I have never seen the 2 original Tales From the Crypt films susrprisingly, despite having seen the TV show so many times, like every episode over 10 times. I loved the show. Needless to say, i am excited to see what 1972 PG horror can provide for me. I tend to give these more room to grow on me because of the confides that they were working within. It goes without say that there will be spoilers here. As far as I know, there are 5 different short stories told, and Peter Cushing is involved! If you want, please feel free to skip to the bottom where I give my brief synopsis and a rating.
SPOILERS
The wrap around story is just about 5 strangers who get lost on a tour of a crypt. There, that’s simple enough. The whole thing is pretty damn silly. The Cryptkeeper tells these tales of each of the 5 strangers.
Segment 1 – “And All Through The House”
Joan Collins was a fox back then. Good for her. Anyway, Joan plays Joanne and she kills her old husband, Richard. I think it’s safe to say that she was a gold digger as the house seems very nice. She hit him upside the head with a fire poker, but their daughter was in the house. Carol, the daughter has sweet wallpaper with donkeys on it. It’s Christmas Eve, as if the title didn’t already allude to that. Wait, I think this was made into an episode for the TV show, it was in season 1 if I’m not mistaken. Now I’m even more excited. Yup, it’s the second ever episode. There’s a killer on the loose dressed as Santa and of course, he visits the house. That was not as well done as the remake, but almost 2 decades later allowed for a scarier version. I still really enjoyed it. Basically, Carol lets Santa in and then obviously bad things.
Segment 2 – “Reflection of Death”
So Carl has a wife and 2 kids, but he goes out to pick up his mistress, Susan, and they are leaving town. Susan is quite the looker herself. I am very pleased. He’s tired so she drives, and then he has a nightmare, scares her, they end up on the wrong side of the road, veer off, crash through a fence, into a tree, and the car burns. Carl escapes the wreckage, looks pretty red, but can’t find Susan. He scares a homeless dude and then scares off a nearby driver. We are only seeing from his perspective so we don’t know what he looks like. He comes home and his wife screams. He goes to Susan’s and finds her in the apartment and it’s full of furniture again…and we see his very dead face. He screams, wakes up from the dream, they have the car crash again, rinse repeat basically.
Segment 3 – “Poetic Justice”
Ohhh, Peter Cushing. He plays this friendly guy named Grimsdyke, and he gives kids toys and they love him. His rich neighbors don’t like him, especially James Elliot. James wants him to sell the property, but he won’t. James digs up Grimsdyke’s neighbor’s prize rose garden, which gets blamed on Grimsdyke’s dogs, so the cops take them away. Grimsdyke gets on the Ouija board to talk to his dead wife. She reveals that he is in danger. Now Grimsdyke is out of a job. It just gets worse and worse. Now Elliot has scared all the parents into not allowing their kids to see Grimsdyke. The next plan is to send him Valentine’s from everybody in town. Unfortunately, they are all incredibly mean-spirited. 2 weeks later, Elliot goes to check on Grimsdyke as nobody has seen him, and they found that he has hung himself. The next year at Valentine’s Day, Elliot finds some of the cards and burns them. We see Grimsdyke rise from the grave, naturally. He came back and attacked James and killed him. Man, the blood is so fake looking. He also left a nice poem of his own.
Segment 4 – “Wish You Were Here”
Ralph is a wealthy man, or used to be, and is now forced to go for bankruptcy. His lawyer, Charles, had warned him of his spending ways, but Ralph believed in simply going for the gold. He tells his wife, Enid, and they look at a statue that grants 3 wishes. He recalls the tale of the Monkey’s Paw, and she wishes for lots and lots of money, and he isn’t happy with this wish, but then the phone rings and Charles has something important to tell him about money. You can see where this is going. A guy on a motorcycle is chasing his car and has a skull face, and Ralph died. Charles is notified and now he has to notify Enid. Charles then informs her that she is due lots of money due to his huge insurance, double for accidents. She wants to wish Ralph to be back right before he was in the accident. Uh huh. Well, he had a heart attack before the accident, so she gets him back but he’s still dead. M Night Sham just got a raging clue. Enid wished for Ralph to be back alive, and forever. He still has all of the embalming fluid in him, so it burns like hell. She starts hacking him up but he remains alive. What a dumb bitch.
Segment 5 – “Blind Alleys”
Major Rodgers is taking over a home for the blind. Ohhh shit, the old guy from Clockwork Orange is in this!!! Woooo! His name is Carter. Rodgers also has a dog named Shane, so that’s cool. It’s now winter and all of the blind men are cold as hell because Rodgers isn’t heating the place, and now there are no extra blankets. The Major doesn’t feel that this stuff fits the economy. Carter explains that due to loss of one sense, they feel, hear, taste, all of their other sense are heightened. Major doesn’t give a shit. They get terrible food, no meat, no second helpings, while Major eats steak and drinks wine, so Carter gets pissed and Shane gets pissed at Carter. One old guy, Greenwood, appears close to death due to the cold and asks for a doctor. Major says that he will take a look at Greenwood, but he is now dead. At mealtime, all of the guys pass along a plate and put scraps on the plate, and Carter ends up with it. It looks like ham or bacon, and Carter is lining the floor with the scent and making a trail. Naturally, Shane finds the trail. The trail leads Shane to a basement perhaps and eventually outside I think, well, either way, he is behind a closed door now. The men escort Major down to this basement and force him out the door as well. It appears that these are like weird cells to hold people in, my bad. The men are all grabbing big planks of wood and appear to be building something. The doctor comes to check on the dog barking and he gets put into a room. They are purposely starving Major and Shane. They did a take on this story for the TV show and it had Isaac Hayes, John Savage, and Teri Polo. It was season 6 episode 5. They are going to feed Major to Shane, I am sure. Yup, Major has to walk down a hallway lined with razors on the wall. He makes it pretty far. Anyway, he makes it through the narrow corridor only to have Shane’s door opened and he backpedals, only to have the lights go out.
Back to the initial 5, and they are all confused since they all died in their stories. The old guy yes that they can now go. Basically, they are at the gates of Hell. Good times. Solid ending.
END SPOILERS
End Film
Final Thoughts: I am shocked that I had never seen that before. What a treat! I had a really good time. Yes, it’s dated, and it is cheesy by today’s standards, especially the blood. Thematically speaking, a lot of those stories could be retold in a film today and be great. Segments 1, 4, and 5 were the strongest of the group for me, especially 1 and 5. From best to worst, I would go 5, 1, 4, 3, 2. This is tough to really rate. I know that I want to show this to people, and it’s definitely rewatchable. It was fun in the same vein as Asylum was for me. That’s a big compliment.
Rating: 6.4 seems absolutely fair. If each segment could be worth a full 2 points, I would have given 5 two points, 1 and 4 would get one and a half points, 3 could have been given 0.8 points, and 2 would have been given 0.6. I feel that is fair from my perspective.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- Metromedia Producers Corporation (MPC) (presents)
- Amicus Productions (as An Amicus Production)
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