The other Two-Fisted-Tale was a Zemeckis/Ackroyd/Kirk Douglas/HENRIKSEN ww2 episode called “Yellow”.
I guess early 90s Fox audiences weren’t ready for the sheer amount of star power on display.
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| Originally Posted by wadew1 View Post The other Two-Fisted-Tale was a Zemeckis/Ackroyd/Kirk Douglas/HENRIKSEN ww2 episode called “Yellow”. I guess early 90s Fox audiences weren’t ready for the sheer amount of star power on display. |
That’s the other one I was thinking of too.
Which episode do you remember being the shittiest? I say the one where Harry Anderson plays a nebbishy cartoonist whose sketches become real and eat his shrewish wife!
I watched “The New Arrival” last night, pretty damn creepy. Little kids in emotionless white masks = nightmarish. Can’t help but think the reveal of what was behind the mask let it down. Less is more.
Cutting Cards is still far and away my favorite episode I’ve seen. Need to rewatch the series though.
Also perusing the Netflix descriptions, there’s a fucking Timothy Dalton episode where he hunts werewolves!? Holy. Fucking. Shit. I need.
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| Originally Posted by joeypants View Post Also perusing the Netflix descriptions, there’s a fucking Timothy Dalton episode where he hunts werewolves!? Holy. Fucking. Shit. I need. |
But there’s a twist!
It’s actually two twists. The first is one of the best the show ever did, and the second is one of the stupidest. And this show did not want for stupid twists.
I can’t believe how many of these I remember on reflection. Time to change the netflix queue.
“He’s thinking about that rubber diaper they gave him to wear. Wondering if he’ll crap all over himself when I juice him in a couple minutes. He will.” - Niles Talbot
The Man Who Was Death (1.01)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?:
When New York bans capital punishment, an out of work executioner decides to continue his work, on a freelance basis.
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE?:
This very first episode was written & directed by the great Walter Hill (director of great films like The Warriors, Southern Comfort, and Streets of Fire), and features a wonderful lead performance by William Sadler (Die Hard 2, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey).
HOW IS IT?:
Gallows humor is the series’ trademark, and the very first episode starts with a very literal example of that. We open with a death row inmate Charlie Ledbetter sitting in his cell while wacky circus music plays and executioner Niles Talbot (William Sadler) cheerfully breaks the fourth wall to let us know that Charlie only has a few minutes left to live. Niles is our narrator and a huge part of what makes the episode work. Willam Adler’s performance is both intimidating and funny, all in a very understated way.
So after New York bans capital punishment, Niles finds himself out of work and out of patience with the immoral state of his fair city. So, as you probably guessed, Niles takes it upon himself to execute those he finds guilty in your typical Taxi Driver/Death Wish sort of plot, only his gimmick is that he only uses electricity, like back when he worked at the big house. Luckily, William Adler’s performance and Walter Hill’s truly superb direction more than make up for the story’s lack of originality. Hill isn’t phoning it in, and this episode has his fingerprints all over it, especially Niles’ brief monologue about New York: “I’m a country boy, but I like the city. It’s big. It’s dirty. Let’s you know what it really is. But at night, there’s all those lights. Real pretty, isn’t it?” The entire episode has a real cinematic quality to it; well-shot, well-edited, and well-written.
In the end Niles Talbot gets apprehended right after they reinstate the death penalty, and he’s the first one sentenced to the chair! Irony of Irony!
BUT HOW EVIL ARE THE WOMEN?:
Most of the episode slipped by the producers misogyny free, and I think they realized it too late, so they had to shoe-horn the following monologue late into the episode to get the sexist-quotient up to acceptable levels:
“They just want you to love 'em, is all. That’s all they ever want. They get that from their mamas. From all the trashy magazines they read. It’s easy to be successful with dames. Just don’t fall in love and you’re okay. You give them what you want, you fall in love, and they’ll kill ya. They can’t stand you no more. They either dump you and move on or, if they let you hang around, they’ll cut your balls off. Weird, aint it?”
Talbot goes on to explain different strategies for fucking them ("treat whores like queens and queens like whores and they’ll be on their backs faster than you can say Son of Sam"
. This monologue may seem bizarre and out of place in this episode, and it is, but it does serve as the general approach to women for the rest of Seasons 1 & 2 (and probably the whole series). You’ll see these rules come up again and again, so it was good that they managed to slip them into the very first episode.
ALSO WORTH NOTING
- Is it just me, or does the Crypt Keeper look kind of shitty in this first episode? Something about the puppet seems a bit off.
- I love the shot of Adler on the overpass. Walter Hill seems to have a special ability to make the city at night look beautiful. See also: The opening of The Warriors.
- A pre-T2 Robert Winley shows up as…a tough looking biker who gets hius ass handed to him. Typecast!
THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS…
All people, prisoner and executioner alike, are equally electrically conductive.
WORST CRYPTKEEPER JOKE:
“What a SWITCH for poor Talbot!”
