The Thing from the Grave?  Isn’t that every episode of Tales from the Crypt?

OK, after the excremental Three’s a Crowd, this is a move in the right direction.  Miguel Ferrer and Teri Hatcher are almost always interesting, and writer-director Fred Dekker previously wrote two good episodes.

Photographer Devlin Cates is shooting a layout with Teri Hatcher in a bathing suit holding a spear-gun.  They could have ended the episode here and it would have been better than the last two.

Yada yada spectacular.

Miguel Ferrer shows up and acts obnoxious, accusing Cates of hitting on Teri.  As her manager and fiancee, he considers her his port of entry.  After Ferrer leaves, Cates offer her the spare key to his studio in case, you know, she just ever needs to get away.

Sure enough, she shows up at his studio one night.  Note to self: have spare key made; also, a studio.  He gives her a locket an old blind woman gave to him; she said that any promise made while holding that locket would come true.   He holds it and tells Teri he will always protect her.  Ya know, he could have told the old woman he would restore her sight, but I’m sure she was no Teri Hatcher.  Meanwhile Ferrer is outside peeping at them.

The next day, he calls Cates and says that Teri is in trouble and to meet him at the old mill; or something.  Cates foolishly shows up and we are at the point where a flash-forward already showed us Ferrer shooting him, tossing him in a grave, and covering him up.

A flash-forward is usually used to get a little action into the early set-up of the story.  It is not necessary when you start out with a 26 year-old Teri Hatcher in a bathing suit.

Back at Teri’s place a week later, Ferrer shows up at her place and tells her he knows about her hook-up with Cates.  But he tells her that he is probably off with other models, that’s why she can’t reach him.

The next day, she goes to his studio.  She finds a bag of groceries and picks up an incriminating carton of ice cream.  Although, it is melted as you would expect, it is also half empty which makes no sense.  I could lose a few pounds, but even I don’t eat half the Ben & Jerry’s in the car on the way home.  She plays his answering machine with Ferrer’s voice as he grabs her from behind.

He ties her to the bed, and from her shrieking it sounds like he was up to no good.  He confesses that he killed Cates and buried him in the woods.  As he gets undressed, Cates emerges from the grave and slogs toward Teri’s house.

Ferrer goes outside and is grabbed by Cates who drags him back to the grave, pulling him under the ground with him.

This is really just a pretty straightforward, workman-like effort. But coming off a streak of bad episodes, it is very refreshing.  The Dutch angles are back, the bold palette, the humor, some star power.  Pretty lackluster twist, but I am happy with it.

Post-Post:

• This is predates Teri Hatcher’s appearance on Seinfeld and in Lois & Clark by 3 years.

What is this shit? asks the most famous review in rock history.  I know the feeling.

I dubbed the previous episode “the one where they just gave up” and this entry proves me right. The big name directors are gone, the famous actors are gone, it’s as if they turned the show over to a crew that had never seen it before.  Where is the camp?  Where is the humor?  Where is the bold color palette?  All that’s left to signify TFTC is that odious Crypt Keeper.

This episode is a somber chore to watch.  Richard and Della’s marriage is on the rocks.  It seems mostly due to Richard’s passivity, insecurity, depression, career problems, and inability to get Della pregnant.  Della is no prize either as she seems much more alive whenever their friend Alan is around, and makes no secret of it.

They go out for a cruise on Alan’s yacht, and are are on an anniversary vacation paid for by Alan.  Della sees this as a generous gift from a successful old friend, but Richard thinks Alan is rubbing his wealth in his face and trying to steal Della.

Richard is certainly given every reason to worry about Della leaving him for Alan.  Clearly Alan is an exponentially better catch.  He is also constantly flirting with Della, jokingly grabbing her thigh, kissing her, having conversations clearly not meant for Richard’s ears.

This is in no way a Tales From the Crypt episode until the last few seconds which are painfully predictable.

Richard’s performance is dreadful.  We really don’t give a damn about him and it is torture to watch him on screen.  The rest of the cast is OK, but saddled with other problems.

The script, which doesn’t play fair,  took three writers, two of whom have zero other screenplay credits.  The third writer, who is also the director, must shoulder the blame.  The unimaginative script, gooey with the oppressive melodrama of Lifetime at its worst, and set to a plodding score is just deadly.

This is shit.  There is not a single episode of Ray Bradbury Theater or a single film in the $5 20 movie box set that I would not watch again before this excrement.

