WARNING! If you watch this one there is a lot of sexual content and literally full frontal nudity in it. Be warned. Or, you know, not. 
Title: “On a Deadman’s Chest”
Series: Tales from the Crypt
Season: 4
Year: 1992
Writer(s): Larry Wilson
Storyline: Danny, the cocksure frontman of rock band Exorcist hates the fact that his bandmate, Nick, has got married, and wants the new wife out. His groupie girlfriend shows him her snake tattoo, which appears to be alive, as it sticks out a tongue at him (don’t ask me from where; use your imagination or watch it) and tells him the guy who did it is a “magician”. She’s going to introduce him to Danny, and takes him to a strange backstreet tattoo parlour on the wrong side of the tracks. The girl leaves him and Danny enters the place alone, but can’t find anyone until a big guy appears. He sneers at Danny when he says he wants a tiger; the tattoo artist says everyone’s skin has a story to tell, and his talent is to bring it out onto the surface.
Danny isn’t best pleased though when the tattoo is finished, as it depicts Scarlet, the new wife of his bandmate, and some sort of dragon thing. He storms out, furious and aghast. The tattoo guy watches him as he departs, refusing to hand over his money. He smiles “You’ll pay later.” On his return, Danny argues with Scarlet and then with his groupie girlfriend (I think she may be called Vendetta? Not sure), accusing her of setting him up with the tattoo artist, though she swears she had nothing to do with it. She then helps him get it removed, but it comes back, and seems to come to life.
Vendetta (let’s just call her that for handiness’ sake, okay?) tells him ominously that if he gets rid of Scarlet for real the tattoo may vanish, and as she has already intimated to him that Nick, the guitarist and the real force behind Exorcist, is thinking of going solo, he gets even more angry at her, while at the same time trying to patch things up with Nick. Then he goes and brutally murders Scarlet. Later, he seems to see the tattoo bleeding, reflecting Scarlet’s bleeding face as he killed her, then on stage it seems to be swelling, rising within his chest as if something is trying to get out…
… and then a dragon bursts,
Alien-like, out of his chest. Well of course it does. Except maybe it’s in Danny’s mind, because when Nick, having heard that his wife has been murdered by the singer, bursts into his room, Danny has carved out the piece of skin that had Scarlet’s face on it and is holding it in his hand, with a big gaping hole in his chest. Right. Always said tattoos were a bad idea.
Comments: Pretty stupid really. I mean, yes, at the end it’s left up to you as to whether all the pulsing, changing and eventually the emergence of the dragon was in Danny’s mind or whether it actually happens, though given that there’s no corpse of a dragon in the room one would assume the former. It’s a pretty poor stereotypical look at a rock band, with Danny on the edge really from minute one and just plunging further down the rabbit hole into madness, and there’s no reason given for why Vendetta hates Scarlet and encourages Danny to kill her, other than that she just hates her. Poor writing, and a very stupid ending.
And here was me, thinking it was going to be about pirates...
Rating: B-