The reason for that is simple - I've been watching Tales From the Crypt at a fever pitch over the past five weeks. And I've been so engrossed that I haven't bothered to dig out any of the older flicks from my collection.
Looking back, I can't believe that I hadn't added the season sets of TFTC to my library sooner. When it comes to TV shows with horror connections, The X-Files was, is, and probably shall forever be my #1, but this is a very close second. In addition, the series had been a major part of my childhood, and while I've told the story before, I might as well bore everyone with it again.
Along with Joe Bob Briggs, this show is the primary reason for my horror fandom today. I saw my first episode of Tales sometime in 1993 (I was ten years old at the time). See, my next-door neighbor back then had all the cool stuff, including HBO. I'd heard of this scary Tales From the Crypt show a few times in passing by that point, and since I'd just gotten done watching the Friday the 13th series for the first time, any and everything horror was fascinating to my young mind. So on one long ago Friday night, we tuned in to HBO at 11:00 p.m. central time. The episode was "Strung Along," where a ventriloquist with a much younger wife is given a heart attack by the sight of his dummy brutally murdering his wife. Of course, as per usual with this series, the murder would turn out to be a swerve, but I was both scared s***less and fascinated enough to continue watching. Thus, Friday night TFTC visits became a staple of my fourth and fifth-grade summers.
Looking back on that story, one thing cannot be ignored - while the show was airing on HBO, a channel that I didn't have access to, I'd heard of it. Hell, everyone I KNEW had heard of Tales From the Crypt, and it had been talked about in hushed tones a few times at grade-school lunchroom discussions. While everyone enjoyed Rocko's Modern Life and Doug (myself included) at the time, watching an episode of Tales From the Crypt made you undeniably badass for the day. Granted, we were only grade-schoolers, but to our young minds the aura surrounding TFTC was that this was a really, really big, important show.
Of course, as it turned out, we were right. The series was created in 1989 by five men whose names read like a who's who of Hollywood - Richard Donner, David Giler, Walter Hill, Joel Silver, David Geffen and Robert Zemeckis. With such amazing clout on the executive producing front, TFTC rose above the normal anthology show. Almost every episode was either directed by or starred someone that anyone who considers themselves a casual movie fan would recognize - and sometimes not just casual fans. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried his hand at directing an episode, as did Bob Hoskins and Michael J. Fox, to name just three. Demi Moore, Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Daniel Craig, Sam Kinison, Kirk Douglas and Teri Hatcher all had various guest-starring roles in the series over its seven seasons. The series had many other well-known horror names who cut their teeth on the series, as well, with makeup FX master Kevin Yagher creating the Crypt Keeper's well-known visage and future Hellraiser series czar Rick Bota serving as the director of photography on many episodes.
The show had a very distinct style and look. Emulating the E.C. horror comics from the '50s that the producers had been huge fans of, each episode started with that awesome tracking shot from the front door of a spooky house all the way to the lair of the Crypt Keeper (awesomely voiced by John Kassir), who in turn would introduce the story about to unfold in a manner not unlike the comic version of the E.C. Comics hosts. Once an episode started (which were based on stories from the magazines "Tales From the Crypt," "Vault of Horror," "Crime SuspenStories" and "Shock SuspenStories"), the atmosphere truly took over. Perhaps the most phenomenal thing about Tales From the Crypt is how the producers and directors knew what they were going for with every frame and accomplished it so seamlessly. They took comic stories from forty years ago and updated them to modern times, but also never forgot to add the tongue-in-cheek fun factor and sense of humor to the episodes, as well. And when the show was trying to be scary, it was f***in' scary.
While many fans disagree, I actually do feel that the first season of the show was the best. It featured episodes directed by producer heavyweights Donner, Zemeckis and Hill, as well as Tom Holland (Child's Play), Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary) and Howard Deutch (The Great Outdoors, The Replacements). At only six episodes long, I distinctly remember every show in the series' inaugural season, from the series opener "The Man Who Was Death" to Lambert's grotesque "Collection Completed." Nonetheless, what a way to kick off a series.
Tales From the Crypt would produce a total of 93 episodes during its seven-season run, always a fixture in the summer programming block on HBO. During this time, the series became so popular that it eventually spawned two theatrical films - 1994's Demon Knight starring Billy Zane, which is one of my favorite horror films of the '90s, and 1996's Bordello of Blood with Dennis Miller. Both movies retain the same "bad things happening to bad people" motif of the series while also remembering the pure goofy sense of humor that the show prided itself on. While Bordello of Blood may have strayed too far into the goofy, it's still an undeniably entertaining horror film that I dig out at least once a year.
