Star
Studded Tales from the Crypt Season 5 Remains Memorable
by
Kristin Battestella
The
Fall 1993 Fifth Season of Tales from the Crypt is
a star studded season full of familiar faces and frights to remember
beginning with Tim Curry (Clue) and
Ed Begley, Jr. (She-Devil) in
“Death of Some Salesmen.” Our unscrupulous cemetery plot
salesman snoops in the obituaries, preying on old widows like Yvonne
De Carlo (The Munsters) with
a rural, door to door con as the humorous winks, overalls, and
southern gentility contrast the risque sex, bloody secrets, and
murderous traps. Headless revelations offer a quirky, if
disturbing grain of truth on swindling salesmen getting what they
deserve, but the revolting comeuppance had both me and my husband
gagging and laughing at the same time. Our Crypt Keeper host is
taking calls on KDOA Radio as Hector Elizondo (Chicago Hope)
suspects young wife Patsy Kensit (Full Eclipse) of having an
affair in director Kyle Maclachlan's (Twin Peaks) “As Ye
Sow.” Unfortunately, Adam West's (Batman) upscale
surveillance firm says she does nothing but go to church everyday –
to a controversial priest tossed from his last parish. Debates on the
church as living organ, throbbing with his flock in his arms provide
juicy winks as the power of suggestion has our paranoid husband
fearing betrayal and jumping to the wrong conclusion. An unreliable
point of view imaging what's going on in the confessional makes for a
controversial mix of sacrilegious horror, but it's cheaper to hire
hit men than get a divorce. War photographers Steve Buscemi
(Boardwalk Empire) and Roger Daltry (Highlander: The Series) likewise fight over
Lysette Anthony (Dracula: Dead and Loving It) in
“Forever Ambergris” while The Keeper himself shoots for
Vicghoulia's Secret. Anything can happen during this Central
America assignment, and villages contaminated with germ warfare
create an elevated dramatic mood amid macho guns versus the camera,
mercenaries, and screaming convulsions. Bubbling flesh, oozing blood,
squishing eyeballs – what's a little imbued chemicals once you
steal the award winning photographs and get the girl?
In
“Two for the Show” bored, adulterous wife Traci Lords (Cry
Baby) wants more passion. However, her husband is worried her
leaving will make him look bad at the corporate banquet, leading to
strangulation, scissors, knife play, and stuffing the body into a
bedside chest even if it just won't fit. Suspicious cops,
dismemberment, and a heavy suitcase provide suspense with shades of
Hitchcock in the overhead parallels and two shots of men on a train
hypothetically debating about killing their wives. The crime has
already been committed, yet there's a classy, potboiler tense to the
garbage disposal twists. Of course, the audience is on trial with the
barrister wig wearing 'Honorable Judge Crypt Keeper' presiding over
“House of Horror” as Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next
Generation), Kevin Dillon (Entourage), Brian Krause
(Sleepwalkers), and more eighties teens are all grown up and
trying to join the fraternity with paddles, humiliation, kneeling,
and scrubbing dog poo with a toothbrush. The sister house is here for
their final initiation at a haunted fraternity house with a murderous
past, and one by one the plebs must make it to the attic with all the
tricks, gags, screams, chainsaws, and turnabouts along the way.
Assistant Maryam d'Abo (Bond Girls Are Forever) is unhappy
when magician Billy Zane's (Dead Calm) show isn't a success in
“Well Cooked Hams.” While The Crypt Keeper is taking French
lessons for his trip to 'gay Scaree,' the turn of the century magic
scene is cutthroat and our magician will kill to get ahead when not
stealing the Box of Death trick from fellow hunchback illusionist
Martin Sheen (The West Wing). Inserted knives, sulfuric acid,
burning ropes, and handcuffs add to the magic rivalry and period mood
as the disguises, reflections, and smoke and mirrors leave the
audience screaming. The difference, you see, is in not when the crowd
is aware of the ruse but when they actually believe it. Slick Anthony
Michael Hall (The Breakfast Club) tries to outwit the mummy
legends and sacrificed princesses in “Creep Course,” however his
attempt to steal the mid-term answers leads to statues, tombs,
torches, and a sarcophagus from the professor's private collection –
courtesy of some grave robbing family history. The jocks versus
academia double crossing twists provide gross embalming techniques,
through the nose icky, and projectile vomiting for a fun atmosphere
with good old fashioned wrappings in contemporary mummy spins.
Big
CK is a flight attendant on Tales from the Crypt Scarelines
for “Came the Dawn,” but the bimbo in the bathroom and the bloody
ax murderer have other dismembering ideas. Good thing suave in
his Porsche Perry King (Melrose Place) picks up broke down
Brooke Shields (The Blue Lagoon), taking her to his cabin on a
stormy night – after stopping for oysters and champagne, of course.