Also, I’m not one to promote any kind of piracy of any kind, but while doing research I discovered that most of the episodes can be found in pieces on a video site that rhymes with “shmootube”.
Great first entry, Patrick.
Thanks. I’m gonna try to do one a day (today’s episode is a Zemeckis-directed Black Christmas rip-off), but I can tell you now that they’re not going to all be this long. It’s a good series but there are some majorly mediocre episodes in Season 2.
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| Originally Posted by Patrick Ripoll View Post Thanks. I’m gonna try to do one a day (today’s episode is a Zemeckis-directed Black Christmas rip-off), but I can tell you now that they’re not going to all be this long. It’s a good series but there are some majorly mediocre episodes in Season 2. |
Like, oh, I don’t know… the “my parents are vampires?” one?
“Merry Christmas, you son of a bitch!”
And All Through The House (1.02)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A woman kills her husband only to find herself stalked by a crazed killer in a Santa suit.
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE?
This episode marks acclaimed director Robert Zemeckis’ (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) first foray into directing horror, an avenue he’d later return to with the thriller What Lies Beneath and the uncanny valley-horror Polar Express. The episode was written by Fred Dekker (writer/director of Night of the Creeps and Monster Squad) and stars Mary Ellen Trainor of Lethal Weapon fame. Which, for those keeping score at home, is a Donner connection.
HOW IS IT
Before he became James Cameron-lite (Motion capture! 3D! Weeeeeeeeeee!), Robert Zemeckis was one of the most reliably fun directors around. From Used Cars to Back to the Future to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?; hell, even Forest Gump is a lot of fun when it’s not busy jerking baby boomers off. In short, he’s the ideal person to direct an episode of Tales From the Crypt.
Which is good because this episode, a slasher film exercise in the vein of Black Christmas, has nothing but direction to help it work. There’s no real characters to speak of and the story is about as barebones as they come. But this episode works, it works well, and it’s all because of Zemeckis’ direction.
In many ways it works like a precursor to Death Becomes Her, where murder and bodily disfigurement work more as punchlines than scares. The way Trainor really milks trying to remove the murder weapon lodged in her husband’s head is pure Zemeckis. The whole tone of the episode feels more like a Roger Rabbit cartoon than horror film.
Tone and gags aside, Zemeckis keeps things rolling and does a great job using the camera to tell the story visually, all the way through to the end. The ending is especially great because what it suggests is extremely dark but avoids showing anything that would betray the tone of what came before it. It may seem abrupt to some slasher fans who want a big gory pay-off, but I think it works much better as is.
BUT HOW EVIL ARE THE WOMEN?
They could have had Trainor kill her husband because he was an asshole, but that would have been too easy, so they made sure to include a superfluous scene explaining that she killed him so she and her lover could inherit his fortune. Apart from that, pretty tame episode, far as woman-hatin’ goes.
ALSO WORTH NOTING
- Zemeckis brought his regular DP, Dean Cundey, to work on this with him.
- A radio announcer warns the “Gaines County Area” of the escaped maniac in a Santa suit. This is a reference to William Gaines, publisher of the comic books in the 1950s.
- I still like the Black Christmas remake, dammit.
THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS…
Santa’s naughty list is a fickle creature that you could wind up on at any time.
WORST CRYPTKEEPER JOKE
“In fact, I got some Christmas goose for you. GOOSEBUMPS, that is!”
Pretty sure this show devolved into absolute garbage rather quickly. Am I misremembering or is this a whores and old buildings type deal?
I’m not completely done with Season 2 yet, but it’s definitely not as consistent as Season 1. But there’s still fun to be had, and I’m a sucker for horror anthology episodes.
Have you gotten to the Cryptkeeper origin episode yet?
No sir. I don’t think it’s in season 1 or 2.
I’m looking forward to this, what, article? Why not aim for all seven seasons? There’s only a hundred and twenty or so episodes. Including the one where Bill Paxton plays a thug that loves butter.
I’d be more than happy to go through the whole series, I’m just kind of broke at the moment and only bought seasons 1 & 2 because they were a steal. If I can get through these first two seasons relatively painlessly, and you guys enjoy it, I’ll probably go ahead and start picking up the rest of the series.
I’d be curious to see Patrick take on that Zemeckis episode where he uses some of that fancy Forrest Gump money to bring Humphrey Bogart back to life, but I’m fairly positive that was a later run episode.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Patrick Ripoll View Post I’d be more than happy to go through the whole series, I’m just kind of broke at the moment and only bought seasons 1 & 2 because they were a steal. If I can get through these first two seasons relatively painlessly, and you guys enjoy it, I’ll probably go ahead and start picking up the rest of the series. |
Netflix?
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| Originally Posted by Justin Clark View Post I’d be curious to see Patrick take on that Zemeckis episode where he uses some of that fancy Forrest Gump money to bring Humphrey Bogart back to life, but I’m fairly positive that was a later run episode. |
I remember the CGI for that being stiff when it aired. It must look downright horrible now.