I rate it zero out of three.

Post-Post:

• Director David Burton Morris had a weird 1999 directing both The Sonny and Cher Story and The Partridge Family Story.
• IMDbs: A new category in which I question the validity of IMDb’s ratings.  This episode is rated 5th best of season 2?  I call BS.

a/k/a the one where they just gave up.

Well this was a let down.  After three very good 2nd season episodes, TFTC finally had a bomb.  I had my doubts when I didn’t recognize any of the cast.  After the first 3 episodes featured the likes of Demi Moore, Kelly Preston and Lance Henricksen, this seemed like the JV team.  Although, to be fair, a couple of them have huge resumes — just almost nothing I’ve ever seen.

Behind the scenes, this is Chris Walas’ only TV directing credit.  Writer Jeri Barchilon is the veteran with 2 TV credits, the other one being an episode of The Facts of Life.  Not even a “very special” episode.

The episode begins with voodoo priestess Psyche placing a blood splattered portrait of Logan Andrews on a fire.  The episode is so poorly constructed that it is not clear that this is a flash-forward; not even when the corresponding scene comes around.

Cut to Andrews yukking it up with his doctor pal over an unfortunate “widow Fitzgerald” who dies leaving him some valuable land.  Who is Mrs. Fitzgerald?  Why did she leave Andrews the valuable land?  We will never find out.  For that matter, who is Andrews?  Playboy?  Is he rich?  Overextended?  Scam artist?  All we know for sure is he buys his clothes a size too large.

Andrews sets eyes on the beautiful Margaret Richardson and we suspect the cycle is about to repeat (even though we don’t know what the cycle is).  She is supposed to be a very classy snob, rudely criticizing everything and everyone.  Why did she come here if she hates it so much?  No help on that one from the writer.

Unfortunately this role, like Andrews, was either terribly miscast or terribly directed.  Pamela Gein gives it a good try, but just is not able to pull the humor or snideness out of the character.  She looks nice and she’s given some good barbs, but it just doesn’t work.  And her hair!  My God, her hair!  That net makes it look like a beaver tail.

The foreman comes to get Andrews to show him that the land he inherited is quicksand, unsuitable for building.  And when I say foreman, I mean foreman in the sense that Cleavon Little was a foreman in Blazing Saddles.  So Andrews turns his eye to Margaret.

Really, this whole story was written in the title.  “Til Death” indicates a marriage or hook-up will occur.  Given the genre, you know there will be a literal death involved.  And being Tales from the Crypt, you know the living person will be stuck with the dead person for ever after.

But originality is over-rated.  Just having a good setting and interesting characters can make an episode.  The voodoo setting works, but might be a little too politically incorrect for some squeamish viewers.  Sadly, of the 3 leads, only the doctor really makes his character work.

To end on a positive note, the effects of Margaret decomposing are very well done.  That might because most of the director’s credits are in make-up and special effects.  He is not credited on this episode, but did get a make-up credit in The Switch.

I rate this one “mostly dead”.

 Post-Post:

• OK, so Andrews is saddled with this decaying zombie forever in order to fulfill some cosmic justice or irony or karma for his sins.  But no one in these tales ever thinks about the zombie.  She seems pretty OK with it at the moment, but she is facing eternity as a rotting corpse.
• Throughout the entire episode, D.W. Moffett reminded me of Angel or that guy on Warehouse 13.  Except like he’s the guy if you can’t afford the other two.  Despite having just seen him in an Outer Limits, I had no memory of him at all.  He’s very successful, though, so maybe it’s just me.
• In re the doctor’s head: 1) why did Maggie cut it off?  2) why is Psyche carrying it around in a cage?  3) Why is he so chirpy about it?

After watching the archaic, completely artless Teenage Zombies, the opening to Tales from the Crypt — simple as it is — is nothing short of electrifying.  And, by “opening”, I mean skipping the odious Crypt-Keeper and diving right into the story.

Sure, it has the advantage of color, but it also uses music and just a few establishing shots to set the tone.  A big-ass Cadillac driven by a dude in a big-ass cowboy hat, boots hitting the ground, a spin of the roulette wheel, the wheels on a slot machine.  None of these are budget-busters or require editing genius, but put the right music — even carefully chosen stock music — underneath them, and it makes the difference between film-making and pointing a camera.

