WB continues their release of the successful half-hour horror anthology series ‘Tales from the Crypt’ with the complete sixth season in which all fifteen episodes are presented uncut for your ghoulish pleasure.
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 CryptKeeper on a unsuspecting public.
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 CryptKeeper (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 CryptKeeper) and a short-lived Saturday morning game show on CBS (Secrets of the Crypt Keepers Haunted House).
Disc One: ‘Let the Punishment Fit the Crime’ starts off the season decently with an uppity ambulance-chaser lawyer Geraldine (Catharine O’Hara) who gets caught up in the nightmarish court system of a small town where she is represented by a more than lacking public defender (Peter MacNicol). Needless, to say she gets a taste of her own medicine. Some good atmosphere and talent here along with a trademark zing of an ending.
‘Only Skin Deep’ is perhaps the most genuinely scary episode of the season if not the best which tells the story of off and on woman beater Bob who makes an appearance at a costume party. With everybody wearing masks, he falls for a particularly sexy specimen wearing a porcelain mask, Molly, and they had back to her place. Making a pact to keep their masks on and not share any info about each other, they have a hot and heavy night. The mood quickly goes sour as he has nightmares of a screaming man and he wakes up more intrigued by Molly than ever. Still wearing her mask, curiosity gets the best of him…A pretty freaky episode, the make-up f/x were quite well done and the episode mounted the tension until the gory ending - a great example of a show gone right.
‘Whirlpool’, one of the more lacking episodes, stars Rita Rudner as Rolanda, a once hot comic book illustrator who has seemingly run her course around the offices of the ‘Tales from the Crypt’ comic book. Coming up with bad ideas, her editor (Richard Lewis) has had enough and fires her. Sad and furious, she decides to take action…then take action again…then take action again. A nasty twist on ‘Groundhog Day’ isn’t a bad idea, but the execution is all wrong and the cast is a little more than annoying. There’s some ineffective direction from ‘Masters of Horror’ creator Mick Garris to keep things confusing.
‘Operation Friendship’ is an okay take on the invisible friend idea where an office drone Nelson (Tate Donovan) keeps getting pushed around by his co-workers and trouble meeting the ladies. When Nelson falls for a pretty neighbor, though, who we thought was his pal, Eddie, is not who he seems and who also has some jealously issues…
‘Revenge is the Nuts’ is a pretty good episode with an above average cast. Anthony Zerbe plays a villainous shell of a man who runs a home for the blind - subjecting them to all sorts of mean-spirited pranks and ghoulish tortures. A new resident, Shelly (Teri Polo) wrangles up the other residents, including Isaac Hayes, for some payback. The pace keeps moving with this one which starts out with a dark comic streak and gets only darker as the show progresses. By the end, the particularly grisly comeuppance of a character is a well-deserved.
Disc Two starts off with ‘The Bride’, another effective episode with a great cast. Terry O’ Quinn plays a fire marshal who proceeds in the process of shutting down a seedy strip club where his daughter Hailey (Kimberly Williams) once worked. The owners of the club (Esai Morales and pal Benecio Del Toro) attempt to bribe the fire marshal, who at first refuses, but decides to accept the bribe for his daughter’s education and then in turn hires an arsonist to burn the club down. But the club may have had an unsuspecting visitor the night of the fire that has the fire marshal pay the ultimate price…and then some - an effective mystery entry.
‘The Pit’ is an entertaining episode but doesn’t really gel with the ‘Crypt’ motif. Two pro fighters (think UFC) hammer away at each other but it’s their respective wives, both fighters themselves before marriage, who despise each other. Both obnoxious and loud, the wives set up a deathmatch with the help of a Vegas promoter Wink (Wayne Newton) without really consulting their husbands. The fighters actually kind of like each other and are brow beat into the ring…but the husbands have a nasty surprise for ‘em…Kind of funny, just not particularly “ghoulish”.
The season picks back up though with ‘The Assassin’, a dark comedy precursor to Cronenberg’s ‘A History of Violence’. All around perfect housewife Janet sends off her husband in the morning with a kiss and a smile but little did she know her husband used to work for the C.I.A. as an assassin. His past life comes back to haunt him as a small group of professional covert ops break into his house to tie up loose ends where only Janet may hold the key to the family’s survival…A well-made ep despite the presence of Corey Feldman.
