History Recap / TalesFromTheCryptS3E8EaselKillYa

->'''Crypt Keeper:''' ''(dressed as a stereotypical French artist and painting a still life)'' Greetings, art lovers. Vincent Van ''Ghoul'' here with another morbid masterpiece sure to paint you into a ''coroner''. ''(cackles)'' Hmmmmm. Something's not quite right. Ah, yes. ''(stabs the beating heart next to his fruit bowl)'' Now that's a ''still'' life. ''(cackles)'' Tonight's tale concerns a painter who's tired of people giving his work the ''brush''. I call this pestilent portrait of the artist as a young ''mangler'': '''Easel Kill Ya.'''

Down-and-out artist Jack Craig (Creator/TimRoth) is unable to sell any of his work to any buyer. He also suffers from heavy alcoholism and a violent temper, and regularly attends a support group to help get his issues under control. It's at this group that he also meets and falls in love with Sharon, a kind young woman who wants to help him with his problems. On a seemingly ordinary night, Jack accidentally kills a neighbor who was irritating him. Overcome by a sudden sense of inspiration, Jack takes a photo of the corpse and paints a recreation of the picture. He is easily able to sell the piece to Malcolm Mayflower, a collector of notoriously gory works of art. Mayflower promises Jack a hefty commission for similar works, driving the struggling artist down a dark path that he desperately tries to hide from Sharon.

!!Tropes:
* AccidentalMurder: The first man Jack kills and paints dies in a genuine accident, which came from Jack wanting him to turn his music down. The other people Jack paints... not so much.
* AgonizingStomachWound: Jack's landlady meets her maker by being shoved down the stairs and stabbed on a pair of pruning shears.

* AmbiguousSituation: Regarding Sharon's attraction to Jack, does she love him because she genuinely wants to help him succeed, or is it because her fragile mental state pushes her to enter relationships with obsessive or otherwise abusive people? The fact that Jack reminds her that she's in his support group because she needs to stay away from obsessive relationships is a definite eyebrow raiser.
* TheBadGuyWins: In this case, only temporarily. Malcolm gets Jack to kill three innocent victims so he can own the portraits he paints of them. When Jack is busted by the cops, Malcolm may have questions as to why his contributions have ceased. That is, unless Malcolm pays Jack's bail.
* CollectorOfTheStrange: Malcolm Mayflower collects morbid artworks, and owns the biggest private collection of them in the world.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: When he needs a huge payment to save Sharon's life, Jack heads to the parking lot and, without thinking, kills the first guy he sees. To little surprise, Jack ends up killing the neurosurgeon who was on his way to save Sharon's life, and the girl dies from her injuries hours later.
* DisneyVillainDeath: Jack's punk neighbor dies when Jack accidentally drops a flowerpot on his head while he's leaning against the fire escape, sending him over the rail and onto the concrete.
* DownerEnding: Right when Jack decides to leave his life of crime behind to be with the woman he loves, Sharon is hit by a car and left in critical condition. Jack hurriedly kills a random bystander and sells the resulting painting to Malcolm to get the money needed for Sharon's operation, only to find out that the man he killed was the neurosurgeon who was on his way to save Sharon's life, leaving the poor girl to die from her injuries. Jack is then interrogated by a police detective who holds up his bloody paintbrush. All he can do his give the camera a long, cold look of utter defeat, knowing that his temper and bloodlust have cost him everything.
* EurekaMoment: After painting the corpse of the neighbor he accidentally killed, Jack discovers Malcolm by finding his name in a magazine article.
* EvilBrit: Jack has an English accent, as well as a huge temper and strong bloodlust, but he isn't entirely evil, usually killing people and selling the resultant paintings to Malcolm for desperately needed money.
* FakeOutOpening: The episode opens with one of Jack's benefactors rebuking his "ironic" paintings and telling him to stick to drinking, which prompts Jack to slam a hammer into her head and kill her. This is revealed to be a figment of Jack's imagination, which itself is a recollection that Jack is telling to the group, reminiscing about how beautiful the thought was, but how he ultimately fought back against his obsession.
* FanDisservice: Jack's landlady falling and getting impaled through the stomach with pruning shears.
** During the sex scene, Jack has a hallucination where Sharon speaks in Malcolm's voice and then turns into him, pressuring Jack to let the darkness inside him win. He snaps out of it after he nearly bludgeons Sharon with his alarm clock.
* {{Fanservice}}: Jack and Sharon's love scene, like many sex scenes in the series.

