DVD Review: Tales from the Crypt - The Complete Third Season

By Frankie Dees Apr 8, 2006, 20:16 GMT

One hour stories with many themes, including; horror, twists, black-magic, sci-fi .... Introduced by a puppet called "The Crypt Keeper". A cross between the "Twighlight Zone" and modern horror movies. ...more

The year was 1989 and with the end of the relatively successful 4-year run of the syndicated television show “Tales from the Darkside” in 1988, the same year that also spawned a similar short-lived syndicated series “Monsters”, HBO thought it was the perfect time to unleash the ghoulish world of the Crypt Keeper on a unsuspecting public.

Based on the infamous 1950’s EC comic series of the same name from William M. Gaines (who also created Mad Magazine), the atmosphere, tone, and the signature twist endings (twist sometimes being more than appropriate) were all faithfully retained. And being on HBO, the creators did not have to worry about the censors and included a generous amount of gore and nudity. Each week, our old pal the Crypt Keeper (a perfectly cast John Kassir) who never met a pun he didn’t murder (“This is my caddy Juan. He teed me off so I shot him. Now I have a hole in Juan!”) introduces and closes a tale of the macabre; a little murder, mystery or mayhem. 

Being a decidedly low-brow affair, the show still always managed to attract top-name talent throughout its seven year run - even enticing actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael J. Fox to make their directing efforts (Fox’s only attempt behind the camera) due to the high-profile producing team of Richard Donner, Walter Hill, Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis who would often helm a few episodes themselves.

This led to seven successful seasons, two feature films and, oddly, also resulted in a children’s following with an animated series (Tales of the Crypt Keeper) and a short-lived Saturday morning game show on CBS (Secrets of the Crypt Keepers Haunted House).

This brings us to the third season in the highly popular series. After two strong seasons, a few seams were starting to show, but there is still a lot here to recommend to the Tales faithful. Episode highlights for me include “The Reluctant Vampire”, with an extraordinary Malcolm McDowell playing our titular vampire in which the episode title says it all. McDowell, who cannot get himself to kill, plays a night security guard at a blood bank. Just a good guy with an innocent crush on a co-worker, he finds himself at odds with the blood bank manager George Wendt who wonders where all the blood is going and Michael Berryman (from The Hill Have Eyes, great casting) who shows up as Van Helsing. A very charming, funny fable and a nice change from some of the other gore-driven episodes.

A particular nasty and enjoyable episode “Abra Cadaver” borrows freely from Re-Animator and The Serpent and the Rainbow and tells the story of two brothers (Tony Goldwyn and Beau Bridges), doctors that enjoy practical jokes just a little too much. Some great performances, gore, and the best ending of the lot. As the Crypt-Keeper might say, I deem this episode a monster mash-ter piece!

My favorite episode that plays it straight (missing the signature black-humor) would be “Easel Kill You” with a genuinely creepy center performance from Tim Roth as a starving artist who finds himself driven to paint the murder-scenes that he first fell into by accident but then with the motivation of money from a wealthy, yuppie sick o (William Atherton), he begins to create his own murder scenes. Good atmosphere and tension is developed here and Roth keeps us with him the whole way. Another solid episode which reminds of those horror films in the late eighties like The Lost Boys and The Monster Squad which were head-lined by teens is “Undertaking Palor”, about a group of young teens who stumble upon a murder mystery involving the local mortician and pharmacist. Dark and witty writing and scenes play throughout here and a nice, conniving performance from John Glover as the murderous mortician “kills” the deal.

The one and only Cryptkeeper

Oddly, the episodes involving the big-name talent left me cold, so to speak. Michael J. Fox’s episode “The Trap” didn’t do much for me and delved a little too much into camp and over-acting for my tastes even for a Tales from the Crypt episode. “Dead Wait” directed by Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and starring Whoopi Goldberg as a voodoo priestess who acts revenge on a thief who nabs a precious black pearl plodded along with no real suspense or tension. Walter Hill’s (The Warriors) “Deadline” about a reporter who will get his job back with a murder story also provides little interest.

Maybe most disappointing, though, would be Robert Zemeckis’ season finale episode “Yellow” which runs longer than the other episodes and sports the fine cast of Kirk Douglas, Eric Douglas (the only creepy element of this episode is how much Eric sounds like Michael), Lance Henriksen and Dan Aykroyd. “Yellow” tells the story of a revered World War I general (Kirk Douglas) in the heat of battle. His troops inform him that his son (Eric Douglas) is yellow, a coward. Unbelieving, he sends his son out into battle only to be confronted with the truth. His son is a coward. This cannot stand with the general, so he comes up with a devious plan to prove to others that his son is not a coward. Overlong and somewhat tedious, the biggest problem with this episode is that it has nothing to do with horror. No real tension or gore, it’s more about a father-son relationship and a painfully predictable ending.

The six other episodes not mentioned include “Loved To Death” about a wannabe writer (Andrew McCarthy) who uses a love potion to disastrous results, “Carrion Death” tells the story of a robber (Kyle MacLachlan) who meets a grisly death in the desert (mediocre until that last grisly sequence), “Top Billing,” a acceptable episode about an actor (Jon Lovitz) who finds himself under the mercy of a maniacal theater director (in a fun performance from John Astin who seems to reprise his performance from the Killer Tomatoes sequels), “Mournin’ Mess,” yet another story about a reporter (Steven Weber) who stumbles upon the macabre, “Split Second,” a fun episode involving a insanely jealous lumberjack husband (Brion James) who gets his comeuppance involving a blind man and a chainsaw and finally “Spoiled,” a mediocre episode about a doctor who finds his wife with the cable repairman and makes sure that since they wanted each other’s bodies, they’ll get ‘em.

The episodes are presented in their original aspect ratio of 4:3 full frame. Special Features do not include much. Two featurettes which feature a lot of the same footage since both were filmed at the same comic-con panel are “A Tall Tales Panel: Series Creators and Admirers Celebrate the Show in a Crypt Seminar” and “A Tales from the Crypt Reunion: A Panel Discussion.” The expected stuff is found here with informative anecdotes about the history, casting and so on. Also provided is a very funny “Crypt Jam” Music Video that features our favorite corpse...ahem...rapping. A fun, cheesy addition that’s hard not to laugh at, especially when the Crypster appears in his best bling-bling regalia. Funny stuff. It’s also to note that WB opted to package this season in slim cases that house 3 discs instead of the digipack packaging that sported the first two seasons. This results in the third season sitting taller on the shelf than the other two seasons. A mild annoyance for Tales fans. They also jettisoned the cool, embossed covers…hmph!

Overall, Tales from the Crypt fans should be pleased. While this season isn’t quite as consistently successful as the last two seasons, there’s a lot to enjoy here for horror fans so step on up to the Crypt Keepers private “screaming” room (insert Crypt Keeper cackle here).

Tales from the Crypt – The Complete Third Season is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD’s database for more information.