Join John Cribbs on a journey through the full run of HBO's early 90's horror anthology Tales from the Crypt. You might expect us to make a series of Crypt Keeper inspired puns here in our intro, but c'mon we can't compete with that guy. Instead, we'll simply say that there's no grand idea behind these episode-by-episode recaps, they were prompted by Cribbs' interest in delving into a series that he was not intimately familiar with in his youth.
In addition to being laden with heavy-hitters distinctly of the era like Demi Moore, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert Zemeckis, Tales from the Crypt features numerous Pink Smoke favorites like filmmakers Walter Hill, Rodman Flender, Steven E. DeSouza and Tobe Hooper as well as a wide variety of the kind of character actors that we love: William Sadler, Michael Ironside, Lance Henriksen, William Hickey, Grace Zabriskie, a rotating assortment of Paul Verhoeven regulars and even Dr. Giggles himself, Larry Drake. Hell, it's the early 90's so Morton Downey, Jr., Sam Kinison and Heavy D. even somehow end up figuring into it all.
Sorry: there's no delectable twist ending for this intro in which our sins are ironically and violently pointed back into our own faces. It's an intro to an episode guide.
{SEASON 1, EPs 1-3.}
{SEASON 1, EPs 4-6.}
{SEASON 2, EPs 1-2.}
{SEASON 2, EPs 3-5.}
{SEASON 2, EPs 6-8.}
{SEASON 2, EPs 9-10.}
{SEASON 2, EPs 11-12.}
Season 2, Episode 9: "Four-Sided Triangle"
Director: Tom Holland
Original air date: May 29, 1990
The series goes rustic with this ranch-based yarn about a shrewish white slaver (Susan Blommaert) and her lecherous husband (Chelcie Ross, "Up yr butt, jobu!") making life hell for Patricia Arquette's addled farmhand. The promising premise offers a taste of Southern Gothic horror, with Blommaert's sullen features and earth-toned wardrobe mixed with Ross's bespectacled blankness to create a travesty of the iconic Grant Wood painting. But once the dark harbinger is revealed in the form of a scarecrow Arquette insists will come to life and free her from her miserable situation, the story stumbles on its way to a disappointing and somewhat confounding conclusion.
Since we horror fans are familiar with the stuffed prowlers of Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Scarecrows, Jeepers Creepers II, an episode of Goosebumps and an Are You Afraid of the Dark?, the expectation is that the scarecrow will be the one doing the skewering and disemboweling in this story (and a freaky mask makes him Crypt's first, but not last, scary clown). Its ultimate "twist" at least seems predicated on that assumption. And while the Crypt killers are almost always contemptible but very much human monsters, most of the running time is spent anticipating how the 'Keeper can turn "straw," "effigy" or "if he only had a brain... saw!" into puns.
We certainly expect that kind of thing from Tom Holland, who made a famous movie about an anthropomorphic piece of plastic pretending to be a normal doll when it in fact harbored the soul of a serial killer. The director of Fright Night was also a pro at stories about seemingly crazy people insisting on something supernatural going on but failing to convince anyone else. He managed to surprise me with "Lover Come Hack to Me" but doesn't pull off the same trick here. Basically, the twist is that there is no supernatural element to the proceedings when we naturally assume there is one, something that probably struck Holland and co-writer James Tugend as clever but merely falls flat. The fact that the scenario turns out to involve a regular three-sided triangle isn't so much surprising as unsatisfying, like an extended build-up with no pay-off.
If this episode is remembered for anything (at least by males who were 12-to-16 years old in 1990), it's probably the extended sequence of 21-year-old Patricia Arquette wearing a revealing white tanktop as she crawls around in the hay collecting eggs in the henhouse, a scene later repeated in slow motion. While the scene is undeniably eggs-otic (oof!) and charged with early 90's eroticism (it's one Joe Perry solo away from being an Aerosmith video), Holland subverts its sensualism by framing it as the fantasy of a leering pervert. I wouldn't go so far as to say he was calling out Crypt's target audience of puerile young men, but he does purposely ruin the moment with close-ups of Chelcie Ross's sweaty, lascivious face as he grinds up against the outside of the barn. Immediately following the scene with a violent sexual assault takes all the tasteless fun out of the reliable Crypt formula (remnants of "Three's a Crowd" being just too fucking dark for this series).