* FatalFlaw: The driving force of all the main characters of the story is obsession. Malcolm's obsession with gory paintings prompts Jack, who himself is obsessed with violence, to kill people and paint their corpses to sell to him. Sharon, who is obsessed with getting Jack to love her, finds out about his killing spree and is killed for gaining his affection. It's even lampshaded at the start of the episode when Jack and Sharon attend Obsessives Anonymous.
* GoodAngelBadAngel: Sharon plays Jack's good angel, insisting that he's a good man who has a heart. Malcolm plays the bad angel, pressuring Jack to continue his killing spree and use the darkness within him to give his works the artist's touch.
* HairTriggerTemper: Jack has an incredibly easily triggered temper. Combined with his bloodlust, this turns him into a burgeoning killer.
* HorribleHousing: Jack's studio/place of residence is barren, splattered with paint, and surrounded by constant noise from the street below. Jack used to think it was romantic, but he doesn't even know why he lives there when he can't stand it anymore.
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Jack's landlady gets pushed down the stairs to her death by her tenant, and impaled through the stomach with pruning shears.
* KarmaHoudini: Malcolm suffers no consequence for turning Jack into a serial killer who gives him new acquisitions to his collection.
** The taxi driver that ultimately kills Sharon is never tried for her murder, either.
* KubrickStare: Jack gives one as he's busted by the police, who have found his bloody paintbrush.
* LoserProtagonist: Jack, who is unable to sell any of his work, mocked by nearly everyone he meets, and lives in a barren studio surrounded by noise and obnoxious neighbors. Is it any wonder why he has the fiery temper he has?
* LoveMartyr: Sharon, who puts up with Jack's emotional abuse of her because she loves him. Jack even reminds her that she attends his support group because she has a habit of getting into similarly obsessive/abusive relationships.
* LoveRedeems: Sharon's love for Jack convinces him to get out of his murderous routine. At least, for a little while.
* LowerClassLout: Jack, a struggling artist who lives in a barren studio owned by a snarky landlady in a noisy neighborhood and lives above an obnoxious punk rocker. He ultimately becomes so enraged with his life that begin killing people and selling paintings of their dead bodies to Malcolm.
* MadArtist: Jack's bloodlust and aggression transform him into one, killing people who piss him off and painting their corpses to sell to Malcolm, even mixing the blood of the deceased into the paintings themselves.
* MadnessMantra: Jack's fictional version of Sharon only repeats "How about this, Jack?", while tormenting him with seductive and provocative poses.
* MiseryBuildsCharacter: Malcolm pressures Jack to continue painting for him by telling him that a person like him will never get any satisfaction from happiness, love, and the other simple pleasures of life.
* MoralityPet: Sharon is Jack's, since she genuinely cares about him and his well-being. For a brief moment, he even decides to stop his killing spree to be with her.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: This can be seen all over Jack's face after he realizes that he killed the only person who could save Sharon, right before the police bust him for his killings, letting the audience know that his life is over.
* NiceGirl: Sharon is a friendly young woman who wants to help Jack make some decent money and take notice of the beauty around him by posing for some of his paintings, and doesn't mind some of his more gory works. She tells him that she and the other members of the group have been watching him fight his inner demons, and encourages Jack to believe that he's a good person at heart. Even if this niceness to Jack is due to her damaged mentality driving her to seek out obsessive or abusive partners (as stated above), she's still a pretty decent person.

