Line #17 Recap/TalesFromTheCryptS5E9CreepCourse


1	!! Creep Course
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3	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/creep_course.jpg]]
4	[[caption-width-right:350: There'd better be extra credit for this.]]
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6	->'''Crypt Keeper''': (''wearing glasses, a wool hat, and a college sweater while surrounded by Ancient Egyptian artifacts; he looks over a collection of books, atop which lies a dead professor'') Hello, creeps! I'll be with you in a moment. I was just in the middle of cramming for my final exams. (''he crams a ball of paper into the professor's mouth'') Bet you didn't know your pal the Crypt Keeper was still in s-''ghoul.'' As a matter of fact, I'm at the top of my class at ''Horror''-vard! (''cackles'') Which brings us to tonight's all-''frighter.'' It concerns a couple of college kids who've got their own ideas about higher ''dead''-ucation, in a bit of ''hack''-edamia I call: '''Creep Course.'''
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8	The pompous Professor Finley (Creator/JeffreyJones) teaches Egyptology at a local university. He specifically teaches his students about Ramseth, a bloodthirsty mummy who was said to return from the grave every year on the date of his death to search for Princess Nefra, his long-lost true love, prompting the villagers of his kingdom to keep him at bay with a virgin sacrifice. During these lessons, Finley primarily picks on Reggie Skulnick (Creator/AnthonyMichaelHall), a dumb-but-charismatic jock who never pays attention. On the contrary, Finley is consistently impressed by Stella Bishop (Creator/NinaSiemaszko), a nerdy bookworm who takes excellent notes and studies them relentlessly. When Finley threatens to fail Reggie and revoke his football scholarship, Reggie tries to seduce Stella into helping him study for the upcoming midterm exam. Stella at first assumes that Reggie wants her to give him some tutoring, but he actually wants her to meet Finley at his house and distract him while Reggie steals the answer sheet.
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10	Stella refuses, but Reggie promises that he'll take her to a campus party, laying it on thick until she reluctantly agrees. Stella soon discovers that Finley's grandfather, an archeologist who was said to have explored Egypt's Valley of Kings, had Ramseth's burial chamber excavated from his palace and exported to America, housed in his basement. When Stella discovers the chamber, she's horrified to discover that Ramseth (Ivan E. Roth) came with it. Reggie is also revealed to have been working with Finley (having been bribed with a passing grade on his exam) to throw Stella into the burial chamber so she can be Ramseth's latest sacrifice. Fortunately for Stella, she remembers everything that Finley taught her, and decides to use his lessons to her advantage.
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13	!! Tropes:
14	* AdaptationalIntelligence: In the comic, Stella was a DumbBlonde who used her feminine wiles on her professor to get an A. In the episode, she's a studious bookworm who takes lengthy notes.
15	* AdaptationalUgliness: Zigzagged with Stella. While the comic version of her was a hot co-ed who coasted on her looks, the episode has her start off as a bespectacled nerd in baggy clothing, typically beneath a handsome jock's notice. However, when locked in Ramseth's tomb, she dolls herself up as Nefra to dupe the mummy into sparing her life, becoming pretty attractive in the process.
16	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: During mummification the ancient Egyptians really did insert a metal hook into the nostril, spinning it around so the brain would liquefy. The rest of the organs (with the exception of the heart, which was believed to be the seat of thought at the time) were removed intact through a slit on the left side of the body near the stomach. Usually they were then placed inside canopic jars with lids depicting the four sons of Horus, who were to guard the viscera for their owner in the afterlife. A potion to dissolve them never existed, but it does make for an effectively gruesome way for Finley to get rid of Reggie here.
17	* BandageMummy: Stella dresses Finley and Reggie's corpses this way for her class project. She gets a perfect score on said project, but she's taken away for questioning soon after.
18	* BittersweetEnding: Stella gets her revenge on Finley and Reggie for trying to kill her, but by presenting their corpses for her class project, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome she's taken away for questioning.]] She ''did'' get a good grade on her project, though.
19	* {{Blackmail}}: Reggie tries to blackmail Finley into giving him a better grade than the C+ he initially gives him by threatening to pocket and sell his ancient artifacts.
20	* BlackmailBackfire: Reggie's attempt to blackmail Finley for a better grade goes south when he ends up getting his innards liquified.
21	* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: Reggie tells Finley that his attempted blackmailing could be considered "a last minute renegotiation."
22	* BlindWithoutEm: Stella admits that she's blind as a bat without her glasses on, but she doesn't seem to have any problems while disguised as a certain princess.
