Tales from the Crypt (TV Series) Only Sin Deep (1989) User Reviews

Vanity and Greedy

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 16 July 2012]

The twenty-one year-old streetwalker Sylvia Vane (Lea Thompson) is narcissistic with the beauty of her face. After killing a pimp and stealing his jewels, she heads to a pawnshop to raise money to buy expensive clothes to seduce the wealthy bachelor Ronnie Price (Brett Cullen). The pawnbroker offers ten-thousand dollars for her beauty and advises that she has four months to retrieve it, and Sylvia believes he is crazy.

Sylvia succeeds in her intent and she moves to Ronnie's penthouse. Four months later, she finds wrinkles on her face and she remembers her debt with the pawnshop owner. Will she have time to revert the situation?

"Only Sin Deep" is another unforgettable show of Tales from the Crypt. The story of vanity and greedy of a shallow woman without heart and soul gives a moral lesson in the end. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Only Sin Deep"

Lorraine Baines?

[TheScottman · 6/10 · 29 May 2006]

A call girl (Lea Thompson)needs money to land a handsome playboy (Bret Cullen) so she tries to sell some jewelry to a pawn shop owner (Britt Leach) but that's not what the pawnbroker is interested in. Instead he buys her beauty.

This is not the best in the series, but it's far from the worst it's an overall great episode with a great plot, but it seems like it tries too hard. you won't be disappointed with any episodes in this series, because they all bring something creepy to the table. This one hits home to the people who think beauty is everything.

It is kinda funny to watch this now being a big fan of "Back to the future." A part of me is just waiting for Michael J. Fox to show up in the DeLorean, but then I remember I'm watching Tales from the crypt, the show that help make HBO what it is.

What Is Your Beauty Worth...?

[mattressman_pdl · 6/10 · 9 October 2008]

Season one wavers in the delivery of this tale of a money-seeking prostitute willing to do anything to hook a rich man!

Offered a tight wad of cash for her beauty, a young streetwalker (Lea Thompson) sells her 'beauty' to an unscrupulous pawn shop owner. Thinking he's a nut, she immediately spends the money on landing a rich bachelor and begins her new life in glamor...until the first wrinkles appear...or could it just be stress? he he he

The episode is slightly amateurish, it's pacing a little dodgy, but the end ultimately revives it. The beginning line-up of season one is, indeed, a tough act to follow. And Lea Thompson does make a valiant effort as the lead but one is still slow to relating to such a despicable, immoral character.

"With a face like that who needs brains?" Dcent tale from the crypt.

[poolandrews · 7/10 · 21 March 2007]

Tales from the Crypt: Only Sin Deep starts as an attractive looking prostitute named Sylvia Vane (Lea Thompson) decides to make some money by robbing her pimp (G. Smokey Campbell), however in a struggle she shoots him dead. Not wanting to waste an opportunity Sylvia still tries to pawn the jewellery she stole but the pawnbroker (Britt Leach) won't touch it, but he is interested in her beauty & offers $10,000 for it which she accepts. Sylvia has four months to buy it back, the four months pass without her bothering to & Sylvia gets a shocking surprise...

This Tales from the Crypt story was episode 4 from season 1, the first of two Tales from the Crypt episodes to be directed by Howard Deutch I thought Only Sin Deep was a good story. The script by Fred Dekker was based on a story from 'The Haunt of Fear' comic book & is your average twisted tale involving murder, vanity & voodoo. This one plays a lot like a traditional morality tale with the basic premise about greed & someone getting their just deserts after a quick-fix scheme backfires. As usual at only 30 odd minutes it moves along at a nice pace & if nothing else the twist is pretty effective.

This one looks very good with nice production values, there's not much gore on show apart from someone getting gorily shot. The acting is good with Thompson standing out as the heartless hooker.

Only Sin Deep is a good tale from the crypt, well worth a watch I'd say.

A step back from previous episodes

[SleepTight666 · 6/10 · 27 June 2009]

A step back from previous episodes, but still had a few memorable moments and a decent ending.

The main problem compared to previous episodes was basically everything that made the previous episodes a success. The casting just didn't fully work, and the dialog was incredibly cheesy rather than clever and witty.

However, what did work for the episode was the cinematography, it was well done for that time and just as strong as previous episodes.

also, the twist, although I saw it coming miles before. should we feel sorry for her? I don't know. People like her are scum, thinking that they can get away with anything just because of their looks. So she had it coming, and will have to live like something that she always looked like from the inside.