* NightmareFetishist: Malcolm Mayflower, owner of the biggest collection of artworks depicting bloodshed, brutality, and death in the world, who pays Jack big money for every new piece he gives to him. Before we even meet him, we see that his gallery (the parts of it not contained in his basement vault, anyway) contains photos of police brutality, a plane falling from the sky, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Nguy%E1%BB%85n_V%C4%83n_L%C3%A9m execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém]], and a sea of emaciated bodies from the Holocaust, the last of which he controversially outbid from an organization known as MOCA, giving us a picture of just how obsessed with death and blood this man is.
** Jack himself relishes his fantasies of killing people, but he keeps them to himself or his support group. He also prefers the morbid artwork he gains inspiration from because Malcolm gives him big money for it. Sharon, blinded by her love for him, doesn't mind the macabre artwork at all.
* NotHelpingYourCase: When Jack returns after finding Sharon glimpsing his secret photographs, he keeps his stoic-yet-menacing tone when he tells her that he isn't that person anymore, then ominously says that he needs her.
* NotQuiteDead: Even after being impaled through the stomach with pruning shears, Jack's landlady still had some breath left in her lungs, trying to stop Jack from killing her.
* OhCrap: Sharon has one when she discovers a paintbrush housed in a jar of blood, then discovers the photos Jack took of his victims, and then the photo he took of her early in the episode, making her believe that she'll be next on his chopping block.
* PerpetualSmiler: Sharon sees the good side of everything, and tells Jack that goodwill and charity will help him reach a better state of mind. Jack eventually calls her out for all her "peace, love, and understanding" jargon when he tires of it enough. She drops the attitude after she finds Jack's photos.
* {{Sadist}}: It's pretty clear that Jack is a closet sadist, especially with the way he describes his vision of him killing one of his clients, and how "beautiful" he thought it was to watch the life leave her eyes.

* {{Sexophone}}: Plenty of it during Jack and Sharon's love scene.
* SexSignalsDeath: Not long after making love to Jack, Sharon is ultimately killed by a taxi in a hit and run.
* ShoutOut: The punk who lives below Jack blares Music/QuietRiot to piss Jack off.
* ShowSomeLeg: Sharon does this while posing for Jack's paintings, both in real life and in his mind.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: In the original comic, the old man the artist sold his paintings to refused to pay him what the operation would cost, so the artist murdered him to steal it. In the episode, Malcolm is more than willing to pay the price Jack asks for.
* StartOfDarkness: Jack accidentally killing his obnoxious punk neighbor by dropping a flowerpot on his head and making him fall from his balcony.
* StarvingArtist: Jack, who has been flat broke for a year after being unlucky in selling his work to anyone. That changes as soon as he accidentally knocks over a flowerpot, which lands on an annoying neighbor and makes the guy fall off his balcony to his death.
* TemptingFate: Jack's landlady asks Jack for help carrying stuff down to the basement, since an old lady like her could trip and break her neck. Cut to the old lady being shoved down the stairs by Jack.
* {{Troll}}: Jack's neighbor, an annoying punk rock enthusiast, blares his music while Jack is working. When Jack asks him politely to turn the noise down, he appears to comply... then plays the music ''louder.''
* ATragedyOfImpulsiveness: Jack kills the first guy he sees in the hospital parking lot so he can paint his death and sell the painting to pay for Sharon's surgery. He never stopped to think it was the surgeon on his way to work.

* VillainInAWhiteSuit: Malcolm Mayflower, the gore-obsessed collector who puts Jack on his path to darkness.
* WorldOfJerkass: Jack may be a hot-tempered serial killer on the rise, but that isn't to say some of his victims are any better, such as Ellen, the promoter who shrugs him off and tells him to go back to drinking, the annoying neighbor who trolls the guy with his blaring music, and his landlady, a snarky, smoking hag who mocks his drunkenness as well.

