EXHUMING TALES FROM THE CRYPT: Cadavers Always Get Top Billing
Stephanie Crawford
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Tales from the Crypt never got enough credit for being a great experience equalizer in the entertainment industry like it deserved to. Prolific Academy Award winners would go toe-to-severed-toe with first-time screenwriters. And like you’ll see with these triplets of terrifying trepidation, Tales could go from an episode made by television comedy writers to one directed by a true horror master without missing a beat. Audiences accepted it then as they do now because everyone behind the scenes set the stage fright so well. Tales from the Crypt is a bit like hell’s variety show: Sure, the focus would be horror and mean morality tales, but it’d be pretty damn funny and weird, too.
So settle in, kiddies… while we get some laughs in this go-around, you won’t escape without a little bloodshed.
Season 3, Episode 4: “Abra Cadaver” based on Tales From The Crypt #37
Director: Stephen Hopkins
Written by: Jim Birge
Originally aired: June 19, 1991
Director and writer pedigree: Stephen Hopkins has directed some genre sequels I like to file under “underappreciated in how fun they are to revisit”: A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child and Predator 2. While he seems to generally favor action more than horror, I always appreciated how jovial he seemed when approaching the scarier stuff.
Speaking of jovial, while Jim Birge’s background is in comedy, its roots twist through Tales from the Crypt-which we don’t really see with the other writers on this show who only have one writing credit to their name. Birge started both the UCLA and UCI Comedy Clubs in the 1980s, which included members like Tales-alum Fred Dekker. While Shane Black (best known, of course, as the brother of Terry Black, who will give us three episodes throughout the series) was broke and writing Lethal Weapon, he stayed with Birge, who’d eventually end up getting a bit part in Lethal Weapon 2, bridging his Black connection to a Richard “One of the Tales’ Daddies” Donner connection.
Other notables: Tony Goldwyn’s first screen credit was in that cute filler scene in Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI. He’d make his name in Ghost, who also stars an actress we’ll see further down this column. He was more recently in The Belko Experiment, playing someone so perfectly loathsome he could have been a Tales from the Crypt character.
Cinematographer Levi Isaacks steps in for this episode and stays on a while, and all in all, he’ll end up working on 16 episodes total. Big-ticket composer Alan Silvestri (boy, these Predator guys love hanging out in the crypt, don’t they?) returns to the show, and he’ll return to do five more episodes throughout the run of the series.
Does It Deliver?: We open with a black and white flashback: Brothers Martin and Carl Fairbanks are quickly established as the dorkier, awkward one (Bridges) and the flashy, popular one (Goldwyn) respectively. When Carl pulls a birthday prank in a morgue that causes Martin to have a heart attack, their relationship is permanently soured as the attack damages Martin’s arm to the point he can’t pursue his career as a surgeon. Flash forward, and Carl is Chief of Pathology and Martin does research for him as kind of a pity job. One day, though, Martin comes through with a real finding… one he’s going to test on his brother, who will learn who it truly means to lose control. We switch to a first-person perspective as Martin narrates all the ghoulish goings-on as he’s treated as a member of the recently deceased, and it’s a real trip.
“Abra Cadaver” has everything: A punny title that works, a play on one of The Big Irrational Human Fears-this time it’s becoming paralyzed while everyone assumes you’re a corpse-dark humor, revenge, misused Voodoo, twists and some nice, drippy gore. Mix Dark Passage with 1994’s Aftermath (I apologize for that one. Nevermind!) with the best of this show’s blend of sly, fun torture, and you got yourself a winner.
Best Cryptkeeper line: “Want to play doctor? Then open wide and say AAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”
Season 3, Episode 5: “Top Billing” based on The Vault of Horror #39
Director: Todd Holland
Written by: Myles Berkowitz
Originally aired: June 26, 1991
Director and writer pedigree: Todd “The Wizard” Holland’s bread and butter is in television comedies, but he has two episodes of Twin Peaks and Amazing Stories to his name. Myles Berkowitz has only done comedies and romantic comedies outside of this episode, so this is when Tales throws us a real curveball to see what the “normal” kids can do.
