For tonight’s excursion into televised horror, we have the 8th episode of the 3rd season of HBO’s Tales From The Crypt!
Easel Kill feels a bit like a remake of Color Me Blood Red. Tim Roth plays a painter who appears to have lost his talent. Apparently, he has recently stopped drinking and he’s just not that inspired when he’s sober. (However, he’s just as angry as he’s always been. He’s the type of neighbor who will push someone off of a fire escape if they’re playing their music too loud.) Fortunately, once he starts painting with blood, people are suddenly interested in his paintings.
Since I’ve been reviewing so many Dracula films as of late, it seems only appropriate that tonight’s excursion into televised horror should be about a vampire as well!
The Reluctant Vampire was the 7th episode of the 3rd season of HBO’s Tales From The Crypt! It stars Malcolm McDowell as a vampire who is a little bit too nice for his own good. Seriously, you can’t go wrong with Malcolm McDowell as a vampire.
The Reluctant Vampire originally aired on July 10th, 1991.
Tonight’s excursion into televised horror is a pretty good one. Carrion Death, which originally aired on June 15th, 1991, was the second episode of the third season of HBO’s Tales From The Crypt.
Kyle MacLachlan plays a serial killer named Earl Raymond Digs. After Earl escapes from custody, he finds himself stuck in the middle of the desert, handcuffed to a corpse. As Earl walks through the desert, dragging a corpse alongside him, he discovers that he’s being watched…
Carrion Death is a gory, little story that has an enjoyably nasty little ending. Kyle MacLachlan does a surprisingly good job as the dangerous but none too bright Earl. And, of course, there’s the bird. That bird does a great job…
Tonight’s excursion into televised horror is the 16th episode of the 2nd season of HBO’s Tales From The Crypt!
Television Terror, which originally aired on July 17th, 1990, tells the story of Horton Rivers (Morton Downey, Jr.) Horton has his own television show, one where he hunts for ghosts and seeks proof of the supernatural. Needless to say, Horton’s a big fake, a nonbeliever who loathes his audience. It’s kind of like Ghost Hunters, except for the fact that — over the course of this episode — Horton actually finds something. Or perhaps we should say that something find Horton…
Needless to say, things do not end well.
Television Terror has a lot of atmosphere and, with its theme of venal television hosts and gullible audiences, it’s probably even more relevant today than when it was first broadcast.
Believe it or not, I was planning on sharing more than just episodes from Tales From The Crypt this October but seriously, these old shows are just so much fun!
For instance, consider tonight’s episode! In Korman’s Kalamity, Jim Korman (Harry Anderson) is an artist who works on the popular and famous comic book … Tales From The Crypt! (Needless to say, his name should also make you think of Roger Corman, as well.) After his wife (Colleen Camp) orders him to take an experimental fertility pill, his drawings suddenly start to come to life!
Since Korman specializes in drawing monsters, you see how this could be a problem…
Korman’s Kalamity is a self-referential delight. Needless to say, it’s all played for laughs and sentiment so be sure to sit back and enjoy!
This episode was directed by Rowdy Herrington (who also directed that cable mainstay, Road House) and originally aired on June 26th, 1990.
Welcome to tonight’s excursion into televised horror!
These old episodes of Tales From The Crypt are pretty fun, aren’t they? Originally, I was planning on only showing Tales From The Crypt on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday but I’ve been enjoying the show so much that I’ve decided to add a Tuesday showing as well.
Tonight’s episode is called The Thing From The Grave and it originally aired on May 8th, 1990. It stars Teri Hatcher as a model who falls in love with a photographer played by Kyle Secor (yes, the same Kyle Secor who went so brilliant over the top in The Purge: Election Year). Hatcher’s boyfriend, an abusive asshole played by Miguel Ferrer, gets revenge but, since this is Tales From The Crypt, things don’t go quite the way that Ferrer intended. Nothing can kill love, which is something that I’ve always believed!
This episode was directed by Fred Dekker, who also directed a brilliant film called Night of the Creeps, which I really should review someday.
Tonight’s excursion in televised horror comes the second season of HBO’s Tale From The Crypt. Originally broadcast on April 21st, 1990, The Switch tells the story of an elderly millionaire (William Hickey) who is desperately in love with a younger woman (Kelly Preston). When she tells him that she’s looking for a younger man, he goes to extreme lengths to become that younger man.
The episode was directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger and features good work from both William Hickey and Kelly Preston. And, of course, the whole story ends with a sardonic twist that, once again, reminds the viewers that the universe is just as random and meaningless as Werner Herzog says it is.
For tonight’s excursion into televised horror, we present the first episode of the 2nd season of HBO’s Tales From The Crypt!
In Dead Right, Demi Moore plays a secretary named Cathy who is told two things by a psychic. First, she’ll lose her job. Next, she’ll marry a man who will inherit a fortune and then violently die shortly afterward. After losing her job, Cathy meets the grotesque Charlie (Jeffrey Tambor) and she marries him when she finds out that he comes from a wealthy family.
Of course, since this is Tales From The Crypt, there’s a twist. The medium’s prediction turns out to be true but not quite in the way that Cathy was expecting…
Dead Right is pretty good. Demi Moore is almost too plausible as a golddigger and Jeffrey Tambor turns Charlie into a truly memorable character, one who is both pathetic and intimidating. And the story’s twist ending carries a properly nasty punch, as well.
