Tales from the Crypt

I have a vivid memory of being a young kid and watching the opening of TALES FROM THE CRYPT like a Jack-in-the-Box. Going through that scary old house, not having any context, it was fascinating and scary at the same time, but I could feel that wind-up. Then came the release, the Cryptkeeper leaping out of the coffin and laughing directly into the camera, and I turned away from the TV, bolted upstairs and jumped into my bed. TALES FROM THE CRYPT was THE horror program of my early childhood. It’s hard to explain to people who weren’t there as the show has barely even been merchandised in the past 15-20 years, but there was a time when the Cryptkeeper had a stranglehold on pop culture. This was an HBO show, so it was more adult than the usual “adult” horror on TV. It really pushed boundaries. And yet it was marketed to children. I was fascinated by it and I was terrified of it, as was the beginning of so many of my greatest horror loves.

TALES FROM THE CRYPT was the signature anthology series while I was growing up. It was not TWILIGHT ZONE, it was not TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE, it had a distinctive tone that no other show has had before or since. It was mean and nasty and outrageous and funny, all in equal doses. Many episodes were about ghosts and zombies and monsters that drove my young imagination wild. Even more episodes were just about murder, about people selfishly killing each other for increasingly insane reasons.

It was very much a love letter to the source material, the EC Comics of the 1950s. Not only the Tales from the Crypt comic book, but really Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear and the entire EC library. Most episodes were lifted directly from those classic tales. There was an episode in the second season that was the only episode to really connect the host segments to the stories themselves, which depicted the Cryptkeeper’s origin. I never loved that. The Cryptkeeper in the EC Comics was an old, living man, and I always liked to believe that the Cryptkeeper of the show was exactly that guy, as he would appropriately look being dug up after several decades.

My favorite thing about TALES FROM THE CRYPT, though, is that it allowed A-list actors and directors who were perhaps deemed as “above” the genre, or at the very least were not associated with it, to scratch their itch for horror. Robert Zemeckis was one of the founding fathers of the show and directed all-timer episodes like “And All Through the House” and “Yellow.” Tom Hanks directed an episode, Michael J. Fox directed an episode, even Arnold Schwarzenneger directed an episode. Then you had actors like Brad Pitt, Billy Crystal, Demi Moore, Ewan McGregor and just countless others.

At the same time, the show saw great work from legitimate horror legends like Tom Holland, Don Mancini, Michael McDowell, and so many more. For seven years, it broke down any perceived lines between genres, allowed everyone to get their creepy, weird, gnarly urges out and have the most fun doing it. It was an institution, shepherded by a mummified puppet who could spin a ghoulish pun like nobody’s business.

HIGHLIGHT EPISODES:

• “Television Terror”- Morton Downey Jr. stars as a sensationalist TV journalist who exploits a supposedly haunted house for ratings and is tormented by the spirits inside. Even though it’s not a Halloween episode, it feels like a local news Halloween special gone wrong, and is one I always make sure to watch during the season.
• “And All Through the House”- A woman who has just killed her husband is stalked by an escaped madman in a Santa Claus costume who has an axe to grind with both her and her young daughter. This episode used to scare the Hell out of me. Even the image of demented Santa Larry Drake in ads was too much for young me to bear. This was the first episode of the series to air and perfectly set the tone for the show. It’s kind of a remake, too, as the story was also adapted in the original 1972 film. This gives a shot of adrenaline and jet black humor that’s hard to beat.
• “None But the Lonely Heart”- America’s dad Tom Hanks delivers a masterful mean-spirited horror comedy in under half an hour. Treat Williams marries rich elderly women who then rise from their graves for revenge in increasingly nightmarish states of decay.
• “Three’s a Crowd”- Of the “just plain old murder” episodes, this is the standout. This is perhaps the most lunatic episode of the entire show, and that’s saying a LOT. Gavin O’Herlihy gives a performance so genuinely unhinged, and not in a funny way, even though the episode builds to a Hell of a punchline. It feels like such an authentic portrayal of a man who’s genuinely snapping, authentically making everyone around him uncomfortable from moment to moment, that it almost dares you to keep watching.
• “Korman’s Kalamity”- A delightful riff on the concept of the whole show, as an artist for the TALES FROM THE CRYPT comic book realizes that the monsters he puts on the page are somehow coming to life.
• “Four-Sided Triangle”- At this point, kind of feels like a precursor to PEARL in some ways? Patricia Arquette stars as a captive farmhand to a rural couple, and her only escape from the ridicule and abuse is her nightly rendezvous with her lover, the scarecrow that sits in the middle of the cornfield.
• “The Switch”- Schwarzenegger directs this absurdly funny dark rom-com about wealthy old man William Hickey who, for the love of a young women, gives himself the body of a younger, musclebound man. Piece by piece.