This episode is directed by John Harrison, who directed eight episodes of Tales from the Dark Side, the movie of that film, the Dune miniseries on SyFy and oh yeah, wrote the theme for Creepshow. You can learn more about him in this interview we did last year. It was written by Larry Wilson, who wrote five episodes of this show as well as Beetlejuice and The Little Vampire.

“Greetings, art lovers. Vincent van Ghoul here with another morbid masterpiece sure to paint you into a coroner. (cackles) Hmmmmm. Something’s not quite right. Ah, yes. (stabs the beating heart next to his fruit bowl) Now that’s a still life. (cackles) Tonight’s tale concerns a painter who’s tired of people giving his work the brush. I call this pestilent portrait of the artist as a young mangler: “Easel Kill Ya.””

Jack Craig (Tim Roth), whose name is a combination of EC Comics artists Jack Davis and Johnny Craig, is a starving artist who drinks and has rage issues that he hopes to solve with a support group, Obsessives Anonymous. That’s where he meets Sharon (Roya Megnot) and hopes that she too can save him. Of course, he still gets angry all the time and ends up killing a neighbor, but uses the photo of the crime scene to finally sell his artwork. Malcolm Mayflower (William Atherton) loves gore and he wants more of Craig’s art.

Sharon needs an operation, so he keeps killing and selling art. Sadly, the first person he kills is the man who was rushing through a parking lot to get to the hospital to operate on her. Oh EC, your endings.

This story is based on “Easel Kill Ya” from Vault of Horror #31.It was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Johnny Craig. In the original story, an artist makes money from painting violence but when he’s married, he starts to paint beautiful things. When she becomes sick, he brings a painting to his patron and he won’t buy it. He kills the man, who ends up being the doctor who could save his wife.

“I want to suck… Oh, hello kiddies. You caught me in the middle of my homework. Your old pal the Crypt Keeper’s a real believer in continuing dead-ucation. Which brings us to tonight’s murderous morsel. It’s a juicy little tale about a real blood sucker who never learned to go for the jugular. I call this plasma play “The Reluctant Vampire.””

Directed by Elliot Silverstein (The Car, A Man Called Horse) and written by Terry Black (Dead Heat), this stars Malcolm McDowell as Daniel Longtooth, a vampire who choose to get his fix from the blood bank he works at. It’s run by Mr. Crosswhite (George Wendt) and he takes every chance to be rude and mean to his workforce, saving his sexual harassment for Sally (Sandra Dickinson).

It turns out that Daniel is drinking so much that the blood bank is in danger of going out of business. He decides that he must use his vampire abilities to get victims and refill the plasma to save the job of Sally, who he is in love with.

Meanwhile, the police — led by Detective Robinson (Paul Gleason, forever a jerk in every movie) — have brought in Rupert Van Helsing (Michael Berryman, looking like Judge Doom) to hunt down the vampire who they believe is haunting the streets, draining muggers and low level criminals of their blood. What complicates matters is that Mr. Crosswhite knows that Daniel is a vampire and is using him to fix his business.

Maybe Sally knows too, as we find out in this episode’s happy ending.

Terry Black wrote five episodes of this show, including three using the name Donald Longtooth. Yes, the same last name as the character in this episode.

I’m not a fan of the total comedy episodes of this show, but what can you do?

This episode is based on “The Reluctant Vampire!” from Vault of Horror #20. It was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Jack Davis.

“Welcome aboard, fright-seers! Looking for a little hell-iday fun? You’ve come to the right place! We specialize in all sorts of hackage tours! (cackles) So what will it be? A few days in a scream park? Or would you like me to book you into a nice, quiet dead and breakfast? Or perhaps you’d like to go treasure haunting like my friend, Red. He wants to steal a priceless black pearl in a tasteless tidbit I call: “Dead Wait.””

