pretty effective. There's some effective body gore, as the acid melts Pete's body. The contrast of Rachel as the smiling girl who drives her would-be rapist to their death and slowly realizes the cost of her healing, , is effective. The Old Man (John Gilbert) is an obvious expy for Uncle Lewis, and the actor R.G. Armstrong had moved onto other things and couldn't be brought back. But the Old Man is effective nonetheless.
It also helps that Rachel is a sympathetic victim. Rather than the usual antique users, who are sociopaths and killers. The Old Man provides the role of a corrupter, but even he seems sorry that Rachel is dead at the end.
There are a few plot glitches. Rachel has to kill her rapist wannabes to be healed. The Old Man had a stroke: who did he have to kill? The Old Man grabs Rachel's astral body at one point: so is it a ghost form, or does it have physical presence, or what?
Stephanie Morganstern makes an effective appearance as Rachel. And the episode continues the show's often-seen trend of making the antique user sympathetic. She's raped and crippled, and the wheelchair gives her both healing and a chance to get revenge. We also get to see some of Johnny's rough-and-ready justice: he is initially unconcerned that Scott is repentant, and was an unwilling member of Marcus' rape team.
There's also a lot of moral issues raised, that the show has only touched on before. Like does Rachel deserve the cursed object's healing, if she's only using it to kill the boys who raped her. As in most episodes, her victims are portrayed as scum buckets (Marcus and Ed in particular, but Pete is murdered while stealing). And Rachel is portrayed sympathetically and pitifully, as when she falls out of the bed while trying to go after Johnny after he leaves with the wheelchair
It helps that Marcus is such an unrepentant jerk. He knocks Rachel's mother unconscious and breaks into Rachel's house to rape her long after she's crippled. Even Scott isn't a particularly nice guy, eagerly giving in when Rachel comes onto him at the shop.
"Crippled Inside" is a neat compilation of all the "Can cursed antiques be used for good" moral issues that the show has raised in previous episodes. It doesn't give any neat answers: Rachel is killing would-be rapists, but for a "good" cause. You sympathize with Johnny's anger at the end, when he takes out his frustration on the indestructible wheelchair. It also gives Johnny (and the audience) a feel for first dealing with the antiques, something that was glossed over in the first two seasons.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
Jack is conveniently out of the country, recovering the Shard of Medusa from last season's "A Friend to the End".
Is it just me, or would anyone else like to see the stuffed armadillo that they keep showing in the title sequence, as a cursed antique?
The episode is pretty effective. There's some effective body gore, as the acid melts Pete's body. The contrast of Rachel as the smiling girl who drives her would-be rapist to their death and slowly realizes the cost of her healing, , is effective. The Old Man (John Gilbert) is an obvious expy for Uncle Lewis, and the actor R.G. Armstrong had moved onto other things and couldn't be brought back. But the Old Man is effective nonetheless.
It also helps that Rachel is a sympathetic victim. Rather than the usual antique users, who are sociopaths and killers. The Old Man provides the role of a corrupter, but even he seems sorry that Rachel is dead at the end.
There are a few plot glitches. Rachel has to kill her rapist wannabes to be healed. The Old Man had a stroke: who did he have to kill? The Old Man grabs Rachel's astral body at one point: so is it a ghost form, or does it have physical presence, or what?
Stephanie Morganstern makes an effective appearance as Rachel. And the episode continues the show's often-seen trend of making the antique user sympathetic. She's raped and crippled, and the wheelchair gives her both healing and a chance to get revenge. We also get to see some of Johnny's rough-and-ready justice: he is initially unconcerned that Scott is repentant, and was an unwilling member of Marcus' rape team.
There's also a lot of moral issues raised, that the show has only touched on before. Like does Rachel deserve the cursed object's healing, if she's only using it to kill the boys who raped her. As in most episodes, her victims are portrayed as scum buckets (Marcus and Ed in particular, but Pete is murdered while stealing). And Rachel is portrayed sympathetically and pitifully, as when she falls out of the bed while trying to go after Johnny after he leaves with the wheelchair
It helps that Marcus is such an unrepentant jerk. He knocks Rachel's mother unconscious and breaks into Rachel's house to rape her long after she's crippled. Even Scott isn't a particularly nice guy, eagerly giving in when Rachel comes onto him at the shop.
"Crippled Inside" is a neat compilation of all the "Can cursed antiques be used for good" moral issues that the show has raised in previous episodes. It doesn't give any neat answers: Rachel is killing would-be rapists, but for a "good" cause. You sympathize with Johnny's anger at the end, when he takes out his frustration on the indestructible wheelchair. It also gives Johnny (and the audience) a feel for first dealing with the antiques, something that was glossed over in the first two seasons.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
I ♥ Rachel Horn
kaybennett-9007412 September 2019
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