Review: 'Honeymoon With Death' - CBS Radio Mystery Theater

An episode that deals with extreme gaslighting, 'Honeymoon With Death' reminded me a lot of the movies 'The Amazing Mr. X' and 'The Dark Mirror'. (By the way, both of those black and white films are great movies that I highly recommend if you haven't watched them already!)

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Episode Plot (No Spoilers)

A couple return home from their honeymoon, still glowing and happy and very much in love. The wife goes to change, and when she comes out, her husband has been stabbed in his chair. She runs out into the street to get help, and her sister, who lives in the apartment beneath, runs out after her and brings her back inside. The crime scene is empty. There is no trace of the husband. Everyone seems to think the wife made the whole thing up - dreamed it or imagined it - and her sister lets the police officer know that this isn't the first time she's had hallucinations.

But the woman believes it so strongly that the officer decides to keep investigating... And he soon uncovers that the man did, in fact, exist, and that the sister might know more than she lets on...

Overall Thoughts and Review

Well, if this isn't a great example of extreme gaslighting, I don't know what is! In this story, the heroine is told time and again that she has imagined the entire thing: meeting her husband, marrying him, having a month-long honeymoon with him, and seeing him murdered. Her sister tells her time and again that the whole thing never happened, and that she's hallucinating, and without a crime scene or evidence, it seems that everyone else believes that, too.

Then the man pops up again - alive and well - and seems to know the sister! More gaslighting ensues when the heroine tries to ask why her sister made it seem like he never existed. The whole thing is very frustrating, but I did enjoy the satisfaction of having the officer figure it out in the end and confronting the culprits. 

I feel like the storyline of a woman who is frightened that she's going mad because people keep telling her that what she is seeing, hearing, or otherwise experiencing isn't real is one that has been done quite a few times. I think it's a good example of how easily dismissed women and their concerns were in certain societies at certain times. Were it not for the officer who believed her, this woman might have well ended up dying thinking she was well and truly mad. That alone is a frightening thought...