Red Buckley (James Remar) and his partner Charlie (Paul Anthony Weber) have been planning to steal a black pearl from plantation owner Emilie Duvall (John Rhys-Davies). There’s not much time, because the island where Duvall lives is about to be taken over by a revolution. So Red kills Charlies as they argue and decides to get the pearl for himself. He then meets Emilie at a bar — he’s pretty sickly, as he’s filled with water worms that have carved tunnels through his skin — along with the man’s much younger wife Kathrine (Vanity), who seduces the crook and they decide to kill her husband and split the pearl. The problem? Emilie has a worker named Peligre (Whoopi Goldberg) who does voodoo and plans on taking care of Red.

If you’re wondering how gross this one is going to get, well, Emilie has swallowed the pearl and Red has to dig through his worm-filled corpse to find it. That’s what you get when Tobe Hooper directs! But seriously, this is an intriguing episode.

It was written by Gilbert Adler, who also wrote Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice and directed and wrote Bordello of Blood.

There’s also a scene afterward where the Crypt Keeper has a talk show and interviews Whoopi.

Crypt Keeper: Oooh. Talk about being headed off at the pass. We’ve got a guest, kiddies. Whoopi! It’s a pleasure to meet you. I want you to know that I loved your movie The Killer Purple.

Whoopi: That’s Color Purple, Crypt Keeper.

Crypt Keeper: Oh! Right. Well, um, congratulations on winning that Academy A-weird.

Whoopi: Well thanks, but it’s actually called an Academy Award.

Crypt Keeper: Whatever. Look, it’s a pleasure to meet a big star like you.

Whoopi: Now, you’re a pretty big star. I mean, I’d love it if you would be in my next film.

Crypt Keeper: Really?

Whoopi: (pulls out a machete) Yeah, it’s just a bit part.

Crypt Keeper: I’m flattered!

Whoopi: But you don’t know what bit I want.

Crypt Keeper: Well, as long as I don’t wind up on the cutting room floor!

Whoopi: (Points the machete at him) Okay!

Crypt Keeper: (Gasps)

Whoopi: (Smiles at the camera)

This episode is based on “Dead Wait!” from Vault of Horror #23. It was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Jack Davis.

“Good evening, culture vultures and welcome to another installment of Mash-to-Pieces Theater. Tonight we ask the question – ‘To be or not to be?’ Or in this case, an actor stuck with an average face who’s so sick and tired of auditioning he’s willing to do almost anything! Did I say almost? I call this sickening saga “Top Billing.”

Barry Blye (Jon Lovitz) is a struggling actor — “Acting!” as he would bellow as The Master Thespian — who is angry that an old classmate by the name of Winton Robbins (Bruce Boxleitner) is wasting his skills by doing commercials. Barry has the dream of being in Hamlet, yet he is destroyed when his agent (Louise Fletcher) leaves him, his girlfriend Lisa (Kimmy Robertson) breaks up with him and director Nelson Halliwell (John Astin) picks Winston over him.

Of course, Barry kills Winton, only to learn that he was playing Yorick and not Hamlet. As for the director and other actors, they are all escaped mental patients (including Sandra Bernhard) and they needed a skull for the show. Barry’s skull is perfect for the part, even if Nelson once doubted his look.

Directed by Todd Holland, who is from Kitanning, PA and helped create The Larry Sanders Show, Malcolm In The Middle and Wonderfalls, and written by Myles Berkowitz (who directed, wrote and appeared as himself in the documentary 20 Dates), this is a pretty fun episode.

This episode is based on “Top Billing,” which was in Vault of Horror #39. It was written by Carl Wessler and drawn by Reed Crandall. The comic story has the actors being in the early 1800s and Blye killing Winton and Nash, his fellow actors, before learning that he was not in a theater. He was at the Woltham Insane Asylum for Actors and they needed his skull.

