With respect to the other EC comics homages out there (we love you, “Creepshow” and “Tales From the Darkside”!), “Tales From The Crypt” feels like the cornucopia from which all modern horror flows. The HBO series began in 1989 and aired 93 episodes over the next seven years, most of them adaptations of dark and twisted comics from the heyday of genre publisher Entertaining Comics. Our guide through the madness was the Cryptkeeper, a puppeteered rotting corpse with a knack for morbid puns.
The show, too, often possessed a strain of madcap dark humor, valuing entertaining performances, great practical effects, pay-cable content, and absurd twists of fate as much as it did straightforward scares. It kicks off with a doozy of a premiere – Walter Hill’s freaky and fantastic death penalty saga “The Man Who Was Death” – and never stops trying new things. Hill and Robert Zemeckis were counted among the show’s executive producers, while its director slate included actors (Tom Hanks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael J. Fox) and horror legends (Tobe Hooper, Mary Lambert, William Freidkin) alike.
“Tales From The Crypt” has proven hugely influential, inspiring a radio series, kids shows, and a series of films including Ernest Dickerson’s “Tales From The Crypt Presents Demon Knight.” A who’s who of established stars and up-and-coming actors appear in the series, including Brad Pitt, Ewan McGregor, Whoopi Goldberg, Ke Huy Quan, and Benicio del Toro. Christopher Reeve-led “What’s Cookin’,” Zemeckis-directed World War I tale “Yellow,” and darkly comic haunted house story “Television Terror” are among the show’s highest-rated IMDb episodes.