23	* BluntYes: In regards to how Stella "survived" her encounter with Ramseth.
24	-->'''Finley''': You mean that [[ILoveTheDead you and he]]--?\
25	'''Stella''': (''bitterly'') '''Yes!'''
26	* {{Bookworm}}: Stella looks the part and actively pays attention in Finley's class, even using the villainous professor's lectures against him.
27	* BringMyBrownPants: Reggie's pants begin darkening as his dissolved organs leak through his anus and crawl down his legs.
28	* ButtMonkey: Stella becomes one in the second half of the episode, where she's tricked by Reggie and her own professor into becoming a virgin sacrifice for a bloodthirsty mummy, is forced to ''have sex'' with said mummy to get him to spare her life, and ends the episode being taken away by the police, thanks to her choice for a class project.
29	* ChekhovsClassroom: Everything that Finley teaches at the beginning of the episode is used by Stella to survive Ramseth's wrath. As she herself says, "I take ''excellent'' notes."
30	* ChummyMummy: Ramseth grows attracted to and protective of Stella once she dresses herself up as Princess Nefra.
31	* CigarChomper: Reggie puts an ancient roll of tobacco in his mouth as he gets confrontational with Finley.
32	* ContrivedCoincidence: Stella finds the disguise she uses to become Nefra completely by chance inside Ramseth's tomb.
33	* CoveredInGunge: Finley gets a bit of Reggie's dissolved organs on himself when Reggie barfs them up.
34	* CrazyJealousGuy: Ramseth was known to react violently toward any man who laid eyes on Princess Nefra. Stella uses this to her advantage by dressing herself up as the princess and flirting with Finley.
35	* CrazyPrepared: Finley and Reggie have been preparing to lure Stella to Ramseth for a while, even lighting the torches in the pharaoh's burial chamber in anticipation for the night of his death, and then blowing a sacred horn to awaken him.
36	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Reggie ends up being duped into drinking a potion that liquefies his organs, causing them to turn into a mass of black bile that he vomits up.
37	* DeadpanSnarker: Finley becomes one whenever he deals with Reggie.
38	* DeathByIrony: As Reggie dies, Finley rebukes him for being too stupid to pay attention to his lectures and miss important details. In the tomb, Stella reveals that she survived by ''actually'' paying attention and reminding Finley about what he said about Ramseth's jealous streak, just before he gets his brain ripped out with a brain screw.
39	* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: Ramseth was said to have been referred to by the people of his kingdom as "The Mummy Who Wouldn't Die."
40	* DisposingOfABody: After killing Reggie, Finley tries hiding his body inside a sarcophagus in his basement.
41	* TheDogBitesBack: After Finley gives her to Ramseth as a sacrifice, Stella turns the tables on him and sets the violently jealous mummy loose on him with a brain screw.
42	* TheDreaded: Ramseth was this to the people of his village, who annually sacrificed a virgin to him so they would be left alone.
43	* DumbJock: Reggie is a personification of the trope, often daydreaming about football (claiming that it's the only thing he's good at) during Finley's lectures and missing all kinds of important details. The reason he decides to work with Finley to lure Stella into his basement is so he can pass the professor's class and keep his football scholarship. He ultimately gets his organs liquefied by an ancient potion that Finley tricks him into drinking, rebuking him for never paying attention.
44	* EurekaMoment: As she tries to evade Ramseth, Stella spots an ancient headdress similar to Princess Nefra's, and decides to impersonate Nefra to calm him down and seduce him.
45	* EvilIsHammy: Finley, while he's giving his lectures and in the privacy of his own home.
46	* EvilRedhead: Finley, since he's played by Jeffrey Jones.
47	* FatalFlaw: Reggie's inability to pay attention to anything around him, which leads to his death. Finley even mocks him for his short attention span as he dies.
48	* FlatWhat: Finley's reaction when Stella reveals [[ILoveTheDead how exactly she survived being Ramseth's latest sacrifice.]]
49	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Stella finds an illustration of Nefra in one of her books, showing that she and the princess look uncannily alike. She later dresses up as Nefra herself to fool Ramseth into letting her live... after they have sex.
50	* ForScience / ForTheEvulz: Finley has both tropes covered. His grandfather, purportedly one of the first archeologists to explore the Valley of Kings, had a live mummy brought back from Egypt, and spent a majority of his life duping the female students of his class to be virgin sacrifices for the mummy. He did this to keep the mummy from killing him and keep it locked in the basement, since he's a living connection to Ancient Egypt and therefore the greatest historical treasure in antiquity (that he plots to take all the credit for). However, once Finley gruesomely kills his Reggie after helping him lock Stella in the mummy's tomb, it's revealed that he also gives virgin sacrifices to Ramseth for his own sadism.