->'''Crypt Keeper:''' ''(painting a new picture with a severed finger mounted on a stick)'' Well, Sharon's croaking is sure to leave a very bad taste on Jack's ''palate''. What a shame she turned into such a... ''Moan-a'' Lisa. ''(cackles)'' You know kiddies, some artists prefer watercolors, others prefer oils, but me, I prefer... ''(gestures to the camera with his mounted finger)'' '''''finger''''' painting! ''(cackles)''

* DownerEnding: Right when Jack decides to leave his life of crime behind to be with the woman he loves, Sharon is hit by a car and left in critical condition. Jack hurriedly kills a random bystander and sells the resulting painting to Malcolm to get the money needed for Sharon's operation, only to find out that the man he killed was the neurosurgeon who was on his way Sharon's life, leaving the poor girl to die from her injuries. Jack is then interrogated by a police detective who holds up his bloody paintbrush. All he can do his give the camera a long, cold look of utter defeat, knowing that his temper and bloodlust have cost him everything.

* ATragedyOfImpulsiveness: Jack kills the first guy he sees in the hospital parking lot so he can paint his death and sell the painting to pay for Sharon's surgery. He never stopped to think it was the surgeon on his way to work on another patient.

* DeathBySex: Not long after making love to Jack, Sharon is ultimately killed by a taxi in a hit and run.

[[quoteright:240:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mv5bodi4mzy4mmutnzy3yi00yjfmlwewy2mtmwvmztk3ymjmnjbjxkeyxkfqcgdeqxvyntawotcxodc_v1.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:240:Eat your heart out, Da Vinci.]]

Down-and-out artist Jack Craig (Creator/TimRoth) is unable to sell any of his work to any buyer. He also suffers from heavy alcoholism and a violent temper, and regularly attends a support group to help get his issues under control. It's at this group that he also meets and falls in love with Sharon, a kind young woman who wants to help him with his problems. On a seemingly ordinary night, Jack accidentally kills a neighbor who was irritating him. Overcome by a sudden sense of inspiration, Jack takes a photo of the corpse and paints a recreation of the picture. He is easily able to sell the piece to Malcom Mayflower, a collector of notoriously gory works of art. Mayflower promises Jack a hefty commission for similar works, driving the struggling artist down a dark path that he desperately tries to hide from Sharon.

* TheBadGuyWins: In this case, only temporarily. Malcom gets Jack to kill three innocent victims so he can own the portraits he paints of them. When Jack is busted by the cops, Malcom may have questions as to why his contributions have ceased. That is, unless Malcom pays Jack's bail.
* CollectorOfTheStrange: Malcom Mayflower collects morbid artworks, and owns the biggest private collection of them in the world.

* DownerEnding: Right when Jack decides to leave his life of crime behind to be with the woman he loves, Sharon is hit by a car and left in critical condition. Jack hurriedly kills a random bystander and sells the resulting painting to Malcom to get the money needed for Sharon's operation, only to find out that the man he killed was the neurosurgeon who was on his way Sharon's life, leaving the poor girl to die from her injuries. Jack is then interrogated by a police detective who holds up his bloody paintbrush. All he can do his give the camera a long, cold look of utter defeat, knowing that his temper and bloodlust have cost him everything.
* EurekaMoment: After painting the corpse of the neighbor he accidentally killed, Jack discovers Malcom by finding his name in a magazine article.
* EvilBrit: Jack has an English accent, as well as a huge temper and strong bloodlust, but he isn't entirely evil, usually killing people and selling the resultant paintings to Malcom for desperately needed money.

** During the sex scene, Jack has a hallucination where Sharon speaks in Malcom's voice and then turns into him, pressuring Jack to let the darkness inside him win. He snaps out of it after he nearly bludgeons Sharon with his alarm clock.

* FatalFlaw: The driving force of all the main characters of the story is obsession. Malcom's obsession with gorey paintings prompts Jack, who himself is obsessed with violence, to kill people and paint their corpses to sell to him. Sharon, who is obsessed with getting Jack to love her, finds out about his killing spree and is killed for gaining his affection. It's even lampshaded at the start of the episode when Jack and Sharon attend Obsessives Anonymous.
* GoodAngelBadAngel: Sharon plays Jack's good angel, insisting that he's a good man who has a heart. Malcom plays the bad angel, pressuring Jack to continue his killing spree and use the darkness within him to give his works the artist's touch.

* KarmaHoudini: Malcom suffers no consequence for turning Jack into a serial killer who gives him new acquisitions to his collection.

