Published by EC Comics, Tales From The Crypt is one of the most fondly-remembered horror comics books of the 1950s. The series actually began under the title International Comics and went through several other title changes before becoming Tales From The Crypt. A horror anthology series that was hosted by The Crypt Keeper, The Vault Keeper, and the Old Witch, Tales From The Crypt ran from 1950 to 1955 and was so popular with young readers that a psychologist named Fredric Wertham claimed that reading the comic book could lead to juvenile delinquency and other deviant behavior. The resulting moral panic led to a Congressional investigation and the adaptation of the Comic Book Code. It also led to the cancellation of all of EC’s horror titles, including Tales From The Crypt.
In the decades since, issues of Tales From The Crypt have been highly sought after by collectors and the comic book even inspired a television show on HBO. Below is a selection of the covers of Tales From The Crypt, the series that corrupted America’s youth.
It’s always interesting to see what used to be controversial.
The Prodigy, which was released way back in February, is yet another creepy kid movie.
You know how these movies go. There’s always some child who seems like a perfect little angel but is actually either psychotic or demon-possessed or maybe an alien. Whatever it is, the important thing is that the child can get away with killing people because no one thinks that an eight year-old would do that something like that. Inevitably, it’s the child’s mother who figure out what’s going on and it’s always up to her to try to stop her child’s reign of terror. Sometimes, the mother is successful. More often, she’s not and the movie ends with the little brat smiling at the camera or something. Seriously, you know how it goes!
Because there’s been so many of them, it’s usually easy to predict what’s going to happen in these creepy kid movies. At the same time, they’re effective because … well, let’s just be honest here. Kids are creepy. Even the ones that aren’t evil know that they can get away with stuff that no adult would be allowed to do. Add to that, they’ve got those high-pitched voices that can give you a migraine if you get stuck on airplane anywhere near one of them. Beyond that, these films also touch on every parent’s worst fear. What if your child does grow up to be evil? What if you mess up while you’re raising them and, as a result, other people suffer? What if your child grows up to have bad hygiene or an obnoxious attitude? I mean, I don’t have any children yet but these are the things that I imagine keep most parents up at night.
Anyway, in The Prodigy, the creepy kid is named Miles (Jackson Robert Scott). Miles is super smart. He started talking when he was just a toddler. However, after Mile turns 8, he starts to behave strangely. He pulls mean pranks on the babysitter. He attacks other children. He starts speaking Hungarian in his sleep and saying stuff like, “I’ll cut your eyes out and watch you die, whore.” After Miles does something bad, he always claims that he has no memory of what he did. Whenever Bad Miles takes control, Good Miles just seems to black out. Needless to say, his parents — Sarah (Taylor Schilling) and John (Peter Mooney) — are concerned about what’s happening with their son.
Could it have something to do with the fact that, at the same time that Miles was being born, a Hungarian serial killer named Edward Scarka was getting gunned down by the cops? Is it possible that Edward’s evil spirit is now inside of Miles and is trying to take control of him? Sarah certainly comes to think so! As for John — well, who cares? John is mostly just there to get upset and pout.
The Prodigy does have some scary moments. Director Nicholas McCarthy establishes an ominous atmosphere early on and the film remains remarkably bleak for the majority of its running time. I mean, there are some really dark moments in The Prodigy. But, at the same time, the whole crazy child plot is a bit too predictable and the film doesn’t really bring anything new to the terror tyke genre. Add to that, this is yet another film in which a family pet is gruesomely murdered for no particular reason. I guess we’re supposed to be shocked and say, “OH MY GOD, IF THEY’LL KILL THAT ADORABLE DOG, THEY’LL KILL ANYONE!” but the dog is so obviously doomed from the first moment that it appears that it just feels like lazy storytelling.
Outside of a few isolated moments, The Prodigy doesn’t really make much of an impression. It’s an efficient horror film that’s never really memorable.
In Victorian-era England, a somewhat neurotic young woman is hired to serve as the governess for two children who live in a foreboding estate. Once the governess arrives, she discovers that the children — especially little Miles — can be a handful. She also discovers that there was a governess hired before her, a governess who died under mysterious circumstances. At night, the new governess hears strange noises and soon, she becomes convinced that she’s seen the ghosts of both her predecessor and the old governess’s lover, Peter Quint. Everyone else may think that the new governess has allowed the isolation of the estate to get to her but she’s convinced that the ghosts have possessed the children! She becomes determined to save the children, even at the risk of their own lives….