51	-->'''Finley:''' All in the name of history and science...
52	* TheGlassesGottaGo: Reggie removes Stella's glasses to persuade her into thinking that he thinks she's beautiful. She later removes the glasses herself as part of her Nefra disguise.
53	* GraveRobbing: Finley proudly admits to Reggie that his grandfather was a grave robber "who looted tombs up and down the Nile" instead of a legitimate archaeologist. The prizes that the old man got from said tombs were pretty hefty and valuable, including an ''entire, completely-intact burial chamber'' from Ramseth's palace.
54	* HateSink: Finley, cemented by his constant ridicule of Reggie and his shamelessly luring Stella (and most likely many other female students) to Ramseth to keep him at bay for another year. The ending reveals that not even Stella, his most intelligent student, can stand him or his attitude.
55	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Finley's lessons allow for Stella to trick him into being killed by the mummy he's been keeping in his basement.
56	* HooksAndCrooks: Ramseth is tricked into killing Finley when Stella (dressed as Nefra) flirts with him, removing his brain through his nose with a brain screw.
57	* IdenticalStranger: Stella views an illustration of Princess Nefra in one of her books, finding that it looks eerily similar to herself. She uses this to her advantage by pretending that she's the real Nefra to get Ramseth to spare her life.
58	* IdiotBall: After surviving Finley's attempt to sacrifice her to Ramseth, Stella promptly goes and incriminates herself by displaying his and Reggie's corpses, dressed as mummies, for her class project. Naturally, the police are called in and she's taken away for questioning. She doesn't even seem to notice that anything's wrong with her project when she's taken downtown and only wants to see if she got a good grade, almost as if having sex with a mummy caused her brain cells to start deteriorating.
59	* ILoveTheDead: A variation. Stella didn't ''want'' to have sex with the mummified Ramseth, but she didn't really have a choice.
60	* INeedAFreakingDrink: Finley invites Reggie upstairs for drinks after Stella is presumed to be taken care of, saying that he needs one after summoning Ramseth.
61	* JerkJock: The dim-bulbed Reggie, who agrees to work with Finley to sacrifice Stella to Ramseth in exchange for passing his class.
62	* KarmaHoudini: Even though he helps kill Finley, Ramseth remains unpunished for his yearly slaughtering of virgin sacrifices. What's worse, now that the man who kept him locked up is dead, he could very easily break out and continue his yearly rampages, especially now that Stella (having fooled him into thinking she's Nefra) has been arrested.
63	* LesCollaborateurs: Reggie is revealed to have been in league with Finley when the two of them throw Stella into Ramseth's tomb with the intention of making her his latest sacrifice.
64	* LighterAndSofter: There are definite shades of comedy in this episode, largely involving the hammy cast, the sheer improbability of Finley's grandfather moving ''an entire Egyptian burial chamber'' into his basement, and Ramseth easily falling for Stella disguising herself as Nefra, even though she's speaking English and is Caucasian.
65	* TheLostLenore: Princess Nefra, Ramseth's one true love, who motivates him to return from the dead every year to search for her, bringing untold destruction everywhere he goes.
66	* MaliciousMisnaming: Finley calls Reggie "Mr. Numbskull" early in the episode.
67	* MeaningfulName: Reggie "Skulnick" is a dumb jock who has more skull than brain.
68	* {{Mummy}}: Ramseth, one of two mummies featured in the series, the other being Myrna from [[Recap/TalesFromTheCryptS2E14LowerBerth Lower Berth.]]
69	* NeckLift: Rameth gives one to Stella before she disguises herself, and he later does it to Finley before he kills him.
70	* NoHonorAmongThieves: Reggie and Finley work together to dupe Stella into being Ramseth's latest victim. When Reggie asks about the midterm answer sheet he was supposed to receive for helping him, Finley gives him a C+. Reggie tries to get a higher grade by threatening to take some of Finley's artifacts for and sell them off, not realizing that Finley planned to murder him with poison the entire time.
71	* NothingIsScarier: According to Finley, the way in which Ramseth would murder the virgins offered to him when he discovered they weren't Nefra was "really too horrible to describe."
72	* NephariousPharaoh: Ramseth was a jealous, possessive, and bad-tempered pharaoh in life, and this trait carried over into his death. As such, he ritualistically kills virgin sacrifices and destroys everything in his way in his unending search for Princess Nefra, the love of his life.
