6WH: Tales from the Crypt – Season 1

Tales from the Crypt was one of those shows I was vaguely aware of, but never really watched much. Let’s just say that I was young and foolish and didn’t appreciate the Crypt Keeper’s puns. Now? I value a good pun. Is that value ironic? Oh God, am I becoming a hipster? Well, whatever, I figured it was worth revisiting this show, and since the first season was only six short episodes, it wasn’t too much of a time investment. It’s funny, but I never quite realized just how much talent was involved with this show. In this first season alone, we’ve got episodes directed by Walter Hill, Robert Zemeckis, and Richard Donner. And that’s not even considering the familiar actors and writers. Plus, the episodes are a relatively short 25-30 minutes, so even if you don’t care too much for an episode, you don’t have to put in that much time. So let’s see how the first season fared. There were only 6 episodes, so I got through them pretty quickly:

  • The Man Who Was Death – So what happens when an executioner (the guy who throws the switch on the electric chair, to be specific) loses his job because the state outlaws the death penalty? Why, he simply starts freelancing his executioning, that’s what.

    The Mad Executioner

    This was actually a great start to the series; well acted and visually interesting with an appropriately ironic outcome. Lots of longish takes and breaking of the fourth wall, and well written too. Like The Mad Executioners from this past weekend, this one also has shades of Dexter, as the executioner punishes folks who are getting away with murder… I really enjoyed this one, and it set the tone rather well for what would follow.

  • And All Through the House – Regular readers know of my affinity for Holiday Horror, and this tale of murder, greed, betrayal, escaped mental patients dressed as Santa, and general mayhem makes for a fine addition to the pantheon of axe-wielding Santas (of which there are surprisingly many).

    Santa!

    Santa!

    Directed by Robert Zemeckis, this seems uncharacteristic for him, but the episode’s got a goofy sensibility that seems appropriate. Series is two for two so far!

  • Dig That Cat… He’s Real Gone – A bum is endowed with 9 lives and attempts to get rich at a carnival sideshow by using up his lives as Ulric the Undying. Basically, he kills himself on stage, and people pay boatloads to see it. Great central performance by Joe Pantoliano and you know what, even Robert Wuhl is pretty great as the sleazy sideshow showman. Again we get lots of fourth wall breaking as Joey Pants explains how he came to acquire his 9 lives (let’s just say that it involved a mad scientist and a cat), and overall, this is the third straight great episode.
  • Only Sin Deep – Well, I guess they can’t all be winners. This tale of a gold-digging hooker who sold her beauty to a pawn shop so that she could seduce a rich dude is fine for what it is and certainly better than a lot of other horror anthology episodes I’ve seen (I’m looking at you, Fear Itself!), but it’s a distinct step down from the first three episodes. For a series whose premise essentially boils down to “Isn’t it fun to watch bad people get their comeuppance?”, it’s hard to say that I just didn’t like our main character here, but I really just couldn’t see much redeeming quality to her character. In the first three episodes, the main characters had at least some likable traits, however minimal. This lends a certain pathos to the tragedy. Here, we’ve got nothing. And she’s pretty dumb to boot. Not horrible or anything, and the premise could work, but I wasn’t a big fan.
  • Lover Come Hack to Me – Rich but meek Peggy marries handsome douchebag Charles. Aunt Edith is wary of Charles (assuming he’s just marrying Peggy for her money), but Peggy just wants to have a nice honeymoon. But, of course, the road is blocked and they’re forced to spend the night in a spooky house. Hijinks ensue. Interesting change of pace for the series so far, and a nice series of reversals make this one an improvement over the previous episode, but perhaps not the best of the series so far. Still, I liked this episode quite a bit.
  • Collection Completed – Ah the perils of retirement. The great M. Emmet Walsh plays Jonas, the new retiree who doesn’t seem to enjoy spending time with his wife and all of her pets. Naturally, he takes up a… hobby. Heh. Solid episode, but a little on the melodramatic side, which ain’t really my thing. Still, it’s fun enough. Not quite the strongest finale for the season, but a worthy episode nonetheless.

So the quality seemed to fade a bit towards the end of the season, but it was all enjoyable enough that I immediately added season 2 to my Netflix queue.