Got one that I'm sure someone knows. I remember watching late night anthology horror/sci-fi a lot with my mom in the ‘80s and there's a couple of shorts that I can vaguely recall. It's seems like it might have been a RAY BRADBURY THEATER deal.
One short dealt with paralysis. A man gets in a car accident and can't move, but he brings you along with his inner dialogue. Something must've been sour with the guy, since most of the stories in series like that involved a comeuppance. He's taken to a hospital, and in SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW fashion, pleads fruitlessly that's he's not dead. Most of the short is from his viewpoint, looking at the wheels spinning from the wreck, looking up at the doctors, etc.
I'm almost positive the second short I can't place was during the same episode. It dealt with a man and his wife. The wife had been attacked or raped, and the husband was picking her up from the hospital. On the way home, she shrieks at the husband to stop the car, that's she's just seen her attacker. He parks the car, beats or kills the guy, then continues driving home. Seconds later, she claims to have just seen her attacker. He says something like "Are you sure? I thought that other guy was the one!" and she replies something like "No, I'm sure this time." I think he beats/kills one or 2 more guys until he realizes wifey's brains have gone bye-bye.
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Jimmy F.
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to reader jaakko for knowing that these were episodes "Breakdown" and "Revenge" from 1985's THE NEW ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS.
Sounds like the 1985 version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, episodes Revenge and Breakdown.
I concur with Jaakko.
Also, the episode with the fully conscious paralyzed man appeared in both the original and 80s versions of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (although it was the 80s remake that added the surgery at the end… in the original, the man is spared at the last second when the doctor notices a tear coming from his eye).
While I'm not sure about the second as a TV episode, I do know that same idea was used in a Tales From The Crypt (or Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, Crime Suspenstories, etc) comic, but instead of a woman, it was a man and his father driving home after his dad was attacked.
The "paralyzed man" episode seems to be the most popular of all the original "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" shows. And I saw the 80's version of "Revenge", and also read that E.C. comics story which used the same plot. I assumed the comic had lifted the story from an earlier pulp without credit, as they often did.
Wasn't there one where some guy was dead or paralyzed and he felt no pain but when he really did die you heard him say the pain is even worse. When he says that the coroner is about to cut him open and you hear the guy scream.
Stexe… good to see I'm not the only one who remembers that story! 🙂
FatherOfTears… that sounds like the Tales From The Crypt episode "Abra Cadaver" starring Tony Goldwyn and (I think) Beau Bridges.
You guys nailed it. It was indeed "Revenge" and "Breakdown". Taking the titles jaakko gave and doing a little research on said titles put all the pieces into place. Thanks, everyone!
I think you have a quite exquisite little horror story if you just roll the credits after the wife says "no, this time for SURE!"