73	* ObfuscatingStupidity: Reggie is hinted to have faked his stupidity (or at least a good part of it) to help Finley lure Stella into Ramseth's clutches. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't enough to save him from drinking Finley's potion.
74	* OhCrap: Reggie's stoic attitude crumbles when Finley reminds him about the embalming lecture he zoned out on, and when he reveals what Reggie just drank. Finley also begins to panic when Stella playfully comes on to him in the tomb, knowing full well how jealous Ramseth is.
75	* OneTrueLove: Princess Nefra was Ramseth's, and he returns from the dead every year on the day he died to search for her, destroying everything and slaughtering everyone who stood in his way.
76	* PersonOfMassDestruction: Ramseth is said to destroy everything in his path while he searches for Princess Nefra.
77	* PreMortemOneLiner: After Ramseth grabs Finley, Stella presents the mummy with a brain screw and sarcastically remarks: "Look what I found."
78	* ProperlyParanoid: Stella asks Reggie why a charismatic jock like him would want to go out with a geeky wallflower like her. She had every right to be suspicious once she's thrown into Ramseth's tomb.
79	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Finley kills Reggie by tricking him into drinking a potion that the Ancient Egyptians used to dissolve a corpse's innards. In the run-up to this reveal, Finley chides Reggie for never paying attention to his lessons.
80	-->'''Finley:''' Even the dimmest, bovine-brained nitwit usually perks up during the embalming lecture, it's just so gross!
81	* ResurrectedRomance: Ramseth died before he could consummate his relationship with Princess Nefra, and he returns from the grave once a year on the anniversary of his death to find her, leaving a path of destruction in his wake.
82	* SadistTeacher: Professor Finley, who works with his dumbest student to dupe his ''smartest'' student into becoming the latest sacrifice to the murderous mummy that his grandfather brought over from Egypt, and then kills the dumb student in a hideously gruesome manner to "thank" him for doing so. It can also be assumed that he's done the same to one female student in his class every year.
83	* SanitySlippage: By the end, Stella has lost her mind. Having to seduce a mummy and then watching him gruesomely kill someone is gonna leave a scar or two.
84	* SparedByTheAdaptation: In the comic, Finley successfully kills and mummifies Stella. Here, she manages to turn the tables on him, thanks to some help from Ramseth. She presents his and Reggie's corpses dressed as mummies for her class project, but gets taken in for questioning by the police.
85	* SheCleansUpNicely: For the majority of the episode, Stella is shown to be pretty mousey-looking, with her baggy clothing and thick glasses. After encountering Ramseth, she dresses herself up in revealing Egyptian garments and heavy eyeshadow to disguise herself as Princess Nefra, and she looks smoking hot as a result.
86	* SuperGullible: Ramseth easily thinks that Stella's disguise as Princess Nefra is the real Nefra, even though she doesn't speak his language or share his ethnicity.
87	* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: When your class project consists of the corpses of your professor and another student, don't expect to get away with it without being taken by the police (whether you get a good grade or not).
88	* VillainBall: Finley is killed by Stella and Ramseth when he tries hiding Reggie's body in the basement, where the pharaoh's tomb is, after he poisoned him to "thank" him for his service.
89	* VirginSacrifice: They were used in Ancient Egypt to lure Ramseth away from his village every year. Finley and Reggie dupe Stella into entering the mummy's tomb so she can be the next one, as the professor says to Reggie that they're getting harder to find these days.
90	* VomitIndiscretionShot: Reggie puking his dissolved organs out after he drinks Finley's potion.
91	* WhamLine: "What's the matter with you?... Can't you do ''anything'' right?!" The line is said by Reggie to Finley, revealing that the two have been working together to lure Stella into Ramseth's clutches.
92	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Ramseth disappears after he kills Finley. Since the professor was the only one bringing the mummy his yearly virgin sacrifice, he's likely to break out of the basement and continue his rampages, especially now that "Nefra" has been locked up by the cops.
93	* WholePlotReference: Given how its main characters are college students who end up dealing with a murderous mummy, this episode can be seen as a remake of [[Creator/ArthurConanDoyle Arthur Conan Doyle's]] short story "Lot 249", which was adapted for ''Film/TalesFromTheDarksideTheMovie'', released three years earlier.
94	* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: With the virgin sacrifice seemingly accomplished, Finley poisons Reggie with a potion used to liquefy and dissolve a person's innards.
95	* YouMonster: Reggie outright calls Finley a sick man for luring virgins to Ramseth for the sake of riches and fame, not that he minds.
96	* ZombieGait: Ramseth moves and walks in this manner, befitting his undead state.
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Context Recap / TalesFromTheCryptS5E9CreepCourse