Years ago, Roger Lassen (Clancy Brown) made a dirty deal somewhere in the rainforest. Now, he’s being called on to look at the body of a dead business partner, Dan King (Costas Mandylor). All that greed, all those underhanded schemes, they’re all about to come back to haunt him.
“”Ooh, I just love how your hair has groan out! A little scream rinse and conditioner, and it’ll look fa-boo! If you don’t look dead, we don’t look dead. Oh, hello, kiddies! You’re right on time for your appointment. You know, it was always one of my ghouls in death to open my own scare salon. Now, let’s see…a few shrieks in your hair would look good. A boo-faunt would look even better! Or maybe you’d like to try tonight’s die-fashion statement. It’s a nasty nugget that asks the question, zom-bie or not zom-bie. I call it “Halfway Horrible.””
Directed and written by Gregory Widen, who also directed The Prophecy and wrote Highlander and Backdraft, this has Martin Kove as a detective and Cheech Marin as a witch doctor. But yeah, Clancy Brown was also in Highlander and just like he did in that movie, he chops off the head of someone — a zombie — with a sword.
It turns out that Roger’s company has created a preservative called Exthion-B that is based on Brazilian black magic and ritual sacrifice. Anything to get ahead in the world, huh? Well, as stated above, it comes back on the CEO, making half of him a rotted zombie.
This episode is based on “Half-Way Horrible!,” which was in Vault of Horror #21. It was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Sid Check.
Directed by Paul Abascal, who started as a makeup artist, and written by Scott Nimerfro, who wrote eleven episode of this show, this episode starts with the Tales from the Crypt pinball machine.
“Tonight’s tale concerns a man with 3 balls. What do you know? Par for the corpse! 10 killion points! Is this fun or what? Oh, hello, kiddies. Don’t mind me if I’m carrion on, but I’ve really groan to love this game. I could goo all night! Which brings to mind tonight’s terror tale. It’s about a couple of game players who are about to find out what happens when you don’t slay by the rules. I call it “Oil’s Well That Ends Well.””
I’ve been wanting to share these pictures for a long time. They come from Hollywood Candy in Omaha, Nebraska, a movie-themed candy and variety store.
Carl (Lou Diamond Phillips) — or maybe his name is Jerry — and his girlfriend Gina (Priscilla Presley) just pulled off multiple scams, starting with convincing her husband Larry (John Kassir, The Cryptkeeper) to fake his death, then killing him, then convincing a bunch of Southern millionaires (Noble Willingham, Alan Ruck, Rory Calhoun and Steve Kahan) to buy a cemetery because there’s oil underground. But that’s not enough and the quest for oil ends up wiping out nearly everyone.
This is based on “Oil’s Well That Ends Well!” from Tales from the Crypt #37. It was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by George Evans.
Norma (Brooke Shields) is stuck with a broken down truck when she’s picked up by Roger (Perry King), who is on his way to his cabin in the woods. Roger is a dream man, a lover of fine food, opera and antiques. However, he tells her that he hopes to get back with Joanna, who just so happens to get back sooner than our thieving woman — oh yes, Norma may not even be her real name — expected.
“Good evening, creeps. And welcome aboard Tales from the Crypt Scare-lines Flight 666, offering direct service from your living room straight to Hell. As we will be experiencing some tur-boo-lence, we recommend that you keep your seat belts fastened and your vomit bags handy. So slip on your dead-set and get ready for tonight’s in-fright entertainment. It’s a nasty tale about my favorite kind of ghouls: dread-heads. I call it: “Came the Dawn.””
Norma may be a killer who murdered her husband and his lover. Yet she’s come up against someone — maybe more than just a single person — instead of getting to steal everything in the house. Michael J. Pollard also shows up and Valerie Wildman appears as the first victim. This has a big twist that I will let you find out for yourself.
This episode was directed by Uli Edel, who made Christiane F. How insane that he made his way to America — where he also directed Last Exit to Brooklyn and Body of Evidence — before working on TV shows like Twin Peaks, Oz and this episode. He also did The Little Vampire! What a strange career! Ron Finley, who wrote this, made five scripts for the series.
This is based on the story “Came the Dawn” from Shock SuspenStories #9, which was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Wally Wood. The description of that story is a little different: “A man thinks that the girl he has met in the woods may be a dangerous escaped lunatic because she matches the description, but his girlfriend ends up meeting a grim fate as the latest victim of the true escapee.”
