Ok, so here’s the deal. This thread got me to throw some Tales from the Crypt onto my queue and now they’ve finally showed up. They put me in a nostalgic reverie, and now I’m going to try to pick up the mantle Patrick once held. So I’ll be blogging about each episode I watch, using the loose format Patrick put in place. I pm’d Patrick, and he might return to finish seasons 1 & 2, but I’ll be starting with 3. So lots of Crypt for you then.
Loved to Death 3.01
What Is It?
A nebbishy screenwriter fantasizes about the mean-spirited sexpot across the hall in his shitty Hollywood apartment complex. The creepy super gives him a love potion, and it works too well.
Who’s responsible?
Andrew McCarthy is the nebbish, Mariel Hemingway is the sexpot, and Brit character actor David Hemmings is the super. Directed by Tom Mankiewicz, and written by his cousin John. Tom’s a writer that worked on Superman 1 and 2 (Donner connection!), some shit Bond films and Dragnet. Typical of the kind of folks Crypt hired, but nothing too exciting.
How is it?
Eh, it’s all right. I had near perfect recall of this one, and watching it now, I can’t imagine why. It’s a standard ‘be careful what you wish for’ yarn. Almost zero gore, which is unusual for Crypt, but they make up for it with the tits and ass of Mariel Hemingway.
The dorkiness of McCarthy’s character isn’t blown up to ridiculous heights, as per the usual Tales from the Crypt stuttering freak with taped up glasses and pocket protector, and some the business surrounding him is kind of fun. He’s got an enormous It’s a Wonderful Life poster on his wall, and the faces of Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed morph into him and Hemingway occasionally. His porno fantasy is a 50’s Leave It To Beaver cliché, but with fucking on the kitchen table. And even in his fantasies, he’s uncomfortable with sex and touching.
The ending is really the only thing worth a damn here, though any metaphysical creepiness is undone by the goofy execution. McCarthy, fed up with the love-potioned Hemingway’s constant desire for sex, tries to poison her, fucks it up, and kills himself. Then he wakes up in Heaven, only to meet up with Hemingway, who threw herself out the window to meet him in eternity. Having read the original EC comic, I’ll give credit to the show for upping the ante at the end by giving Hemingway a mashed up post-death face, but the shoddy makeup makes her look like she just has a black eye and paint on her teeth. Regardless, the real offender is Heaven itself, which is exactly what you’d expect Heaven to look like in an elementary school play. Tacky zip up white robes, fog machine, white spots on a black background for stars. Capped off by McCarthy’s slow-mo ‘Nooooo’ to the camera, it’s all too risible for anything but a laugh.
Does It Hate Women?
Interesting question. On its face, this almost demands to be a pro-feminist story. McCarthy is unable to attain Hemingway, and is in fact scared of her, so he uses magic to manipulate her into being his personal vagina slave. Not only does the material scream to comment on gender politics, it’s been done succesfully before in Stepford Wives. But Crypt is having none of that. Hemingway is a selfish bitch, and McCarthy’s early attempts to romance her are undone more by her haughty superiority and whorish ways than by his hamhanded attempts to connect. Also, once she’s love-potioned, she stops having even her rudimentary bitch persona, and becomes merely a comically overbearing irritant to McCarthy, and he decides to off her in what feels like about 36 hours. The part where’s she’s being raped through brainwashing is elided.
Worth Noting:
David Hemmings does nothing of note here. His biggest contribution is that in the comic book drawing that opens every story, his grizzled British face sits atop a baby Cupid body.
What’s the moral?
‘Sex with Mariel Hemingway might seem like something you want, but in truth, it’s a exhausting nightmarish ordeal from which death is no escape’, or ‘be careful what you wish for’.
Worst Crypt Keeper joke:
‘He ended up in a state of Holy Deadlock.’
Grade: C
Carrion Death 3.02
What’s It About?
An escaped convict gets chased through the desert by a cop and a vulture, which represents ironic deathfate.
Who’s Responsible?
Kyle Maclachlan plays the convict and the writer/director is Steven DeSouza, who wrote fucking Die Hard 1 & 2, Commando, The Running Man, Hudson Hawk, and 48 Hrs. That’s just great. More recently, he’s been up to Gotta Catch Santa Claus. What the fuck?
How Is It?
It’s really good. One of the best of the series, maybe. I didn’t get this at all when I was a kid, but the episode is one big spaghetti western. It’s two guys stalking each other in the desert. There’s practically zero character development beyond cop vs robber. The giant vulture appears to each of them, and they yell at it. They take turns screwing each other over. It’s kind of like two versions of Tuco chasing each other. It’s even got terrible ADR.