Medieval décor with executioner artifacts and weapons accent opera,
fireside candlelit dinners, and jewels. Unfortunately, tales of
adultery begat black stockings bondage interrupted by an
ex-girlfriend shouting at the door. Wise Tales from the Crypt
viewers will figure out what's
happening easily thanks to taxidermy and ladies clothing in
the closet. However, that obvious doesn't make the revealing attacks
any less chilling. Con artist couple Lou Diamond Phillips (La
Bamba) and Priscilla Presley (Dallas) dig
up their buried alive cohort and the money with him in “Oil's
Well That Ends Well” – a fellow con who happens to be the man
behind the Crypt Keeper John Kassir in his only onscreen
Tales from the Crypt appearance.
She wants another con and shows her authority at the rowdy bar,
taking on the nasty boys with a great speech on how strong women are
called bitches, screwed, fucked, and screwed again. Oil claims help
swindle the local rednecks into drilling under the graveyard, with
explosions and self-referential quips setting off the who's screwing
whom. More bemusing dialogue mixed with suspense and surreal
shootouts elevate “Till Death Do We Part.” Although this is
another crime drama and love triangle more about violence than
horror, gigolo John Stamos (Full House) and mob dame Eileen
Brennan (Clue) provide diamonds, dice, jazz clubs, and saucy
betrayals – leading to limos in the woods with guns, bodies in the
trunk, rubber aprons, and axes. Crook Robert Picardo (Star Trek: Voyager) is just so polite in making the vomiting, fainting lady
stand up and watch the quartering! Our KRPT sportscaster Crypt
Keeper, meanwhile, is on the radio with the World Scaries featuring
the Fright Sox versus the Boo Jays. Which team will keep their
winning shriek alive?
This
is a short, mostly solid season, however, there are a few less than
stellar episodes of Tales from the Crypt such
as Ernie Hudson's (Ghostbusters) “Food for Thought”
with its carnival warped, saucy dessert metaphors, and perverted quid
pro quo abuses between a mind reading couple. The racial implications
among the freaks, conjoined twin ladies naked in the shower, illicit
fire eater romance, and a jealous girl gorilla make for fiery
consequences, yet the revenge is
thin, with most of the circus designs just for show. The fourth
and ghoul Crypt Keeper quarterback also can't save the uneven crimes
in director Russell Mulcahy's (Highlander 2)
“People Who Live in Brass
Hearses.” Violent ex-con Bill Paxton (Aliens)
and simpleton younger brother Brad Dourif (Child's Play) are out for
revenge, harassing the suspicious ice cream truck driver before
bloody hooks, murderous mishaps, gory gunshots, and safe cracking
gone awry. There are some twists, but the sardonic humor and quirky
characters can't carry the heist amid unenjoyable outbursts and
obnoxiousness. Ghoulish bodies, morgue drawers, and colorful goo open
“Half-Way Horrible” and the Keeper is shrinking heads in the
dryer at his scare salon while a detective asks Clancy Brown
(Highlander)
about his chemical company's proprietary ingredients. These rare
herbs were of course stolen in the jungle amid tribal drums, native
secrets, and zombie rituals. Voodoo dolls come back to haunt the
corrupt chemist, and once again it's just rich white guys learning
the err of their appropriating ways – told from the sympathetic
point of view of said rich white guys. It's not surprising and
doesn't make us feel bad when he gets his due. As The Keeper says,
'he needed to learn rot
from wrong a little fester.'
Fortunately,
old fashioned kitchens, cameo jewelry, and country strings accent the
rural settings of these tales again based on Haunt of Fear, Tales
from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Shock SuspenStories, and Crime
SuspenStories. Cha-ching money sounds, stormy nights, and other
audio bells and whistles set off the vintage video, VCRs, old
televisions, giant tape reels, transistor radios, huge ass car
phones, and hi tech nineties corporate contrasting the old school
noir, file folders, and black and white photographs. Warped camera
angles, dark lighting, shadow schemes, and colorful touches keep the
on location production values top notch amid effective jungle
horrors, gross make up, blood, and disturbing gore. Downtrodden
circus tents and lanterns provide golden Victorian patinas while
haunted houses and cobwebs create congested scares. Train tensions
begat outdoor ominous and penultimate zombie gross, and though front
loaded with juicy nudity, later in the season the steamy lingerie
isn't as important as the swanky bling, period costumes, or Egyptian
motifs. Tales from the Crypt's horror prosthetics really
allow the cast per episode to sink their teeth into the role or
multiple roles whether playing to or against type. Tales from the
Crypt Season Five starts
strong with some of the series' finest humor and horror with sardonic
sexiness and star studded scares. This shorter year shines with
relatively few poor outings – a precursor to today's brief, quickly
digestible fall horror and anthology seasons. Tales from the Crypt
Season Five is a creepy, fast
marathon for Halloween or anytime of year.
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