Directed and written by Jeffrey Boam (Funny Farm, The Phantom), this episode stars Jeffrey Jones as Professor Finley, a teacher of Egyptology. His latest lesson is about a mummified monster named Ramseth, who makes an annual return from the grave to search for his lost lover Princess Nefra.
“Hello, creeps! I’ll be with you in a moment. I was just in the middle of cramming for my final exams. Bet you didn’t know your pal the Crypt Keeper was still in s-ghoul. As a matter of fact, I’m at the top of my class at Horror-vard! Which brings us to tonight’s all-frighter. It concerns a couple of college kids who’ve got their own ideas about higher dead-ucation, in a bit of hack-edamia I call: “Creep Course.””
Finley has it in for the dumb jock Reggie Skulnick (Anthony Michael Hall) and is in love with a student named Stella Bishop (Nina Siemaszko), who may know as much about Egypt as him. Everything leads you to believe that Reggie is using her to get answers for the test, but he’s actually working with the professor, all so they can have her be the latest sacrifice for Ramseth (Ivan E. Roth), who Finley has been keeping in his basement.
Remember how I said that she knows more than her teacher? That’s true. And she knows how to get to Ramseth, too. Well, she has to make love to the undead thing, but if that’s what it takes to live, she’ll do it.
This episode is based on “Creep Course” in Haunt of Fear #23. It was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Graham Ingels. The story does have a college class, but it’s more about a girl trying to use her good looks to get a better grade and paying the price for it.
Marco Brambilla is a Milan-born, New York City-based video collage and installation artist, which doesn’t make him a natural choice to direct a Sylvester Stallone movie. He also directed Excess Baggage, Dinotopia and Abominable, but if you said, “Who should direct a slam-bang action film?” I would not answer with a video installation artist who comments on visual overload through his work.
1996: Maniac Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) kidnaps a number of hostages and hides in an abandoned building (the Belknap Hardware and Manufacturing Company in Louisville, Kentucky, which was scheduled for demolition, substitutes for a Los Angeles building). This lures in LAPD Sgt. John Spartan (Stallone) — “Send a maniac to catch one” — who jumps out of a helicopter directly into combat. Spartan had done a thermal scan and no bodies were found, so he goes in guns blazing.
Unfortunately, the hostages were already dead and their bodies are found in the rubble of the exploded building. Phoenix claims that Spartan knew he had hostages and attacked anyway. The question of why does the court believe a man who has killed numerous people over a cop comes to mind here, but if you’re going to ask questions that make sense, you’re not ready for 1990’s action films.
Phoenix and Spartan are incarcerated in the California Cryo-Penitentiary, where they are frozen and given subliminal rehabilitation techniques while they sleep.
2032: Phoenix has a parole hearing and escapes, armed with the skills he needs to survive in the future, like computer hacking. Remembering that it takes a maniac to catch one, Lieutenant Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock, who took over the role from Lori Petty after just two days of filming) thaws out Spartan.
Spartan wakes up to the peaceful world San Angeles — Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara all in one city, kind of like Mega-City One from Judge Dredd— and discovers that he is a man out of time. It’s the most politically correct world ever, a place where physical contact and swearing are illegal and anything unhealthy is banned.
It’s also a place where Taco Bell is the only survivor of the Franchise Wars and is now considered the finest restaurant in the world. In Europe, where Taco Bell is less known, this movie substitutes Pizza Hut. Luckily, the new Arrow 4K UHD release allows you to see both versions.
Taco Bell did a Demolition Man pop up to celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary at the 2018 San Diego Comic Con.
Spartan and Phoenix battle at a museum that has outlawed weapons, where the villain meets Dr. Raymond Cocteau (Nigel Hawthorne, who lent his voice to The Black Cauldron and The Plague Dogs). Cocteau is an evangelical peace-loving ruler who has been in charge of San Angeles since the Great Earthquake of 2010. Phoenix finds that he can’t kill him because the leader is the one who programmed him while he was in cryosleep.
He did all this so that Phoenix will murder Edgar Friendly (Dennis Leary), the leader of the Scraps, an underground gang that resists his absolute power. Huxley figures this all out and Spartan tries to stop him. Unfortunately, Phoenix also has an army of thawed criminals. He taunts Spartan by telling him that he killed all the hostages before the bombs went off, doomed the hero cop to 36 years of cryo-prison for no reason.