* LowerClassLout: Jack, a struggling artist who lives in a barren studio owned by a snarky landlady in a noisy neighborhood and lives above an obnoxious punk rocker. He ultimately becomes so enraged with his life that begin killing people and selling paintings of their dead bodies to Malcom.
* MadArtist: Jack's bloodlust and aggression transform him into one, killing people who piss him off and painting their corpses to sell to Malcom, even mixing the blood of the deceased into the paintings themselves.

* MiseryBuildsCharacter: Malcom pressures Jack to continue painting for him by telling him that a person like him will never get any satisfaction from happiness, love, and the other simple pleasures of life.

* NiceGirl: Sharon is a friendly young woman who wants to help Jack make some decent money and take notice of the beauty around him by posing for some of his paintings, and doesn't mind some of his more gorey works. She tells him that she and the other members of the group have been watching him fight his inner demons, and encourages Jack to believe that he's a good person at heart. Even if this niceness to Jack is due to her damaged mentality driving her to seek out obsessive or abusive partners (as stated above), she's still a pretty decent person.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: After hearing that Sharon needs a hefty-priced operation to be saved, Jack urgently grabs the first person he can find so he can kill them and turn the scene into a new painting for Malcom. He returns to the hospital with the money, only to hear that the neurosurgeon who could've saved Sharon died a short while ago, revealing that Jack killed the only person who could help his beloved Sharon stay alive.
* NightmareFetishist: Malcom Mayflower, owner of the biggest collection of artworks depicting bloodshed, brutality, and death in the world, who pays Jack big money for every new piece he gives to him. Before we even meet him, we see that his gallery (the parts of it not contained in his basement vault, anyway) contains photos of police brutality, a plane falling from the sky, the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém, and a sea of emaciated bodies from the Holocaust, the last of which he controversially outbid from an organization known as MOCA, giving us a picture of just how obsessed with death and blood this man is.
** Jack himself relishes his fantasies of killing people, but he keeps them to himself or his support group. He also prefers the morbid artwork he gains inspiration from because Malcom gives him big money for it. Sharon, blinded by her love for him, doesn't mind the macabre artwork at all.

* VillainInAWhiteSuit: Malcom Mayflower, the gore-obsessed collector who puts Jack on his path to darkness.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: After hearing that Sharon needs a hefty-priced operation to be saved, Jack urgently grabs the first person he can find so he can turn the scene into a new painting for Malcom. He returns to the hospital with the money, only to hear that the neurosurgeon who could've saved Sharon died a short while ago, revealing that Jack killed the only person who could help his beloved Sharon stay alive.
* NightmareFetishist: Malcom Mayflower, owner of the biggest collection of artworks depicting bloodshed, brutality, and death in the world, who pays Jack big money for every new piece he gives to him. Before we even meet him, we see that his gallery (the parts of it not contained in his basement vault, anyway) contains photos of police brutality, a plane falling from the sky, the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém, and a sea of emaciated bodies from the Holocaust, the last of which he controversially outbid from an organization known as MOCA, giving us a picture of just how obsessed with death and blood this man is.

* TropaholicsAnonymous: Jack attends a support group known as "Obsessives Anonymous" in order to control his flaring temper, his alcoholism, and his heavy bloodlust.

->'''Crypt Keeper:''' ''(painting a new picture with a severed finger mounted on a stick)'' Well, Sharon's croaking is sure to leave a very bad taste on Jack's ''palate''. What a shame she turned into such a... ''Moan-a'' Lisa. ''(cackles)'' You know kiddies, some artists prefer watercolors, others prefer oils, but me, I prefer... ''(gestures to the camera with his mounted finger)'' '''''finger''''' painting! ''(cackles)''

* NightmareFetishist: Malcom Mayflower, owner of the biggest collection of artworks depicting bloodshed, brutality, and death in the world, who pays Jack big money for every new piece he gives to him. Before we even meet him, we see that his gallery (the parts of it not contained in his basement vault, anyway) contains photos of police brutality, a plane falling from the sky, the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém, and a sea of emaciated bodies from the Holocaust, the last of which he controversially outbid from an organization known as MOCA, giving us a picture of just how obsessed with death and blood this man is.