Maclachlan is enjoying himself, hamming it up as a sort of James Dean rebel version of Ted Bundy. Instead of dialogue, there’s just a bunch of big expository declarations, usually directed at the vulture. And it’s really damn gory. The shit that happens to Maclachlan at the end eschews any particular karmic angle and goes for just horrifically awful. Of all the fucked up deaths on Tales from the Crypt, this one stands tall. And the low budget effects actually make it worse.
I’m really struck, revisiting the show, how little time or money they spent on these. They clearly just threw them together. It resulted in some shitbag episodes, but the aesthetic suits the material.
How’s the Woman Hate?
There are zero women in this episode, but they do go out of their way to make it clear Maclachlan hates women and particularly enjoyed killing them. It’s mostly there to make sure we know Maclachlan is a super bad guy, but it is sort of uncanny.
The Moral?
Don’t be a serial killer?
Worst Crypt Keeper Joke
“Cook ‘em, Dano!”
Grade: A-
“Polanski wants to film my life story. All of them.”
Dig That Cat…He’s Real Gone (1.03)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A man with nine lives uses his extraordinary talent to make a killing on the carnival circuit.
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE?
The talented Mr. Richard Donner (The Omen, Superman, Lethal Weapon, Scrooged) helms this episode written by Terry Black (writer of Dead Heat and little else). This backs an all-star cast featuring Joe Pantoliano and THE INCREDIBLE AND YES HE IS VERY FUNNY Robert Wuhl.
HOW IS IT?
Fantastic. Everyone involved is having a lot of fun, from Joe Pantliano as the bum turned prima donna to Robert Wuhl as a rough around the edges carnival barker (not sure if there’s any other kind). The one having the most fun, however, is Richard Donner. The camera-work in this episode is spectacular, a lot of kinetic Raimi-esque shots, a lot of dutch angles, jump cuts and other forms of elliptical editing, etc. It comes across as a director who was more than happy to not have to worry about a big budget and was free to just do silly things on a whim.
The episode is about a bum (Joe Pantoliano) who has a cat gene/organ/sciencething surgically grafted onto him, in order to give him nine lives. As the episode goes on he works a travelling carnival, allowing himself to be killed in grisly ways for fun and entertainment. Which is a pretty wonderful statement on horror audiences in general. We appreciate the violence and gore specifically because we know that there are no lasting real-life ramifications of it. The episode is also full of little details about the operation that are fun and establish an honest set of rules.
The story has classic Tales From The Crypt moralizing, with Pantoliano becoming more evil and corrupted the richer he is, and a really ingenious twist ending that rivals some of the best Twilight Zone episodes. Just a great episode over-all.
DO IT HATE LADIES?
It do. Joe Pantoliano’s girlfriend is a empty-headed blonde bimbo who literally stabs him the back and runs off with his money, using up one of his lives. Just when it seemed they were so in love too.
MORAL OF THE STORY IS…
When buying a pre-owned cat gene/organ/sciencething, make sure it’s still got all nine lives left.
WORST CRYPTKEEPER JOKE:
“‘Dying For Dollars’ could have been a popular game show. They could have put it in between ‘Wheel of Misfortune’ and ‘The Newly DEAD Game’!..Unless they buried it in the wrong timeslot.”
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd View Post Carrion Death 3.02 … |
Sounds great. I love when Kyle Maclachlan plays evil. He’s so sweet looking, it’s almost kind of cute.
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Damn it, you all realize this thread is going to make me break down and pick up the box sets (which I see are under $20.00 on Amazon).
The Trap 3.03
What’s It About?
A drunken abusive lout bullies his wife and brother into helping him fake his death to collect on a life insurance policy.
Who’s Responsible?
In rare starring role, pre-bloat Bruce McGill plays the asshole, his wife is played by Teri Garr, and Bruno Kirby is the brother. Michael J Fox directed this one, and plays a lawyer at the end who makes a very long speech. It was written by Scott Alexander, who, with his writing partner Larry Karaszewski, pulled off some kind of biopic hat trick in the 90s, writing Ed Wood, the People Vs Larry Flynt, and Man on the Moon.
How Is It?
Better than it plot description, but not by a lot. The entire conceit of this episode is that it’s got the most predictable story arc imaginable. Garr and Kirby are going to hook up and kill him for real. Once that’s established, they spend most of the episode subverting the expectation. Kirby beats McGill with a fire poker, but it’s just to knock him unconscious for the police. The coffin McGill’s contained in almost gets thrown in the mortuary furnace, but then it doesn’t. It’s the best thing in the episode, and while I probably wouldn’t call it masterful, it plays with expectations pretty well. Until the end, when it finally does happen, just in a more convoluted fashion than necessary.
