By Geno McGahee
In like a lamb and out like a lion. The episode “GOTCHA” of the Ray Bradbury Theater begins very mellow, but it begins to slowly turn up the suspense leading to a very creepy ending.
John (Saul Rubinek) goes to a costume party dressed like Oliver Hardy from the LAUREL & HARDY comedy duo. He is lonely and defeated, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees Alicia (Kate Lynch), a woman that went as Stan Laurel. He approaches her and the two immediately hit it off. The trust is immediate and he leaves the party with her and become inseparable. They continue to do LAUREL & HARDY impressions, even in bed, and take on the world together.
On the road, one night, John begins to wonder what will happen when the laughter stops. Alicia suggests that are other things like the game “gotcha.” She asks him if he’s ever played and he says no, and then she notes that she made it up. How would he have ever played it? It gives a window into the character of Alicia that you haven’t seen before. She may be more than weird. She may be a little crazy.
Still trusting her with all his heart, he agrees to the game of gotcha. They drive to a very seedy hotel, passing by hookers and drug dealers to get to their room. They dress up in pajamas and she has him lie on the bed. She stands at the foot of the bed and sinks down, disappearing. He is now alone in the room and is confused and nervous and that is when the game of gotcha gets terrifying.
GOTCHA is incredible. It’s another great tale in this series and it reminded me a great deal of the beginning of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE with Dan Aykroyd turning into a monster. This tale starts off so slow and cheerful that the turn to terror was very impactful. I really enjoyed this. As a horror fan you can’t ask for much more. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 9/10
THE NEWEST HORROR COLLECTION IS UNLEASHED – ORDER NOW!
Even though I do like this episode of Ray Bradbury Theater for the most part, I STILL don’t understand the ending and not many people do. On imdb, all the reviews for it are completely puzzled by the ending as well, and I’ve seen people debating about what it means on youtube. Very, very strange ending.
YES! So true. I think that Bradbury was probably just going for a scare rather than explaining it too much. It may be his scariest short.