If that sounds familiar, then you’ve either read Henry James’ Turn of the Screw or you’ve seen one of the several movies that were based on his novella. The Haunting of Helen Walker, which was made-for-television and initially broadcast in 1995, reimagines James’s unnamed governess as Helen Walker, an American woman played by Valerie Bertinelli.
Now, The Haunting of Helen Walker does take some liberties with Henry James’s source material. The novella was a masterpiece of ambiguity. The Haunting of Helen Walker is …. less so. Let’s just say this version doesn’t leave much doubt as to whether or not there’s actually ghosts in the mansion. That said, it’s still an entertaining made-for-TV movie.
In the 1939 film, Let Us Live!, Henry Fonda plays Brick Tennant. Brick is a poor but honest taxi driver who has always lived a law-abiding life and who is looking forward to marrying waitress named Mary Roberts (Maureen O’Sullivan). However, when a taxi is used as a getaway car in a violent robbery that leaves a policeman dead, Brick finds that he’s a suspect.
At first, Brick isn’t too worried. It turns out that every taxi driver in Boston is apparently being considered a suspect. Brick is just 1 out of 120. However, when the police bring Brick in to take part in a lineup, one of the witnesses insists that Brick and his friend, Joe Linden (Alan Baxter), were involved in the robbery. Despite the fact that Brick and Mary were at a church, planning their wedding, during the robbery, Brick and Joe are arrested and put on trial for murder. Despite Brick’s initial faith in the system, he and Joe are convicted and sentenced to die.
On death row, Brick faces the inhumane reality of American justice. He watches as other prisoners slowly lose their mind as a result of neglect and abuse. He watches as another prisoner drops dead in front of him, to the indifference of the guards. Even when Mary tells him that she’s still looking for evidence that will exonerate him, Brick says that he no longer cares. The state of Massachusetts is determined to kill him and he doesn’t believe that there’s any way stop them. As Mary puts it, Brick is now dead inside.
Still, Mary continued to investigate. Helping her is a police detective named Everett (Ralph Bellamy). Everett comes to realize that two innocent men are sitting on Death Row but will he and Mary be able to find the real culprits before the state executes Brick and Joe?
While watching Let Us Live, I found it impossible not to compare the film to The Wrong Man, another film in which Henry Fonda played an innocent man being railroaded by the system. Both The Wrong Man and Let Us Live were based on a true stories, though Let Us Live takes considerably more liberty with its source material than The Wong Man does. Whereas The Wrong Man is a docudrama that’s full of moody atmosphere courtesy of director Alfred Hitchcock, Let Us Live is much more of a fast-paced, melodramatic B-move.
That said, Let Us Live! is still a definitely effective look at how an innocent man can be railroaded by a system that’s often more concerned with getting a quick conviction than actually searching for the truth. Sadly, the issues that Let Us Live deals with are just as relevant today as they were in 1939. The film’s power comes from Henry Fonda’s performance as Brick. It’s truly heart-breaking to watch Brick go from being a cheerful optimist to a man who has been so broken down by American justice that he can’t even bring himself to celebrate the news that he might be released. The film ends on a grim note, a reminder that some damage cannot be undone.
Let Us Live! is another good but obscure film that I discovered through TCM. Keep an eye out for it!
Hey, remember when Marilyn Manson was considered to be like really shocking and dangerous?
No?
Well, that’s understandable. Marilyn’s been around for a while and he’s been so imitated that I think it’s kind of easy to forget just how much people freaked the fuck out about Marilyn Manson’s music and videos in the late 90s. They even attempted to blame him for Columbine. (Marilyn Manson also said one of the few wise things about that shooting. When asked what he would have said to the shooters, he replied that he wouldn’t have said anything but he would have listened to what they were saying because apparently, nobody bothered to do that before the shooting.) Now, of course, we just tend to think of Marilyn Manson as being a kind of dorky guy who is into horror movies, which is a pretty good description of the majority of film twitter.
Anyway, The Beautiful People features Marilyn on stilts, which apparently scared people to death back in the day.
Through the Shattered Lens 