It also helps when the cowboy, Reno Crevice, is played by Lance Henricksen, but then the budget starts taking a hit; although from some of the crap I’ve seen him in, maybe not a big one.  He has a drink in the casino, and is warned that Sam Forney (Kevin Tighe) is a guy to look out for.  They have tangled before, so Crevice goes directly to challenge him.

Crevice is a little short on funds, so the stakes for the wager are loser must leave town.  Crevice rolls a 12, but Forney matches him.

Increasingly agitated, Crevice suggests Russian Roulette.  Forney provides a revolver and Crevice loads a single bullet, pronouncing it to be “5 to 1 odds.”  They take turns clicking off shots until the final chamber, which misfires.

Determined to see this through, they next try cards, using their fingers as the stakes.

Henricksen and Tighe are both excellent, playing up the campy roles while retaining the danger.  The episode is also very well directed by Walter Hill.  And the ending . . . er,  it’s very well done.  It’s the kind of thing you’ll like if you like that kind of thing.  It was too much of a downer for me, but I appreciate its quality.

Lost me at the end, but I still rate this one Aces.

Post-Post:

• At 20:12, this has got to be one of the shortest episodes.  But God bless them for not padding it out .
• Roy Brocksmith plays a bartender.  Following the AHP policy of recycling actors, he was just in the previous episode.
• Seems like Kevin Tighe went from a go-to good guy in his younger years to a go-to bad guy.  He is great playing the asshole, though, most recently seen as Anthony Cooper in Lost.
• Not sure what is going on with writer Mae Woods.  She only has 3 writing credits on IMDb.  All 3 are on Tales from the Crypt, and 2 of the 3 were directed by Walter Hill.  She is also list as Hill’s assistant on several of his movies.
• Not to be a spoil-sport, but when you’re playing Russian Roulette with a revolver, can’t you see which chamber the bullet is in, or at least rule out a few of them?

Holy crap, I remember seeing this one 23 years ago.

Sadly, the first shot is of the grating William “fingernails-on-a-blackboard” Hickey who made his Outer Limits episode just about unwatchable.  He tells his butler, Mr. Pitt from Seinfeld, that he is hopelessly in love with a young woman.  Demonstrating that he has learned nothing about women in his 114 years on earth, he has kept his wealth a secret from her just to be sure she really loves him.

Mrs. John Travolta. Maybe I should reconsider this Scientology thing.

He proposes, but the woman, Kelly Preston, tells him she can’t because he is old enough to be her grandfather — and she is being charitable at that.  He vows to change for her, and goes to a plastic surgeon.  The doctor refers him to a mad scientist who can actually do a face transplant with a handsome young man.

Hickey has to fork over $1M for the surgery, having gone out-of-network.  $100k is for the surgery, and $900k is for the donor.  Sporting his new mug, he goes to see Kelly again.  His new face is a little strange.  It appears that they just made Hickey up to look younger.  His face is fuller, over-sized in a paper mache sort of way, like a Mardi Gras float.  Also, in this procedure, “face” apparently includes the hair.  But that same biting-on-tin-foil voice is there.

She says the face is weirdly OK, but that his old decrepit body is a turn-off.  Back to the mad scientist for a torso transplant at a mere $2 million.  Hickey checks himself out post-op and is amazed by his physique.  He still has the sliding-down-a-razorblade-bannister voice, though.

Kelly is impressed by stud-boy.  At the beach, however, she gets a gander at his scrawny legs.  So back to the mad scientist.  $3 million will finish the job at $1 million per appendage.  Sadly, he can no longer afford Mr. Pitt, so let’s him go.

Fully transformed, he rushes to see Kelly.  She has married the donor who has been transformed into an old man — now portrayed by Hickey.  The difference is, he is now rich from the surgeries, which is what she always wanted.  And Mr. Pitt works for them.

Great episode.  Even the repellent William Hickey could not ruin it.  Season 2 is on a streak.

Post-Post:

• Writer Richard Tuggle wrote Tightrope and Escape from Alcatraz for Clint Eastwood.  Then nothing.  Absolutely noting.  IMDb has no date of death.  Very mysterious.
• One of Ahnold Schwarzenegger’s 2 directing credits.
• Rick Rossovich as the donor was best known to me from the excellent film Roxanne.
• Hickey, playing Carlton Webster here, played Carlton Blanchard on a few episodes of Wings.  If there is a reason for this coincidence, I am not interested enough to find it.
• The mad scientist is the guy who played Data in Stratagema on Star Trek TNG.  For some reason, I always thought that was Squiggy from Laverne & Shirley.