‘Staired in Horror’ generates some good atmosphere and f/x along with sporting a spiffy cast but came up short for me. D.B Sweeney stars as Clyde, an escaped convict who comes across an ancient swamp manor which he uses as a hide out. An old woman seems to be the sole occupant, yet he finds a beautiful woman in the bedroom…some sort of curse is afoot…and the law (R.Lee Ermey as the sheriff, natch) is one step behind.
‘In the Groove’ has Miguel Ferrer star as a talk show radio host, Gary Grover, who has lost ratings on the day shift which results in his boss and sister consigning him to the graveyard shift. Assigned a partner, he’s at first furious about this new addition, but her sexy ideas soon result with him getting back in the game in a big way. Sex doesn’t seem to cut it for him, though, and to get more listeners, he thinks he may have to take the stakes up a notch…Ferrer is good here and the idea is competent.
Disc Three: ‘Surprise Party’ is a convoluted mess that has a son, Ray, kill his father on his death bed to prevent the father from signing a will that would keep him from attaining a burnt-ridden home. Visiting the home, he inexplicably discovers a surprise party is being held there in his honor and soon settles down with a little hottie. The boyfriend of said hottie appears at the wrong moment, however, and Ray is forced to handle the matter w/violence which unravels the mystery of the burned house…and his part in it. Ehh, doesn’t quite come together and Jake Busey plays the boyfriend. Nuff said.
Getting back on track with ‘Doctor of Horror’, Hank Azaria and Travis Tritt (?) play night shift security guards at a local morgue. Taking a little under the table money from a wacky doctor by the name of Orloff so they can let him during the night to experiment on the dead and attempt to capture their souls, their boss Andrews (Ben Stein) finds out, and the night shift security guards gotta act quick. A fun cast and episode although Tritt is obviously not an actor.
‘Comes the Dawn’ is a cool episode that generates some of the same atmosphere as Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ and features a cool idea that we’ll soon see on the big screen as ’30 Days of Night’. A pair of hunters (Michael Ironside and Bruce Payne) looking for bear come across an attractive woman who take the hunters back to her place of rest. When they attempt to leave, it appears their in for a very long night…as they stumbled across hibernating vampires, as the Alaskan night lasts two months…bummer! Good idea, execution and cast.
‘99 & 44/100 Pure Horror’ is a nasty little concoction that follows the grisly art of Cristi, an artist that was once popular due to safe designs for her husband’s hair products, and who know specializes in gore – art featuring people with their skin shaved off. When her husband has a new line and he drops her art for somebody else’s, she goes into a murderous rage and dumps his body onto the factory line that produces soap – soap that she poorly decides to use to clean the blood off…some good gore f/x towards the end, but the female lead is weak and the story only so-so.
The season finale is an unsuccessful attempt by Robert Zemeckis to turn his ‘Forrest Gump’ ideas of plugging dead people where they don’t belong into a decent film nourish episode. Lou Spinelli (played by Humphrey Bogart using Zemeckis trickery and voiced by Robert Sacchi, his character mostly plays out in first person) is a former gangster who wishes to go legit.
Hiring a plastic surgeon (John Lithgow) to make him look just like Bogie, his wife Betty (Isabella Rossellini) finds out about his secret and Oscar comes up with a plan to off her. But a whodunit wouldn’t be complete without a few double crosses. The narrative ain’t great to be sure, but the idea is okay and some of the dialogue works.
The first person perspective, used before in the film noir ‘Lady in the Lake’, certainly works better in episodic form than feature length but there’s just not a lot here. Points for having the Cryptkeeper dress up like Forrest Gump in the opening and closing framing segments, though…
All episodes are presented in their original 1.33:1 fullframe aspect ratio. The lone special feature is a comic reprint of the ‘Whirlpool’ episode where Karris narrates the comic as the Cryptkeeper. Kinda fun but that’s it?
‘Tales from the Crypt’ is always an easy watch for fans and this season is no different. Even the bad episodes are inherently watchable and re-watchable and Karris as the Cryptkeeper provides some genuine laughs.
The Special Features couldn’t get much weaker but it makes sense that the good stuff got used in the earlier seasons. A painless recommend for fans…or should that be painful?
Tales from the Crypt: The Complete Sixth Season is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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