Review(s): DVD Tales From the Crypt - The Complete Second Season
Season 2 of CRYPT Comes to DVD! Horror Fans? Delighted! How's Bayou?
Based on stories from the deliciously depraved E.C. horror comics (TALES FROM THE CRYPT, VAULT OF HORROR, HAUNT OF FEAR, etc.) of the 1950s, TALES FROM THE CRYPT was a TV horror anthology that, like most TV anthologies, had a lot of both hits and misses. Originally airing on HBO and then later in syndication, some of the episodes fell short, but when a story was a hit, it was usually dead on (excuse the pun). This DVD features the complete second season of TALES FROM THE CRYPT. Following the critical and popular success of the abbreviated six-episode first season, season two was green-lighted for a full 18-episode complement, and all 18 are offered here in their original uncut form (in syndication, episodes were edited to remove non-cable no-nos like nudity, severe profanity, and "excess" gore).
Although not as uniformly strong as the first season, all of the episodes from season two are pretty entertaining. Still, a few stand out above the rest:
"Cutting Cards" stars Kevin Tighe and genre regular Lance Henriksen as rival professional gamblers who face off in a small-town casino. The two eventually agree to a game of "chop poker," a high-stakes game where there is no ante and no pot, but losing could literally cost an arm or a leg. Ultimately the two of them wind up in the hospital, each limbless but still vying to be the best of the best.
Demi Moore and Jeffrey Tambor star in "Dead Right." Moore plays a money-hungry waitress who visits a fortune teller and learns that she will meet a man who will inherit a fortune and die soon thereafter. True to the prophecy, Moore does meet such a man (Tambor), but he is rude, crude, and grossly obese. For the sake of financial security, however, Moore marries him. What the prediction didn't make clear, though, is that Moore gets the money first. Now independently wealthy and with no need to stay hitched to a penniless slob, Moore tells Tambor that she is going to divorce him. Enraged, Tambor murders Moore and inherits her fortune, and he is soon after executed for his crime.
An episode reminiscent of a Stephen King story, "Four-sided Triangle" stars Patricia Arquette as a young runaway named Mary Jo who has become an abused servant to a milquetoast farmer and his cranky, sadistic old wife. To find occasional solace, Mary Jo escapes to the fields and "confides" in the scarecrow there. On one such occasion, she has a vision that the scarecrow actually reaches out to comfort her, and she begins to have the delusion that the scarecrow is her lover. When the old farmer discovers the straw-stuffed identity of Mary Jo's "man," he decides to disguise himself as the scarecrow. His plan backfires, however, when his jealous wife drags Mary Jo into the fields and runs the scarecrow through with a pitchfork to prove to the young woman that her man is not real.
In light of the current popularity of today's "reality" shows, the episode "Television Terror" is more poignant today than it was when it first aired. The late Morton Downey, Jr., stars as Horton Rivers, a sleazy, sensationalistic TV tabloid journalist who will do anything for big ratings. This time Rivers is broadcasting live from within a purportedly haunted house in which an old woman murdered a number of unsuspecting boarders. Initially, Rivers and his steadicam operator encounter some minor preternatural activity, but since the viewers are eating it up and ratings are soaring, Rivers decides to plunge deeper into the eerie edifice. When his cameraman is suddenly decapitated, Rivers finds himself alone and at the mercy of a passel of pernicious phantasms. Ratings are now through the roof, though, and his remote crew, watching from a van outside the house, refuse to help him escape.
The DVD set from Warner Home Video offers fairly clean digital transfers of all 18 delightful second-season episodes of this popular show. In addition, it also features a couple of pretty cool extras, the best of which is an hour-long "shockumentary" that discusses the history of EC comics, the rise and fall of its popular horror line (of which TALES FROM THE CRYPT was a central part), and how famous fans of the comics eventually brought TALES FROM THE CRYPT to the small screen.