Stephen Hopkins never gets discussed all that much but he directed Dangerous Game, Judgement Night, A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, Lost in Space, The Ghost and the Darkness and Predator 2. Those are some pretty big efforts and he directs TV today but you’d think people would talk more about his films. He worked with writer Jim Birge, who he helped found student comedy clubs at UCLA and University of California at Irvine (UCI) that had Shane Black, Fred Dekker, Ed Solomon and Tom Martin as members. This is the only thing he ever wrote.

“Ah! A corpse by any other name would smell as sweet. Unless of course, it isn’t dead yet! (cackles) Tonight’s tawdry tale is about a man who’s gravely concerned about matters of life and death. Why he’d care about that remains to be seen. (cackles lightly) I call this putrid piece: “Abra Cadaver.””

Carl Fairbanks (Tony Goldwyn) once played a park on his brother Martin (Beau Bridges) that left him permanently weak on one side of his body and paralyzed his hand. Martin is now just a medical researcher while his brother has become a rich surgeon. That’s why Martin heads to Haiti and learns about an experimental drug called Suspensor that gives Carl the feeling of being dead while still being alive. Well, as you can imagine, things don’t work all that well for anyone.

There is a “Danger Will Robinson!” reference to Lost In Space — Hopkins would go on to make the 1998 movie — and Night of the Living Dead, as it opens with Carl and Martin as kids being surrounded by corpses that come back to life in black and white.

Based on the story “Dead Right” from Tales from the Crypt #37, this story was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Jack Davis.

Directed by Michael J. Fox and written by Scott Alexander (Big Eyes, Ed Wood), “The Trap” has Lou  (Bruce McGill) and Irene Paloma (Teri Garr) faking his death for insurance money. The problem is that he goes away to Brazil and while there, his brother Billy (Bruno Kirby) steals his girl. Sound like a giallo? Well, there mom is played by Carroll Baker.

“Greetings, bores and ghouls. I’ll be with you as soon as I finish with this customer. We were just going over some of the terms of his coverage. I’ll bet this is one clause he won’t be getting out of. Tonight’s nasty nugget concerns a man with a problem. He wants to collect on his life insurance without dying in the process. I call this little annuity: “The Trap.””

Fox had already worked with producer Robert Zemeckis on Back to the Future. Lou works for Zemeckis Pizza and Fox shows up as the prosecutor at the end, as Lou has changed his identity and looks, getting arrested and executed for his own murder. Another McFly-related actor is in this. Sergeant McClaine is played by James Tolkan, who played Mr. Strickland.

Lou’s horrible, so you don’t dislike his brother and wife for having an affair or making out on top of his coffin with him inside. In fact, you kind of want them to be able to get away from the evil Lou and just enjoy their life and love. This is a fun episode and Fox only directed one other time, as he did an episode of the TV show Brooklyn Bridge.

This episode is based on “The Trap” from Shock SuspenStories #18. In that story, the wife is in charge and the husband is forced to be in the crime, along with an undertaker who has an affair with the domineering spouse. It was written by Carl Wessler and drawn by Jack Kamen.

Directed by Tom Mankiewicz, who wrote Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man With the Golden Gun and the first two Superman movies, and written by Joseph Minion (After Hours, Vampire’s Kiss) and John Mankiewicz, “Loved to Death” is the first episode of season three.

“Dying for a date? Aching for a little prick of… (fires an arrow into the statue’s heart, which bleeds) -passion? Well, be careful what you what you wish for, or like the young man in tonight’s terror tale, you may just get it! I call this nauseating number: “Loved to Death.””

Edward Foster (Andrew McCarthy) is a screenwriter in love with an actress, Miranda Singer (Mariel Hemingway), who doesn’t notice him. However, his landlord Mr. Stronham (David Hemmings) gives him a love potion, but that only makes things worse, because now Miranda won’t stop loving him. The problem is that there love goes beyond until death do us part.

While many claim this is a remake of The Twilight Zone episode “The Chaser.” That was based on a story by John Collier, which Al Feldstein and William Gaines definitely stole for the story “Loved to Death” that was drawn by Jack Kamen and appears in Tales From the Crypt #25.