Exhuming TALES FROM THE CRYPT: Three Crowded Graves
Welcome back, kiddies! In our second dive into the quicksand of the second season of Tales from the Crypt, we’re served a sandwich of episodes that contain delicious bread (the first and last episodes) with some rancid meat (the second episode, natch), proving that food metaphors can often end up as more of a mealworm than a full meal!
Sorry about that; something about this show really has a way of getting to you after a while. We do hit some peaks and one valley in this batch, but they all share a similar theme of incredibly simple plots centered around relationship woes. While that’s well-trodden ground down in the crypt, this trio seems to distill it down to its purest form. With such short episodes, effectively selling a weird premise shouldn’t be underestimated. Here, we can see it done very well in a complex setting (episode 4), then less effectively (episode 5), then in a way that makes it look almost effortless (episode 6.) Let’s tuck in and see if we survive to our just dessert…
Season 2, Episode 4: “‘Til Death” based on Vault of Horror #28
Director: Chris Walas
Written by: Jeri Barchilon
Originally aired: April 24, 1990
Director and writer horror pedigree: Chris Walas heads his own company—Chris Wallace Creatures—now, and from doing freelance to working with Industrial Light and Magic, he’s been one of the top special effects artists working in modern film for a long time. One of his most memorable works was doing creature effects for David Cronenberg’s The Fly, which led to him directing its sequel, The Fly II, in 1989. This episode followed the next year, and Walas’ last directing job was the black comedy The Vagrant, starring Bill Paxton.
Jeri Barchilon wrote and worked as story editor on TV series like Supercarrier and The New Gidget, which I didn’t even know was a thing! She’s wife to action writer stalwart Steven E. de Souza (Die Hard, The Running Man) who also wrote a later Tales episode himself.
Other notables: Aubrey Morris was a delightful British character actor in every genre imaginable for numerous decades, but for our tastes, he also appears in Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce, The Wicker Man, and… Bordello of Blood! Yes, he joins William Sadler as an all-star hall-of-famer who appeared both in an episode and in at least one of the Tales’ movies.
Does it deliver?: For my money, “‘Til Death” is one of the most effective episodes at capturing the visuals and the general tone of the EC Comics. Even the pacing feels like it’s fresh off the inked page: Sometimes I half-expected to see an actual panel change transition. Beyond that, the Val Lewton-produced Isle of the Dead feels like a spiritual successor to this balmy tale of terror as well.
A classic greedy cad who takes advantage of a land and people not of his own heads up this story, and we see in a ritual involving fire and blood in the opening credit scene that no love is lost between him and the native population. When he gets designs on a rich, snooty visitor from England who could help bankroll his current financial mishaps, but won’t give him the time of day, he obtains a potion (from a former, scorned lover! What a genius). The “with one drop she’ll be your wife, with two… she’ll be yours for life” doesn’t sound like a warning to him, but us viewers know better.
Everything about this episode feels like a fun throwback, and it errs on the side of perfect by being theatrical without being too goofy. The gore and effects are fantastic in this one, and there’s a zombie in here that is pure Creepshow-tier quality.
Best Cryptkeeper line: “Girls like that are pretty hard to dig up!” (cue laughter)
Season 2, Episode 5: “Three’s a Crowd” based on Shock SuspenStories #11
Director: David Burton Morris
Written by: Kim Steven Ketelsen
Originally aired: May 1, 1990
Director and writer horror pedigree: The bulk of Morris’ work has been in TV movies, with titles like Pretty Poison and The Babysitter’s Seduction spicing up his filmography. Pre-Tales he did direct a low-budget 1979 slasher-with-a-sense-of-humor called The Meateater back in the days when he went by “Derek Savage,” and personally I think this episode would have been a great time to resurrect that name.
We have three names attached to this script, including Derek Savage himself. He’s joined (in person or by different drafts) by Philadelphia Experiment II‘s co-writer Kim Steven Ketelsen and Annie Willette, whose sole credit is this episode.
Other notables: Gavan O’Herlihy, our hammy lead, also appeared in The Descent: Part 2. Ruth de Sosa is best known for playing Anna Jones in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, but the year before she appeared in the episode “Bloodlines” of Freddy’s Nightmares where she didn’t have much luck with her significant other either.
Does it deliver?: I try hard to be positive, but it’s hard for me to not fully disclose how much I dislike this episode. It’s rife with what I call “ice tea in the scotch bottle” acting, when swigging constantly from a bottle and eyeballing people wearily is the acting style, yet it doesn’t even manage to be cheesy fun.
In a plot that you only tend to see in Skinemax-style plots, a married couple has a strangely close relationship with a mutual friend. He takes them on an expensive vacation for their anniversary (which he also attends) constantly buys the wife gifts, and makes comments about how he should have fought harder to win over the woman. When I refer to her as “the woman,” that’s about all she really is here. She’s a pawn between a confident and kind playboy type and the whining husband who doesn’t trust his smooth-as-eggs friend. When jealousy meets booze and a surprise party gets misunderstood, I ended up having a miserable time.
The closing scene, while achingly predictable, does have a great final-panel look to it. The journey there is a drawn-out soap opera, though, and the relationships make so little sense that they can’t even sustain a story that lasts less than half an hour. The cabin location is fabulous, though, and it deserves a splashy slasher movie.
Best Cryptkeeper line: “That’s what I call dragging your wife to a party!” (cue laughter)
Season 2, Episode 6: “The Thing From the Grave” based on Tales From the Crypt #22
Director: Fred Dekker
Written by: Fred Dekker
Originally aired: May 8, 1990
Director and writer horror pedigree: It’s a double Dekker, folks! For his third outing on Tales from the Crypt, Fred Dekker went out with a bang with his sole duel writer/director duties on the show.
Other notables: Saint Miguel Ferrer is pitch perfect as Mitch, a sleaze who can turn on and off his charm like a cheap lamp. If you don’t love Ferrer in Twin Peaks, The Stand, Robocop, or The Night Flier, you have over 100 other TV and film projects to appreciate him in, but you also may just be sick. His chemistry with Teri “Lois and Clark” Hatcher is great, and while “Three’s A Crowd’s” small cast felt nearly claustrophobic, here the (largely) three-person cast hits all the right notes.
Does it deliver?: Proving simple can be effective, this is another classic tale with an ending that projects itself miles before it happens, but it roots itself in enough emotional and aesthetic satisfaction that it pays off handsomely. The abusive relationship is portrayed in a layered, realistic way while the lure to a seemingly safe new relationship is just as nuanced.
Hatcher (in her Phoebe Cates lookalike years) plays Stacy, a sweet, naive model in a toxic relationship with her manager/boyfriend Mitch. Devlin, a photographer (played by Kyle Secor) gives her a place to escape if she ever needs one. Soon enough she does, and everyone gets pulled into a love triangle that escalates to death almost instantly. Because the plot is so simple, the actors, tone, and effects have to sell the thing, and boy do they. While it may contain the fastest decaying corpse seen on-screen since “‘Til Death”, this one pays off with an ending that’s also incredibly evocative of the four-color frights that birthed it.
Best Cryptkeeper line: “Oops! Looks like you caught the old Cryptkeeper checking out one of his GHOULIE magazines!” (cue laughter)
Based in the incredibly down-to-earth city of Las Vegas, NV, Stephanie Crawford is a freelance writer and co-host on The Screamcast. You can follow her hijinks on Twitter @scrawfish
Categorized:Exhuming Tales From The Crypt
