Eddie (Adrian Edmondson) and Richie (Rik Mayall) in their Halloween costumes.
"Terror" is a Halloween-themed episode of Bottom, the British sitcom about the misadventures of Eddie (Adrian Edmondson) and Richie (Rik Mayall), two single, middle-aged, unemployed men who share a filthy and badly maintained apartment in a rundown area of London. Although the episode takes place on Halloween, it was first broadcast on BBC2 on January 15, 1995.
In the episode, having found out that it is Halloween, Eddie and Richie decide to throw a party, in the hope that hundreds of beautiful women will attend it. Unfortunately, the only people who come to Eddie and Richie's party are their equally disgusting middle-aged male friends Dave Hedgehog and Spudgun. Fed up with his miserable loveless existence, Richie decides to sell his soul to the Devil in return for twenty-five years of money and sex.
Plot[]
At breakfast time, Eddie and Richie discover that they have once again failed to win the weekly newspaper competition and are distinctly low on cash. Eddie hears a knock at the door. When he opens it, he is surprised to see three small boys in Devil costumes and assumes that he is having an alcohol induced hallucination. Richie prepares a home remedy to take the hallucination away, made up of orange juice and several different cleaning products. The boys say "Trick or treat!" in a menacing way. Eddie does not understand them and, consequently, does not give them anything. The boys "trick" Eddie by sticking a plastic Devil's trident in his crotch. Richie has to agree with Eddie that it was a powerful hallucination because he can see the trident too.
Having realized that it is Halloween, Richie decides that they should hold a wild party which lots of sexy women will attend. To raise money for the party, Richie and Eddie will put on costumes and go out trick-or-treating. They will insist that everybody gives them money instead of candy or any other treats. There were no pumpkin costumes left at the costume shop, so Eddie has to make do with a banana costume instead. Richie's Devil costume consists of a red cape, a hood and some red women's pantyhose. He has bought a box of three pairs of pantyhose, one red, one green and one brown. The men have a cattle prod with which to threaten anyone who refuses to give them money. When Richie tries it out, he gets a shock, loses control of his bowels and soils his pantyhose.
Eddie and Richie (now wearing the green pantyhose) have been trick-or-treating for some time but have received only a few pieces of candy, some apples with razor blades in them and a very small amount of money. Eddie sees the three boys who attacked him that morning. The two men decide to get their revenge on the small boys by beating them up. However, the three boys easily get the better of Richie and Eddie and take their meager treats.
The two men knock the door of a house, which turns out to belong to Eddie's friend Spudgun. Spudgun has never heard of trick-or-treat and does not understand why Eddie and Richie are demanding money from him. Wanting to threaten Spudgun, Richie tells Eddie to give him the cattle prod. Eddie misunderstands and shocks Richie with it. Richie soils the green pantyhose and goes off to change. When Richie returns in the brown pantyhose, he tries to threaten Spudgun with the cattle prod again. Once again he gets a shock and soils his third pair of pantyhose. Richie and Eddie complain that they cannot continue trick-or-treating and will not be able to raise money for the party. Hearing that they are going to have a party, Spudgun asks if he can come. The two men say that he can but he will have to give them as much money as he can afford to pay for drinks. They tell him to be at their apartment at eight o'clock and to bring everybody he knows.
Back at their apartment, Eddie prepares a bathtub full of homebrewed alcohol. He explains to Richie that he was unable to make a jack-o-lantern because the store had run out of pumpkins. Instead, he has drawn a smiley face on a carrot. When Richie points out that it is not very scary, Eddie shows him that it is. He lights a fuse in the carrot and it explodes. Richie is impressed and Eddie shows him that he has a small trunk full of exploding carrots. Richie has prepared some sprouts mexicain, consisting of Brussesls sprouts (leftovers from the previous Christmas, meaning that they should have been eaten some ten months ago), chili powder, tabasco sauce, curry powder and gunpowder. Eddie refuses to eat the sprouts mexicain but Richie does and immediately passes out. Richie comes round ninety minutes later, flames emerging from his backside every time he passes wind.
At precisely eight o' clock, Richie rushes to answer the door, expecting to find hundreds of people including many sexy women. He is disappointed to find only Spudgun and his friend Dave Hedgehog, the only person apart from Eddie who Spudgun knows. Having realized that he is not going to have sex that night, Richie begins to complain about the unfairness of his existence. He mentions in passing that he could sell his soul to the Devil in return for twenty-five years of money and sex and then decides that is a good idea. He announces that he will find out how to conjure up the Devil and goes to his bedroom to get a children's book about witches. Richie leads the other three men in what he thinks is a Satanic ritual. As part of the ceremony, they all eat the "Sprouts of Evil", the sprouts mexicain which Richie prepared earlier. All four men pass out and come to shortly before midnight, all suffering from flaming flatulence.
At the stroke of midnight, there is a knock on the door. Richie goes to answer the door and sees a young woman wearing a red domino mask with two small horns on it over her eyes. She says that she has come for Dave Hedgehog. Believing her to be the Devil, Richie leads her into the living room and asks Eddie to offer her some of his own blood as a drink. Not wanting to offend the Devil, Richie asks what he should call her. She replies "Doreen" and again says that she has come for Dave Hedgehog. The terrified Dave Hedgehog says that he did not want to take part in the Satanic ritual and starts to sing a hymn. Richie tells Doreen that he is keen to sell his soul in exchange for twenty-five years of money and sex. Doreen tells Richie that he must have gotten her confused with someone else. She takes off her mask, saying that she is Doreen Hedgehog, Dave's daughter, and that she has come to take her father home. Dave Hedgehog is confused, now believing that his daughter and the Devil are one and the same, and asks Doreen if she can tell him which horses will win future races.
Eddie passes out due to lack of blood. Relieved that the visitor is only Doreen Hedgehog and not the real Devil, Spudgun no longer feels obliged to hold in his flatulence. A stream of flames emerges from his rear end, while he is standing next to the trunk full of exploding carrots.
Cast[]
- Richie - Rik Mayall
- Eddie - Adrian Edmondson
- Spudgun - Steven O'Donnell
- Dave Hedgehog - Christopher Ryan
- Doreen - Lisa Coleman
- Trick-or-treaters - Paul Ballard, Simon Coleman and Mohammed George
External links[]
- Bottom: "Terror" on the Internet Movie Database.
- Quotations from the "Terror' episode of Bottom on Wikiquote.