The most vain person on the planet.

[DirkDiggler88 · 6/10 · 26 February 2021]

Season 1 takes a small dip here. Still a solid effort but not on par with the rest. The one draw back to the episode is that there is no character that is likable in any way. Overall it's decent with a satisfying ending.

How much is your beauty worth? The answer is here

[bellino-angelo2014 · 6/10 · 5 June 2021]

Sylvia Vane (Lea Thompson) is a streetwalker that becomes intrigued with the people that go on a great mansion but she hasn't the money. So the next day she sells all her jewelry to a pawn shop owner fanatic of voodoo practises and when she has the money she goes to the mansion and snags a rich playboy (Brett Cullen) from his other women and they end up living together. All goes well until she sees that her face is aging at an exaggerated rate. She goes to the pawnbroker and she finds out what he is up to: he is using the beauty of young women for resurrecting his dead wife and making her live again.

The soundtrack really struck me as it was very 1980s and it reminded me of the great movies of those years and the acting by Thompson and the always underrated Cullen (who most recently played Thomas Wayne in JOKER) was good. My problem with this episode is that I didn't felt sorry at all for Sylvia as she was incredibly vain and she accepted to sell her beauty without knowing what she was going for. And in the ending, before the great shot of the town, I thought that she was responsible for her mess, so why should anyone feel sorry for her in the first place? It just shows you how far some people would go for having all they want, but as the Crypt Keeper says in the epilogue, ''Be careful what you wish for''

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Looks can kill your soul and spirit.

[blanbrn · 9/10 · 3 September 2006]

"Only Sin Deep" one of the earliest and best crypt episodes teaches a good moral lesson that beauty isn't everything! Lea Thompson is good as a New York City street walker who wants to make it rich and big and find the right guy, so after robbing her pimp of jewels she pawns them. Only the big mistake is made the biggest mistake of all is her beauty is pawned. So after living a good lifestyle slowly but surely her looks go down and down. This episode teaches a good moral lesson you can't sell your inner self especially beauty, because it destroys the soul and spirit. One of the better crypt episodes due to the plot and acting but most of all the moral lesson.

Not bad.

[shellytwade · 7/10 · 27 March 2022]

Not as good as the first 3 episodes, it's still a decent enough tale that's fun to watch. Lea Thompson stars and does a pretty good job playing the lead. Her accent is a little off but her presence is still fun to watch. Overall, cool twist, and definitely worth your time.

Lea Thompson plays a murderous prostitute??!!

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 2 July 2021]

The casting of Lea Thomson in "Only Skin Deep" is rather odd, as she plays a murderous prostitute....very, VERY different from her usual sweet screen and TV persona, that's for sure! Hearing her curse and kill is certainly surreal!!

After murdering a pimp, Sylvia (Thompson) goes to a weirdo pawn shop owner to sell the dead man's possessions. He makes her an odd bargain...to buy her beauty...and she can buy it back any time before four months. Well, after, she still looks the same and Sylvia must assume that was the easiest $10,000 she'll ever earn. Unfortunately, she forgets about the bargain and four months comes and goes.

I was not a huge fan of this one for two reasons. First, I just don't think Thompson was right for the part. See the show and the party scene....you'll likely see what I mean. Second, the script was a bit dumb and had a HUGE hole after she kills her second victim...her immediate actions, dropping the gun and leaving her incriminating fingerprints on it made no sense. Overall, watchable but not all that good.

My favorite out of the 1st season

[Cesko1114 · 9/10 · 19 May 2006]

Well first off i am a fan of Lea Tompson (Back to the future trilogy) so it could have something to do with this being my fav episode.

OK its about this call girl (Lea) who sells her "beauty" to this guy at this pawn shop and she has 30 days or something like that to decide if she wants to keep her beauty or not, well after the 30 days she begins to age at an alarming rate, within a few hours she looks completely different well her husband comes home and clams that this old lady broke into his house, and she ends up killing him then she starts a fuss with the pawn shop owner saying she wants her beauty back, but he reminds her that she is a wanted women for murder and unfortunately she has to live in a 80 year old body.

"I want my beauty back!"

