This one's like Pretty Woman, only ~scary!~ These first season episodes sure do have a distinct eighties vibe to them compared to the later ones, it's uncanny how much the basic style and tone did change within just one year. This episode features a super-eighties makeup montage with an obnoxious beat and whip cracks and panther roars and everything, my goodness.. So I usually find stories that feature themes about inner beauty and masks to be very appealing and interesting, and so for me the plot of this one had a solid premise for it to center on, even if they don't do all that much with it. I also always loved the classic mysterious benefactors with sinister ulterior motives that dabble in dark magics, and Britt Leach in this one was a real doozy as the scuzzy pawnbroker with rotted yellow teeth that made him look especially slimy and loathsome... She must have been a complete idiot to make a deal with a man looking like that, ten grand just for a face mould?! And was she deaf, did she not hear him chanting over that mud bowl? And she knew that he had at least one unhappy customer already! The reason that he was stealing the beauty seemed a little pointless and futile to me, I mean wouldn't it have made more sense if it was so that he could bring his wife back from the dead? To his credit he never actually deceives her though, it's her own fault for being late! The weird masks in his cabinet visual is echoed much later in "Only Skin Deep" only with real faces... Lea Thompson was a blast as the crazy hooker running around shooting everybody! All poor Brett Cullen was guilty of was loving her and then failing to recognise her when she turns into a decrepit granma. "Don't move! I'm calling the police!" He says, yeah that one always works when directed at someone holding a gun.. She was meant to be but I didn't think she was any kind of stunner, she was basically average-looking, no way in hell was she passing for twenty-one, and the cheesy and uneven Brooklyn accent wasn't fooling anyone! I love how it comes together for her at the bitter end, At the bitter end, she totally trapped: It's either stay a hideous old witch and free, or be beautiful once more and go straight to the gas chamber, she's condemned to look like the Cryptkeeper for all her days! I would have took the beauty and fled the country. While she was no innocent and technically got what she deserved, I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for Sylvia in the poignant final scene where she's sobbing and pitifully trying to gather up the shattered remnants of a symbol of the former self that she can never get back again off the cold ground. I thought it was a powerful metaphor and visually poetic, she lost her 'face' in more ways than one... Unlike a lot of others this tale may not end with a bang, but it does have a more lingering and haunting ending than the usual fare. This tale suffers from some poor acting and a bit of a patchy script, but it's still very good and has more than enough charm to make it a worthwhile watch. Vanity will be the death of you!
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