The most interesting thing is the weird, archly stilted dialogue and tone. Most of the time, the dialogue on Crypt wasn’t quite as broadly off the comic book page as here. The script is peppered with so much wacky 1940s gangster talk that everyone sounds pretty much like they’re acting in Guys and Dolls. Characters say things like “You gotta pay me that money now, see!” The music has a sort of Hanna Barbera vibe to it as well.
The acting, like most acting on Crypt, is large. McGill easily surpasses everyone in size, bellowing pretty much every line. He’s also the most fun. This came out the same year as The Last Boy Scout, and that’s about the wavelength he’s playing at.
What Of the Women Hate?
Not so much. Teri Garr is portrayed as kind of an idiot, but so is everyone else.
Worth Noting
-The tropical island set that they came up with looks like the lobby for a tanning salon. Not quite as bad as Heaven from two episodes back, but close.
-In bit roles, the villain’s mother from Kindergarten Cop and the principal from Back to the Future (Fox/Zemeckis connection).
-Fox does a decent job with the storytelling, but he does a terrible job lighting and dressing Teri Garr. She looks fucking haggard in this.
-Like the last one, it originated in Shock Suspenstories rather than one of the horror rags. The only difference I can tell is there’s no supernatural aspects in Shock episodes.
The Moral?
If you’re a hateful bully, don’t repeatedly give your victims the ability to kill you, because they will eventually nut up and do it.
Worst Crypt Keeper Joke
“Can I interest you in an insurance policy? The benefits are great, but the screamiums’ll kill ya!”
Grade: B-
For some reason I thought Michael J Fox directed a couple movies, but looking it up, he only did this and an episode of “Brooklyn Bridge”.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd View Post Carrion Death 3.02 The Moral? Don’t be a serial killer? |
Lesson I took from it: If you’re going to hack handcuffs off, err on the side of other person’s fleshy limb.
That episode… God damn. It’s a shame he appears to die when he loses the eyes. I was hoping for a looney toons continuation of his bad luck.
There’s a time elapse shot. I think the vulture gets into his brains before he goes. As bad as that is, the hand popping off is worse.
His wrist snapping off is the WORST! Ugh… What a great episode.
This thread rules. That’s all I got.
Nice work Patrick/Arjen.
Cutting Cards directed by Walter Hill and starring the awesome duo of Lance Henriksen and Kevin Tighe is probably my favorite episode of the series. The two of them have such awesome chemistry. Really black comedy that works SO well.
Television Terror is creepy, especially with the score. Just a great scary episode.
Werewolf Concerto is awesome just to see Timothy Dalton go full blown into ham mode. My favorite line of his in the episode is “LET’S DANCE THE HULA BITCH!”
ABRA CADAVAER 3.04
What’s It About?
A bitter, broken scientist takes revenge on his younger brother for a practical joke gone wrong that changed the course of their lives.
Whos’ Responsible?
Beau Bridges plays the weirder uglier older brother jealous of his younger brother’s success (haha). Tony Goldwyn is the younger brother, and no one else of import is in it. The writer’s only other credit is as an actor for Lethal Weapon 2. The director is Stephen Hopkins, who I always thought was a bad director, Predator 2 notwithstanding.
How Is It?
The nicest thing you could say would be that it’s watchable. The premise is that Bridges has murdered Goldwyn and used voodoo magic to keep his brain alive. What this means is lots of frantic Goldwyn voice over narration and lots of fisheye POV shots of Bridges’s taunting, splotchy face. The central image are these close ups of Bridges, and it’s quite unpleasant. Beau Bridges is an actor I’ve always kind of felt sorry for, but, like Oliver Platt, one I kind of have a hard time looking at. Here he’s extra greasy and lumpy, and to my taste doesn’t ham it up nearly enough. Goldwyn is a great choice to play an EC villain; he’s got that Christopher McDonald/William Atherton sneer. But he’s relegated to voice over and a little bit of Weekend at Bernie’s corpse humor, and frankly, his character just isn’t enough of a prick, especially when he’s playing opposite an actor as manifestly unlikeable and grotesque as Beau Bridges.
Not too gory, though very suggestive, and full of meat hooks and cranial saws and the like. One scene does deserve special mention: the black and white opening sequence, showing the prank gone wrong that crippled Bridges. Goldwyn has a bunch of friends pretending they’re cadavers come to life and scare Bridges, which is fine. But prior to the big scare, Goldwyn removes the sheet off a female corpse and begins fondling her breasts, and trying to persuade Bridges to join in. This means that he convinced his girlfriend to pretend she was a corpse and let him molest her in front of his brother with all their friends in the room.
