Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, on Monsters, an elderly man tries to make a deal with Death.  Because if there’s anyone you can trust to honor a verbal agreement, it’s the Grim Reaper.

Episode 2.9 “Reaper”

(Dir by John Lafia, originally aired on November 26th, 1989)

Robert Ross (George D. Wallace) is a bitter old man who is living out his final days in a retirement home.  Not even the sight of one of his neighbors celebrating her 103rd birthday can cheer up the angry Robert.  However, things look up for Robert when he meets a new nurse, an incurable optimist named Sheila (Barbara Billingsley).  Robert falls in love with her and Sheila seems to be falling in love with Robert as well.

What a terrible time for Dr. Morton (Curt Lowens) to show up in the middle of the night!  Now, it should be understood that Dr. Morton is not actually a doctor nor is he human.  Instead, he’s the Grim Reaper and he’s come to collect Robert’s life.  Robert begs for a few more years and offers to do anything to live.  The Grim Reaper makes a deal with Robert.  If Robert kills three people, the Reaper will allow him to live.  The requirement is that Robert has to personally kill each person and that he has to kill when the Reaper tells him to.  At the same time, Robert can pick his victims.  The Reaper is not particular about who he takes away with him.

Robert agrees and soon discovers that murder isn’t as difficult as he thought.  After the first two murders, Robert is able to rise from his wheelchair and he starts to move around with a spring in his step.  He’s ready to ask Sheila to marry him but then he spots Dr. Morton in the nursing home.  Dr. Morton explains that it is Sheila’s time, unless Robert can send him a third life.  Robert agrees but it turns out that he’s not the only one at the nursing home who has made a deal with the Grim Reaper.  Afterall, how else do you think that woman has lived to be a 103?

Especially when compared to last week’s disappointing episode, Reaper is superior episode of Monsters.  Along with telling an interesting story (and, for once, this is an episode that feels neither rushed nor padded for length), this episode featured strong performances from Wallace, Billingsley, and Lowens and a memorable villain in the form of the skull-faced Grim Reaper.  Director John Lafia does a good job of creating and maintaining a properly ominous and creepy atmosphere.  The image of the Grim Reaper standing in the dark hallway of the nursing home is genuinely unsettling.  This was a good and effective episode that ended with a properly macabre twist.