You may remember, from previous horrorthons, that I like to end each day in October by sharing a classic example of televised horror. Over the previous two years, I shared several episodes of The Twilight Zone and everyone seemed to enjoy them. I know I certainly did.
Unfortunately, I can’t do that anymore.
All of the episodes of the Twilight Zone that were on YouTube have been taken down. Copyright infringement, they say. And, unfortunately, Hulu is no longer allowing people to watch The Twilight Zone for free. I can still embed Hulu videos on this site but unless you’re a subscriber, you wouldn’t be able to watch them.
Which sucks, by the way! Seriously, I was soooooo mad when I discovered what had happened…
However, fear not! While I may not be able to share any Twilight Zone episodes this October, it turns out that every episode of HBO’s Tales From The Crypt has been uploaded to YouTube! And what could be more appropriate for Halloween than a little trip to the crypt?
So, with all that in mind, here’s the fourth episode of Tales From The Crypt. It’s called Only Sin Deep and it originally aired on June 14th, 1989. It tells the story of a prostitute named Sylvia Vane (played by Lea Thompson) who agrees to sell her beauty for $10,000 and the chance to marry a rich man. Sylvia doesn’t take the deal seriously. You won’t be surprised to learn that was a mistake. Only Sin Deep is an entertaining little morality tale. Don’t mess with karma.
(As well, I’m going to assume that the name Sylvia Vane is meant to be an homage to the name of Angela Lansbury’s character in The Picture of Dorian Gray.)
Only Sin Deep was directed by Howard Deutch, who also directed Lea Thompson in Some Kind of Wonderful. (And, of course, he also married her.) It was written by Fred Dekker, who directed the classic Night of the Creeps.
And yes, the story is introduced by the infamous Cryptkeeper.
If you own a pet, then you know the experience of wondering what they do all day while your away from the house. My sister Erin and I own a black cat named Doc. When I leave the house in the morning, he’s usually sleeping on the couch. When I come back home 8 hours later, he’s usually still there.
“Doc,” I’ll say, “didn’t you do anything while I was gone!?”
“Meh,” Doc will reply, before getting up, stretching, and then hopping off the couch. He’ll then lead me into the kitchen and demand that I feed him. Once he’s been fed, he’ll hop back up on the couch, curl up, and wait for Erin to come home.
Now, personally, I think that’s all an act. There’s no way that any living creature could spend 8 hours doing nothing. My theory is that Doc spends the day patrolling the house, taunting the dogs next door, and watching old movies on TCM. But, until I learn to speak his language (because he has shown next to no interest in learning how to speak English), I will never be able to talk about classic Hollywood filmmaking with him. And that’s a tragedy.
The new animated film, The Secret Life of Pets, shows us what pets do when their owners aren’t around. (Or, at the very least, it shows what a small group of animals in Manhattan do.) Some pets party. Some hunt. A lost guinea pig named Norman (voiced by the film’s director,Chris Renaud) wanders through the heating ducts and tries to find his way home. Chloe (voiced by Lake Bell), a Tabby cat, lays about her apartment and talks about how apathetic she is.
Meanwhile, a terrier named Max (Louis C.K.) spends all of his time eagerly waiting for his owner, Katie (Ellie Kemper), to come home. Max is very proud of the fact that he and Katie are best friends. His life revolves around her, so you can imagine his surprise when Katie comes home with a new dog. Duke (Eric Stonestreet) is a gigantic and shaggy mongrel. Even though Katie says that Duke is now a part of the family, Max takes an immediate dislike to him. When Duke’s attempts to be friendly are ignored, he responds by turning into a bully.
(In Duke’s defense, he has just gotten out of the pound. Before he was captured, he was owned by a kindly old man but, one day, Duke got out of the house and got lost. When you consider what Duke has suffered, you can’t help but feel that he has the right to be a little bit grouchy.)
After Max and Duke both get lost while being taken for a walk, Max decides to help Duke get back to his old home. Meanwhile, under the leadership of Gidget (Jenny Slate), a Pomeranian who has a crush on Max, all of the other pets try to track down their friend and help him return home before he’s captured by animal control.
And, then there’s the revolutionaries. Living in the sewers, a group of former pets are plotting to overthrow their former owners. They are being led by a bunny named Snowball, who is not only a sociopath but also sounds exactly like Kevin Hart.
Anyway, The Secret Life of Pets is a cute film. It never quite escapes the shadow of Toy Story 3 (which it frequently resembles) but it’s genuinely sweet and Louis C.K. does such a good job voicing Max that even a cat person like me couldn’t help but fall in love with that neurotic little dog. There are a few jokes that don’t quite work (To cite just one example, the film introduces a hawk voiced by Albert Brooks and then fails to really do anything with the character) but you really can’t go wrong with talking animals. The Secret Life of Pets is a cute little crowd pleaser. It might not make you think in the way that a great Pixar film can make you think but it will definitely make you laugh and leave you feeling good.
It might make you cry, too! There’s a montage of various owners coming home and being greeted by their pets and it caused my mismatched eyes to tear up because it was just so sweet!
Through the Shattered Lens 