Other notables: Bruce Boxleitner might be best known for Tron, but to me, his best work will always be in this hair-building product commercial and the incredible fake action movie within it.
John Astin is a legend for playing Gomez Addams alone, but he’s peppered his career with genre-friendly roles from creating killer tomatoes to running the greatest shop of all-time in Eerie, Indiana. He’s not only the perfect choice for this episode; he’s also pretty much the only choice.
Does It Deliver?: Hamlet might be a doomed production, but this episode wasn’t! Barry Blye (Lovitz) is a serious actor (ACTING!!) who constantly loses out on parts because he doesn’t have the right look. Winton (Boxleitner), however, is comfortable with the roles he lands with his all-American blonde looks, which could not piss Barry off more. Hope comes in a casting call for Hamlet, however, which thrills Barry has he has it memorized due to his admiration for the play. Winton shows up as well to show him that it really is based on looks… and he’s proven right in the most tragic way possible.
“Top Billing” has almost top billing as one of my favorites Tales from the Crypt episodes. I love the episodes when the characters end up in a place that isn’t what it seems, and the inmates running the stage plot to this works perfectly. The humor is handled by people who know how to do it, and the ending (especially the closing shot!) is gloriously gory enough to satisfy any gorehound.
Best Cryptkeeper line: “Hello? I’d like to speak to my agent. What do you MEAN he’s in a beating?!”
Season 3, Episode 6: “Dead Wait” based on The Vault of Horror #23
Director: Tobe Hooper
Written by: Gilbert Adler
Originally aired: July 3, 1991
Director and writer pedigree: I don’t think Tobe Hooper needs any introduction with anyone visiting this site, but it’s hard to not get excited about one of our greatest horror directors doing an episode of Tales from the Crypt. Hooper appreciated horror television, though: Freddy’s Nightmares, The Masters of Horror and future Crypt spin-off Perversions of Science also dot his varied filmography. In tone, I would say this episode falls closer to a tame version of Eaten Alive on the Tobe scale.
Gilbert Adler is a huge figure in both Tales from the Crypt and modern horror in general: He’d end up co-founding Dark Castle Entertainment with Crypt daddies Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis. He came on as a producer starting this season and would stay on until the show’s finale episode. This led to him producing the Perversions of Science spin-off and directing and writing Bordello of Blood.
Other notables: Cinematographer Levi Isaacks returns, this time reunited with Hooper, whom he also shot Spontaneous Combustion and I’m Dangerous Tonight with. He also shot Children of the Corn II, which Gilbert Adler wrote, so it’s basically a family reunion!
Does It Deliver?: Red (James Remar) has had it with his brother, who’s also his partner in crime, and in a fit of enraged passion, murders him and takes over their scheme to steal a near-priceless black pearl. He convinces the wealthy and powerful Duval (John Rhys-Davies!) to let him run a plantation as a scheme to get his paws on the pearl… and Duval’s lady, Kathrine (played by the goddess Vanity, may she rest in peace.) Warnings from Peligre, a practitioner in Voodoo who has a head maid role on the plantation (Whoopi Goldberg) and the threat a revolution doesn’t stop Red from his scheming and seducing, though. It all comes to a head the night the revolution hits, and boy does this head froth!
Another fantastic entry, the setting is a bit reminiscent of season 2’s “‘Til Death,” and the balmy setting and hints of The Twilight Zone’s “The Mirror” episode with pacing give this a unique feel throughout. The cast is perfect: Rhys-Davies and Vanity especially truly feel like they have a complicated history together, and Goldberg plays the knowing, intelligent woman with a secret better than most people in the business. The ending is truly gonzo, gory and gross, and it’s a great encapsulation of Hooper’s talent at mood, making the most of a location, dark humor and the nasty stuff.
The ending skit is controversial among fans, as Whoopi gets awkwardly interviewed by the Cryptkeeper in a late night talk show setting. If you didn’t like the Schwarzenegger cameo in the crypt, you REALLY won’t like this.
Best Cryptkeeper line: “Well as long as I don’t end up on the cutting room floor!”
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 at House of a Reasonable Amount of Horrors and on Twitter @scrawfish
Categorized:Editorials Exhuming Tales From The Crypt