While there was a clunker here and there, overall, I can't say enough good about Tales From the Crypt - so now a couple of nerdy lists. And these were VERY hard to pin down.
LICK NESS MONSTER'S TOP TEN TFTC EPISODES:
1. "And All Through the House" - Robert Zemeckis-directed update of a short that was ALSO filmed in the 1972 Tales From the Crypt movie. Zemeckis' real-life wife Mary Ellen Trainor plays a wife who murders her husband on Christmas Eve, only to be stalked and terrorized by a Santa Suit-clad psycho (the phenomenal Larry Drake). Naughty or nice?
2. "The Man Who Was Death" - Bill Sadler turns in an excellent performance as a prison executioner who REALLY loves his job, taking it to the streets after the State bans capital punishment. Excellent characterization and use of voice-over make the inaugural TFTC episode immortal.
3. "Maniac at Large" - This episode has perhaps the best swerve in the entire series, as a timid librarian (Blythe Danner) burns the night oil at a shift while a brutal serial murderer stalks the streets. Extremely tense and well-written, directed by John Frankenheimer.
4. "Strung Along" - All these years later, and the first episode I saw is still just as memorable and frightening. In general, I think ventriloquist's dummies are freaky (see the season 2 "Ventriloquist's Dummy" episode for further proof), and the final scenes of this episode are very horrific stuff.
5. "Well Cooked Hams" - Billy Zane plays a struggling magician who kills his mentor (Martin Sheen), and eventually steals his most famous trick "The Box of Death." Because you know that will turn out well. A fantastic performance by Zane and the final swerve are the hallmarks of this episode.
6. "Only Skin Deep" - For the single CREEPIEST episode that TFTC ever did, look no further. A man with a history of abusive relationships (Peter Onorati) picks up a mysterious masked woman (Sherrie Rose) at a party. Very darkly shot and written, with a terrifying denounment.
7. "Yellow" - Another Zemeckis-directed story, featuring Eric Douglas as a cowardly soldier facing the music for abandoning his fellow soldiers in battle. The twist? The executioner is his own father (played by his real-life father Kirk). While not strictly a horror tale, this is gripping TV.
8. "Easel Kill Ya" - After a struggling artist (Tim Roth) sells a painting depicting a brutal murder to a morbid collector, he begins to seek out real-life murder victims for the sake of his art. Roth and William Atherton (as the collector) add very human nuances to their characters.
9. "Mute Witness to Murder" - Gut-wrenchingly tense tale of a woman (Patricia Clarkson) who witnesses a murder and goes mute. Lo and behold, the psychiatrist who now cares for her (Richard Thomas) is the same man who committed the murder.
10. "Lover Come Hack to Me" - My favorite version of the "gold-digger gets what they deserve" story done in several TFTC episodes. Stephen Shellen plays a man who plans to murder his new bride (Amanda Plummer) on their honeymoon - but, of course, this plan meets disastrous consequences.
THE FIVE WORST TFTC EPISODES:
1. "This'll Kill Ya" - Admittedly, it's hard picking bad episodes of Tales From the Crypt, and there's nothing bad about this tale of laboratory backstabbing - it's just very meh, not very memorable, and blase.
2. "Oil's Well that Ends Well" - Lou Diamond Phillips and Priscilla Presley are two con artists who attempt to convince several Southern boys that there is oil under a cemetary. Not particularly scary or inventive, although John Kassir turns in a memorable acting performance.
3. "Operation Friendship" - I've read a few reviews praising this episode, but as Tate Donovan struggles with his imaginary friend in his romantic entanglements, I just found the whole thing too over-the-top even for TFTC. Call it glandular.
4. "For Cryin' Out Loud" - While the episosde features some phenomenal talent (rocker Iggy Pop and comedian Sam Kinison), for some reason I just couldn't get into this tale of a man whose conscience becomes a rather loud voice (which, of course, is Kinison).
5. "Lower Berth" - I won't get into the deep-seated psychosis why I didn't like this episode; needless to say, it's mighty nerdy. As for a brief description, this is an origin story of sorts for the host of our show, the Crypt Keeper.
So, there you have it. Tales From the Crypt, created by several Hollywood bigwigs, meant as a shrine to the great, grand genre of horror. It also kick-started the careers of several promising young actors in the process, spawned two feature films, made the Crypt Keeper a legitimate television icon, and gave us a massive collection of truly fascinating, frightening episodes of television. Throw in the fact that the series aired on HBO, and thus featured the freedom to feature all the graphic violence, gore, and nudity any horror fan could want, and you've got a real winner.
As for a rating, A+, ****, 10 out of 10, whichever way you slice it, Tales From the Crypt was 100% pure awesome.
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