In short, TALES FROM THE CRYPT--THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON is a must-own for all serious horror fans.
"HELLO, Boys And Ghouls...!"
'Tales From The Crypt' (henceforth I'll just call it 'TFC') ranks right up there as one of my top favorite TV shows EVER, as it should for any fun-lovin' horror fan. Sure, they show repeats late on the SciFi Channel, etc., but that takes all the fun out of 'em, with editing and all. The DVD sets replay these classics in all their ghastly glory, replete with all the gore and nudity and cussin'. Hooray!!
TFC, much like 'The Twilight Zone' (albeit ruder and bloodier), usually had a moral to the story. Hosted by everyone's favorite alliterative, bad-joke-spewing, undead puppet, the Crypt Keeper, TFC told stories about revenge, zombie love, monsters, murderers, ghosts, voodoo, and just about anything else that falls under the umbrella of the macabre. Most of the stories were about people who wanted something, and went to unspeakable lengths to get it...paying the oft-times ironic consequences afterwards. And for added, lurid entertainment value, many of the tales were told with celebrity guest stars.
Season Two of this awesome collection of half-hour episodes features Hollywood luminaries such as Bobcat Goldthwaite, William Hickey, Demi Moore, Jeffrey ("Hellboy") Tambor, Aubrey ("A Clockwork Orange") Morris, Lance ("Alien", "Pumpkinhead") Henriksen, Morton Downey, Jr., Miguel Ferrer, Patricia Arquette, Don Rickles, Michael Ironside, Iggy Pop (!) and tons of other recognizable faces. One episode is even directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also makes a cameo during the Crypt Keeper's pun-laden intro in that show.
The extras are a little spare, but there is a "Shockumentary" about the show included, as well as a featurette about TFC on the radio. But the real attraction is simply to have all the episodes packaged together so keenly, with a great layout and animated menus which keep you in the "Tales..." spirit. And this set gives ya THREE times the tales than the briefer first set, so it's a lot for you money's worth. And the episodes are all strung together nicely, with the overlong intro cut so that you don't have to spend 20 minutes of each disc watchin' it EVERY SINGLE TIME.
My personal favorite episodes from this offering, by the way, are "The Switch" (old man buys a young man's body, piece by piece, to impress a younger woman), "Cutting Cards" (two gamblers play Russian roulette, then move on to 'chop poker'..ouch), "Dead Right" (Demi Moore marries Jeffrey Tambor for his money; Tambor is great, playing a pathetic slob in a fat-suit), and "Television Terror" (Morton Downey, Jr., playing - what else? - an obnoxious journalist, who ends up in a haunted house). I also really liked "For Cryin' Out Loud", which features Sam Kinison, as the hectoring voice of conscience for an unscrupulous rock-concert promoter. That one is one of the more off-beat episodes, and it has one of the most hilarious lines ever: "Tell the cop I stuffed the b*tch in Donny Osmond's drum case!!"
But they're all worth checkin' out...and perfect for the horror fans with short attention spans. It's a no-brainer, really...as Dr. Crypt Keeper himself says in the title-menu intro, "I hope you're ready for your 'hack'zamination!!!"
Hello, Boils and Ghouls!
The Tales From the Crypt series was some of the best television airing back in the final year of the 80s and into the early 90s. Deliberately over the top. Deliberately funny. Deliberately campy at times. Deliberately scary. Deliberately gory. Deliberately one of HBO's finest creations.
The episodes are all based on EC Comics of old...mostly from the self titled Tales From the Crypt and Vault of Horror comic books. But I'd guess that 90% of you reading this already know that, and you're here as I am delighted that it is finally out on DVD.
For those that have not seen these wonderfully entertaining episodes of dark humor and horror...if you're into the genre this collection and any of the other HBO seasonal Tales From the Crypt releases are for you.
Hit the Buy button. These'll kill ya!
Related DVD's Tales From the Crypt - The Complete Second Season
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