The final twist is odd, in that it changes pretty much nothing about what happens to the characters or how you feel about them. Movin’ on.
WOMEN HATE?
Not really. The corpse fondling is excessive, though
WORTH NOTING
-when it comes to reductive stereotypes, Haitians get in the ass on Crypt quite a bit. Side product of the all the voodoo, I suppose.
THE MORAL?
Treat your family well, or they’ll fuck you up big time.
WORST CRYPT KEEPER JOKE:
“Wanna play doctor? Then open wide and say Aaaaaaahhh!”
GRADE: C
I think I’m aiming at Monday through Friday on these. I’m kind of planning on doing at least the Third Season, and then I’ll see if I or anyone else is interested in Four. There’s more than a few that I really want to revisit in Four, so perhaps.
Cutting Cards is often talked up as one of the great episodes, and while I like Walter Hill and love L. Henrickson, I generally have an instant hatred of Kevin Tighe, which unbalances the whole thing. I don’t know if it’s just residuals of how much of a fucker he was on Lost, or if, like Beau Bridges, I just resent having to look at him. Regardless, I’m so rooting for Henrickson to best him that I miss the forest for the trees.
Oh man I used to LOVE this show.
I had no idea until I saw Never Sleep Again that this show was essentially born from the ashes of Freddy’s Nightmares.
TOP BILLING 3.05
What Is It?
A homely struggling actor goes to murderous lengths to secure to role of a lifetime.
Who’s Responsible?
Jon Lovitz stars as the ugly actor, and Bruce Boxleitner, who’s been working constantly and yet I only know from Tron, plays his smug rival. Erstwhile Gomez Addams John Astin plays an eccentric, mincing theater director. It’s one of the only writing credits attributed to Myles Berkowitz, aka the asshole responsible for 20 Dates. Directing is Todd Holland, who I thought I recognized, but apparently just directs TV shows that some people dig, like Larry Sanders, Wonderfalls, and Malcolm in the Middle.
How is it?
Way better than I remember. On its face, it doesn’t have a hell of a lot going for it. Lovitz was probably cast as an in-joke, based on his Master Thespian sketches, and the satiric target of vainglorious Shakespearean actors isn’t something you’d expect Crypt to approach with subtlety. But it all works, though maybe less as horror and more as black comic tragedy with a karmic kicker. The ironic twist Crypt was famous for is in full swing here.
While most Crypt protagonists are clearly horrible people from the outset, they occasionally have a sympathetic, less abrasive lead who makes one bad moral call and pays dearly for it. That’s Lovitz here, and the first half of the episode is just a gauntlet of embarrassments for him. He trundles sadly from one scene to another, getting told repeatedly that his passion for acting is pathetic and his ugly face precludes him from happiness. Boxleitner plays the usual EC lead, a vain preening ass that does everything but kick sand in Lovitz’s face.
Lovitz turns out to be an inspired choice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him play a character that addressed his homely looks this directly. And while he’s no Beau Bridges, it wouldn’t surprise me if Lovitz has seen his career stall in a lot of the same ways his character here has. It’s not a very polished performance, but his slumped shoulder and awkward carriage tell most of the story on their own. Also, every other name actor this season has behaved like a well cooked ham, while Lovitz, the first actual comedian, plays it bone dry serious. And it works!
The direction and tech aren’t worth a comment, but the episode succeeds, due to casting and a playful tone mixing with a little low level pathos. In many ways this is your average Crypt episode, maybe the most so far this season, but when it’s done right, the formula plays.
Women Hate?
Yeah, a bit. Three women in a row tell Lovitz he’s useless and physically unsuitable. The last is his girlfriend, who dumps him, takes the furniture, and moves in with a new man, whose name she can’t remember.
Worth Noting
-Lots of recognizable bit players. The women that abandon Lovitz are Sandra Bernhard, Louise Fletcher, and a girl I thought was Victoria Jackson but turned out to be Lucy from Twin Peaks. Also, the guy everyone mistook for Guffman plays Astin’s creepy gay sidekick
-Not too much gore, though a couple shots near the end have some potency, especially the cruel joke final shot. Others don’t. Bit of a mixed bag.
The Moral?
If you’re ugly, acting’s not for you. So tough shit.
WORST CK joke
“Get me my agent! What? He’s taking a beating?”
Grade: B+