* TropaholicsAnonymous: Jack attends a support group known as "Obsessives Anonymous" in order to control his flaring temper, his alcoholism, and his heavy bloodlust.

->'''Crypt Keeper:''' ''(painting a new picture with a severed finger mounted on a stick)'' Well, Sharon's croaking is sure to leave a very bad taste on Jack's ''palate''. What a shame she turned into such a... ''Moan-a'' Lisa. ''(cackles)'' You know kiddies, some artists prefer watercolors, others prefer oils, but me, I prefer... ''(gestures to the camera with his mounted finger)'' '''''finger''''' painting! ''(cackles)''

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/easel_kill_ya_main_opening.png]]
->''He paints still lives -- very still lives. An aspiring artist finds success by painting people he murdered..''
-->-- '''DVD description for the episode'''
A down-and-out artist (Creator/TimRoth) gets a commission for a series of "still deaths" from an unusual dealer. Originally aired July 17, 1991.
----

* AccidentalMurder: The first man Jack kills and then paints was killed in a genuine accident coming from Jack wanting him to turn his music down. The other people Jack paints, er, not so much.
* DeathBySex: Not long after making love with Jack, Sharon gets killed by a hit and run driver.
* DownerEnding: Just when Jack decides to leave his life of crime behind to be with the woman he loves, Sharon gets hit by a car and in critical condition. Jack kills again to get the money needed for Sharon's operation only to accidentally have killed the very same doctor who could've saved Sharon's life, leaving her brain-dead and eventually dead. Then Jack is discovered by the police through his bloody paint brush and all he can do is look coldly at the camera in defeat.
* FanService: Jack and Sharon's lovemaking scene is pretty damn hot.
* FanDisservice: The old lady falling and getting impaled through the stomach with pruning shears, not so much.
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: The landlady gets pushed down the stairs to her death by Jack and impaled through her stomach with pruning shears.
* LoveMartyr: Sharon, who puts up with Jack's emotional abuse of her because she loves him.
* LoveRedeems: Sharon for Jack, it seems. At least for a little while.
* NightmareFetishist: Jack like to prefer dead morbid looking artwork over regular paintings. Sharon doesn't mind the macabre artwork at all.
* NotQuiteDead: Even being impaled through the stomach with pruning shears, the old lady still had some breath left in her to try to stop Jack from killing her.
* TemptingFate: The landlady asks Jack for help but warns him about carrying stuff down the stairs to the basement since she's an old lady and she could trip and break her neck. Guess what Jack does to her.

* FanService: Jack and Sharon's lovemaking scene.
* FanDisservice: The old lady falling and getting impaled through the stomach with pruning shears.

* DeathBySex: [[spoiler: Not long after making love with Jack, Sharon gets killed by a hit and run driver]].
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: Just when Jack decides to leave his life of crime behind to be with the woman he loves, Sharon gets hit by a car and in critical condition. Jack kills again to get the money needed for Sharon's operation only to accidentally have killed the very same doctor who could've saved Sharon's life, leaving her brain-dead and eventually dead. Then Jack is discovered by the police through his bloody paint brush and all he can do is look coldly at the camera in defeat]].

* LoveRedeems: Sharon for Jack, it seems. [[spoiler: at least for a little while.]]

A down-and-out artist gets a commission for a series of "still deaths" from an unusual dealer. Originally aired July 17, 1991.

* LoveRedeems: Sharon for Jack, it seems. [[Spoiler: at least for a little while.]]

Originally aired July 17, 1991.

* NightmareFetishist: Jack like to prefer dead morbid looking artwork over regular paintings.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: Sharon gets hit by a car and in critical condition. Jack kills again to get the money needed for Sharon's operation only to accidentally have killed the very same doctor who could've saved Sharon's life, leaving her brain-dead and eventually dead. Then Jack is discovered by the police through his bloody paint brush and all he can do is look coldly at the camera in defeat.

* NightmareFetishist: Jack like to prefer dead morbid looking artwork over regular paintings.