Episode: “Gotcha!”,
in which Saul Rubinek takes his girlfriend up on her offer to play a game
called “Gotcha!” and really, really ends up wishing he hadn’t. Bradbury was the
king of purple prose, but in the short story that inspired this episode of his
anthology series, he really worked his tendency to over-describe to his
advantage, crafting an utterly terrifying sequence devoid of any concrete
action. A shadow flits here. A shape appears in the corner there. That sort of
thing. My love for that story (featured in another post that I posted today...now that’s love), which is essentially about how finding out
something unsavory about your significant other can really ruin the giddy joy
of new love, is probably why I’m fond of this episode even though its full
wallow in eighties cheese is awful. The music! The hair! The interior decorating! Ghastly! And don’t expect me to explain the weird
Laurel and Hardy theme that runs through the episode. Brad Turner doesn’t come
close to recapturing the blood-chilling terror of Bradbury’s game of Gotcha!,
but the director hardly embarrasses himself. And just look at that scary face
in the photo above. It’s scary!