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 7/10 · 20 December 2013]

This one's like Pretty Woman, only ~scary!~ These first season episodes sure do have a distinct eighties vibe to them compared to the later ones, it's uncanny how much the basic style and tone did change within just one year. This episode features a super-eighties makeup montage with an obnoxious beat and whip cracks and panther roars and everything, my goodness.. So I usually find stories that feature themes about inner beauty and masks to be very appealing and interesting, and so for me the plot of this one had a solid premise for it to center on, even if they don't do all that much with it. I also always loved the classic mysterious benefactors with sinister ulterior motives that dabble in dark magics, and Britt Leach in this one was a real doozy as the scuzzy pawnbroker with rotted yellow teeth that made him look especially slimy and loathsome... She must have been a complete idiot to make a deal with a man looking like that, ten grand just for a face mould?! And was she deaf, did she not hear him chanting over that mud bowl? And she knew that he had at least one unhappy customer already! The reason that he was stealing the beauty seemed a little pointless and futile to me, I mean wouldn't it have made more sense if it was so that he could bring his wife back from the dead? To his credit he never actually deceives her though, it's her own fault for being late! The weird masks in his cabinet visual is echoed much later in "Only Skin Deep" only with real faces... Lea Thompson was a blast as the crazy hooker running around shooting everybody! All poor Brett Cullen was guilty of was loving her and then failing to recognise her when she turns into a decrepit granma. "Don't move! I'm calling the police!" He says, yeah that one always works when directed at someone holding a gun.. She was meant to be but I didn't think she was any kind of stunner, she was basically average-looking, no way in hell was she passing for twenty-one, and the cheesy and uneven Brooklyn accent wasn't fooling anyone! I love how it comes together for her at the bitter end, At the bitter end, she totally trapped: It's either stay a hideous old witch and free, or be beautiful once more and go straight to the gas chamber, she's condemned to look like the Cryptkeeper for all her days! I would have took the beauty and fled the country. While she was no innocent and technically got what she deserved, I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for Sylvia in the poignant final scene where she's sobbing and pitifully trying to gather up the shattered remnants of a symbol of the former self that she can never get back again off the cold ground. I thought it was a powerful metaphor and visually poetic, she lost her 'face' in more ways than one... Unlike a lot of others this tale may not end with a bang, but it does have a more lingering and haunting ending than the usual fare. This tale suffers from some poor acting and a bit of a patchy script, but it's still very good and has more than enough charm to make it a worthwhile watch. Vanity will be the death of you!

With looks like that, who needs brains?

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 6 August 2022]

Lea Thompson (the "Back to the Future" series) receives a solid showcase here in the role of Sylvia Vane, who's not given that name for nothing. She's a hooker who takes great pride in her attractiveness, yet yearns for a better life. So she murders a pimp, and steals his jewelry, with the intention of pawning it for cash. But the pawnbroker (Britt Leach, "Silent Night Deadly Night") covets her beauty so much (for his own dark purpose) that he offers her $10,000 for it. She doesn't take him, or his terms, that seriously, but of course greedily snatches up the money. He informs her that after four months are up, she'll have run out of time to back out on the deal.

'Only Sin Deep' isn't a great 'Tales from the Crypt' episode, but it is pretty enjoyable, in general. It's bound to hit home for any person who banks on their good looks. Thompson, who is directed by her husband here (film and TV director Howard Deutch, "Some Kind of Wonderful") is fun to watch as this conniving, tough-talking, patently selfish individual who has to learn a hard lesson. She thinks she's found her ticket to the good life when she takes the pawnbrokers' money to buy classier clothes, and worms her way into the life of handsome playboy Ronnie (Brett Cullen, "Joker"). But it isn't until her beauty begins fading, and she sees a doctor (Matthew Faison, "Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI"), that she even remembers her deal with the pawnbroker.

Capable acting all around (Burke Byrnes from "Witchboard" turns up as a jovial cop) and Kevin Yaghers' entertaining ageing makeup make this a basically good diversion with a moral.

'Only Sin Deep' was scripted by genre favorite Fred Dekker ("Night of the Creeps", "The Monster Squad").

Seven out of 10.

One of the All Time Greatest Episodes

[Emunah · 10/10 · 16 November 2008]

This particular episode of the series does not get a whole lot of love from fans. I think due to the fact that this episode came relatively early in the series history, when it didn't establish a wide fan base is a big reason why its underrated. Also, its not exactly a story in the classic sense of Tales. Its not scary, or gory or horrifying. But it is mysterious, and a dark moral tale that reminds me of old Twilight Zone episodes.

