Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!

This week, a lottery ticket leads to misery.

Episode 2.6 “Lucky Stiff”

(Dir by William Malone, originally aired on November 12th, 1989)

After the lottery-obsessed Lenny Nordhoff (David L. Lander) has a heart attack and dies, his widow, Greta (Mary Crosby), marries her brutish boyfriend, Hank (Richard Eden). Haunted by nightmares of Lenny holding out his bloody heart and accusing her of having broken it, Greta is not happy with her new marriage. When she and Hank realize that Lenny was buried with a winning lottery ticket, they break into the mausoleum, open his coffin, and retrieve the ticket. Then, Greta pushes Hank into the coffin and seals him up.

Months later, Greta is wealthy but now she’s haunted by visions of Hank and threatening phone calls. Eventually, she is confronted by a gravedigger (Tracey Walter), who blackmails her into marrying him.

This episode’s only memorable moment was an outdoor scene that was apparently filmed on a windy day, resulting in Mary Crosby having to awkwardly reach down to keep her dress from blowing up. (I supposed it says something about the show’s budget and production schedule that, rather than reshoot this scene, they just went with it.) Crosby didn’t do a bad job in this episode. She had the right neurotic femme fatale look.

Otherwise, this episode was pretty forgettable. The first story featured Greta having nightmares about a dead man and marrying a loser. The second story featured Great having nightmares about a dead man and marrying a loser. Even Freddy, in his reduced host role, looked pretty bored with the whole thing.