Hats off to Arquette, who spends her screentime having the hole in the back of her jeans ogled and making out with a scarecrow. (Never seen that before. Worzel Gummidge never got freaky with his human companions - which is good, they were all underage.) What's left of the episode belongs to Blommaert, heartless in her treatment of Arquette and Ross yet oddly sympathetic in her role as the betrayed wife. Between her stark features and gratuitious use of the word "fool," she sort of reminds me of Gladys Ormphby without the hairnet. I remember the low angle shot of her ominously chucking a pitchfork into a bale of hay from commercials for the series back in the 90's. And of course that pitchfork gets used - one rule of Tales from the Crypt: you see a pitchfork, it'll end up going into somebody. It's interesting to see the standard scheming/murderous lead female of the series (Lea Thompson in "Only Sin Deep", Demi Moore in "Dead Right", Kim Delaney in "The Sacrifice.") split into two different characters. At least the implication is that Arquette set up the couple for their inevitable fall - the script doesn't do a great job clarifying that, which again is a narrative flaw from which the episode can't quite recover. C.
Notes:
- The Crypt Keeper's use of the pun "BONEus" here vexes me. It's in reference to the sex-crazed farmer wanting to give Arquette a "BONEus," which I immediately assumed was a saucy reference to his pitchfork. But "bone" is a grave-based play on words as well. I guess it just works both ways? Either way, gross.
Season 2, Episode 10: "The Ventriloquist's Dummy"
Director: Richard Donner
Original air date: June 5, 1990
So this is the first episode I've come upon that I distinctly remember seeing back in the 90's. I'll never forget it, because even edited for network TV it really got to me. It comes not just with a satisfying demented twist, but an incredibly disturbing cruel irony at the denouement. Like the last episode, it relies on the twist that an inanimate object was, apparently, just an inanimate object all along. The difference is that here there's a twist upon that twist, and it's a great one. "Dummy" plays beautifully on audience expectation in service of an ending that manages to pull off the trademark Crypt irony while also being largely unexpected. I suspect that's because, on top of being a clever variation on the "evil dummy" subgenre, this episode makes you care about its two characters: wannabe ventriloquist Bobcat Goldthwait and his idol, a has-been lounge act played by Don Rickles.
This was also the first time as a youngster that I remember seeing Bobcat outside his "mental patient" persona of One Crazy Summer and the Police Academy movies, and thinking maybe there's more to this guy than Hot to Trot. The pairing couldn't be more perfect: Rickles doing a troubled variation on his insult comic, Goldthwait using his infamous nails-on-chalkboard vocals to perfectly portray a frustrated aspiring performer. His amateur act in front of a merciless audience might very well be the most nightmarish moment in an episode built on nightmarish moments. It's an inspired case of the show utilizing Bobcat's stand-up persona to perfectly fit that character.
I don't know how awards work, but it seems like Don Rickles should have gotten an Emmy for his performance in this episode. He's asked to go from jovial to melancholy, from helpful to homicidal from one scene to the next and he does it flawlessly. He's as believable playing a vibrant 50 as a washed-up 65. For all its goofiness, this series really benefits from actors who go all-in, showcasing some great goddamn acting while clearly having a fun time. Not to shortchange Goldthwait, who had to have improvised that excellent "asshole casserole" line.
This episode also proves that you can do Crypt dark and still have it be funny. Casting two comedians and having them downplay their roles was a stroke of genius on Donner's part: they're both naturally funny, so the humor is there practically without effort. And since everything leading up to the ending is genuinely creepy, it clicks all the boxes for horror fans disappointed by scarecrows who stay on their posts or tired of body-swapping romps. Outstanding. A.
Notes:
- Another episode highlight: the Crypt Keeper receives a package from the Hacme Novelty Company.
- Bobcat and Donner previously worked together on Scrooged. Donner cameos as a man sitting next to Rickles at the bar. Don Rickles's daughter Mindy also has a walk-on.
- Man, I love pre-fame screenwriter Frank Darabont: Nightmare 3, The Blob, his two scripts for Crypt? He had quite the streak going (if you conveniently forget he also co-wrote The Fly II with Mick Garris). Darabont and Donner team up for another episode in season 4.
- The hooker who propositions Rickles at the bar is played by Symie Dahut, whose only previous credit was as a stripper in Brian DePalma's Home Movies.
- I'm curious who provided the voice of the puppet, Morty. Nobody is credited in the episode or on iMDB. It doesn't sound like Rickles, and I'd be surprised to learn it was Bobcat.
- It's funny that Rickles covers his crimes by setting fires, considering what Bobcat would become infamous for doing on late night talk shows in the mid-90's.
- The show's chronology is totally fucked up now. If the opening scene is a true flashback, it's got to be in the 40's or 50's, right? Because who in the 80's or 90's still went to see ventriloquist acts? Yet 15 years later Bobcat's coat is super-90's and wouldn't look out of place in the costume closet at a Comic Relief special. (His insult "You in-bred Cabbage Patch doll!" is also clearly contemporary.)