Its a classic story of a greedy young woman who sells her beauty to a pawn shop owner for $10,000. However, the pawn shop owner gives her 4 months to the day to change her mind, and she immediately laughs him off, and goes on her way to woo a wealthy man with her newfound fortune. What happens next is interesting and freaky as we uncover the real reason for the pawn shop owner buying her beauty, and the consequences the young woman faces for her greediness.

A great episode

[sapphireg · 8/10 · 27 July 2021]

I thought it was very well done with pretty great performances. With a nice message delivered in a good, not super in your face kind of way.

Only Sin Deep

[a_baron · 9/10 · 4 December 2014]

Sylvia Vane is a common prostitute, a hooker to use that American euphemism. Unusually for her kind she is stunningly attractive, undoubtedly because she hasn't been walking the streets for long, and because she is played by the genuinely stunningly attractive Lea Thompson. Sylvia may be lowlife, but she harbours ideas above her station, and is ruthless enough to aspire to rather than simply dream about them.

She begins by murdering a pimp who tries to offer her "protection". Stealing his jewellery including an expensive watch, she takes her haul to a pawnbroker who says he would need asbestos gloves to handle them. As she leaves his shop he appears to have a change of heart, and offers her $10,000 in cash for her beauty, redeemable in four months. How does this work? He will take a plaster cast of her face, that is all. Telling him he is not playing with a full deck she laughs, takes his money, then dressing like a real lady she chases the dream - a wealthy man - whom she catches in short order. He is not simply wealthy but a nice guy - although the woman he dumped for Sylvia might not agree - and she is soon his live-in lover.

Fast forward four months. Yes, she has made a big mistake. We have an earlier glimpse of what may be coming, but overall this is a superior effort, and it couldn't happen to a more deserving girl.

Remember kiddies. Beauty isn't everything!

[callanvass · 8/10 · 24 September 2013]

(Plot) A gold digging, prostitute named Sylvia (Lea Thompson) leaves her profession to become rich by using her natural beauty to her advantage, where she ends up being embroiled in murder. A pawnbroker offers her 10,000 dollars in exchange for her irresistible beauty, with a four month warranty offer to retrieve her beauty. Sylvia doesn't realize what she's in for…

What the heck, guys? How come this is rated so low? I personally think this is a highly entertaining episode, and filled with creativity. It doesn't have much suspense, but there are plenty of great cheap thrills, and the black humor is absolutely tremendous, with high levels of entertainment. This is the type of thing you would see in an anthology horror film, akin back to the 70's. It also has a heavy dose of karma. It shows when you get too greedy for your own good karma will bite back at you. I really dug the way they ended this one. This isn't a very gory episode. We do get some creepy aging makeup, some very bloody gunshot wounds, and TINY hints at necrophilia, but that's about it. Gore is not this one's forte. Lea Thompson isn't quite as gorgeous as this episode makes her out to be, but she sure is a looker to say the least. I dug her accent and her arrogant swagger as well. She basically is this episode, and I felt she nailed it. Britt Leach is very creepy as the pawnbroker. His subtle, yet menacing show gave me the willies.

Final Thoughts: This is an extremely entertaining episode, and I consider it to be one of the more underrated one's. It's a lot of fun to watch. I highly recommend this episode to you.

8.3/10

Nifty episode

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 8 March 2011]

Fiercely determined hooker Cynthia Vane (well played by Lea Thompson) needs money so she can win over the favor of cocky rich playboy Ronnie Price (a credible portrayal by Brett Cullen). Vane sells her beauty to a creepy pawnshop owner (veteran character actor Britt Leach in top-rate sinister form) to make this happen, but ultimately pays a bitter price for doing this. Director Howard Deutch brings a cool slick style to the engrossing story, maintains a steady pace and a spooky serious tone throughout, and concludes everything on a pleasingly nasty note. Fred Dekker's no-nonsense script offers a strong and provocative message on the dangers of greed and vanity. The sound acting keeps things humming: Thompson makes for a plausibly ruthless, cynical, and conniving stuck-up bitch, with able support from Cullen, Leach, Pamela D'Pella as brash streetwalker Raven, and G. Smokey Campbell as a slimy pimp. The ghastly old age make-up is quite convincing. Richard Bowen's glossy cinematography gives this episode an attractive polished look. Jay Ferguson's funky syncopated score hits the right-on pumpin' spot. A satisfying show.