Phoenix kills Dr. Cocteau, thanks to one of his men not being programmed, and tries to take over the future. Spartan stops him and blows up the cryo-prison in the process. He suggests that the peaceful future can only succeed if the Scraps and the above ground people learn to work together. He kisses Huxley and they walk away together.
It’s pretty amazing how much Judge Dredd took from this film, like Rob Schneider’s character and Adrienne Barbeau as the voice of the computer. It’s an early pass at that film and actually a million times better. It doesn’t feel dated at all, despite how silly it is at times. And by silly, I mean awesome.
Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad, Night of the Creeps) actually did some uncredited rewrites to the film. It was his idea to show the two adversaries in 1996, saying “If you don’t show Kansas, Oz isn’t all that special.”
Of all the ridiculous ideas in this film, the bathroom seashells take the prize. Stallone has explained them by saying that the first two seashells were to be used like chopsticks to pull waste from the body and the third was used to scrape what was left. I mean, just the thought of how the three seashells work makes me pause this movie every time and try to comprehend what they’re all about.
The real explanation comes from screenwriter Daniel Waters, who wanted a scene where even the bathroom in the future would cause Spartan problems. So he called another screenwriter and asked for ideas. The answer? “I have a bag of seashells on the toilet as a decoration.” Waters replied, “OK, I’ll make something out of that.”
Hungarian science fiction writer István Nemere claims that most of that script was based on his 1986 novel Holtak Harca (Fight of the Dead), in which a terrorist and a soldier are frozen and then awaken to a society that has outlawed violence. He’s alleged that there is a conspiracy where a man has been illegally selling the ideas of Eastern European authors to Hollywood after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
According to this article at The Toy Box, the Mattel action figures that came out for this film basically took the body parts from The New Adventures of He-Man figures and added new heads. That said — where else can you find a Dennis Leary action figure?
There are tons of small roles in here filled with actors and personalities that I love, like Jesse Ventura and Jack Black. Jackie Chan was Stallone’s first choice to play Simon Phoenix, but Jackie doesn’t play bad guys, even when they planned a sequel to this.
I know I said earlier about ignoring plot holes, but there’s a major moment that isn’t touched on in the film. After Spartan learns that his wife died, he asks about his daughter before being cut off. In truth, before the Wasteland battle, he meets a Scrap named Kate (Vasilika Vanya Marinkovic, Jacklyn Hyde from the 2000’s reboot of Women of Wrestling) who he learns is his daughter. You can see him protecting her during the battle and she also stands next to Friendly when he’s introduced to Associate Bob at the end (I kind of adore Associate Bob, who constantly says “greeting and salutations” a line from another Daniel Waters movie, Heathers).
In fact, there’s a ton of this movie that was cut to achieve a more teen-friendly rating, including more of the scene where Phoenix rips out Warden Smithers’ eye, Phoenix spraying a crowd with machine gun fire, Phoenix killing Zachary Lamb and a battle between Jesse Ventura’s character — who has been overdosed with adrenaline — and Spartan. All of these cuts make the continuity of the battle scenes in the Scraps underground lair and the cryo-prison an absolute mess.
Best of all, when this movie in Kuwait, it was called Rambo the Destroyer. That’s a carnie movie that even Italian film producers would have to applaud.
I love Demolition Man, a film that gets its title from a song by The Police that Grace Jones sang on. It’s big, dumb, loud and completely insipid — and inspired — in all the best of ways.
The Arrow Video 4K UHD release of this movie is, as you’d expect, overflowing with awesomeness. Start with a brand new 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative by Arrow Films, approved by director Marco Brambilla, then add in the domestic Taco Bell and international Pizza Hut versions of the film presented via seamless branching. Then you get all kinds of extras, like three audio commentary tracks: one from director Marco Brambilla and screenwriter Daniel Waters, another with film historian Mike White of the Projection Booth podcast and an archival commentary with Brambilla and producer Joel Silver. There are also new interviews with production designer David L. Snyder, stunt coordinator Charles Percini, special make-up effects artist Chris Biggs and body effects set coordinator Jeff Farley, as well as a new visual essay by film scholar Josh Nelson, a trailer and an image gallery. It’s all inside limited edition packaging featuring newly commissioned artwork by Laurie Greasley that includes a 60-page perfect bound collector’s book featuring new writing by film critics Clem Bastow, William Bibbiani, Priscilla Page and Martyn Pedler; a double-sided fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Laurie Greasley; 6 postcard sized artcards and Three Seashells and Edgar Friendly graffiti stickers.
Miles Federman (Billy Zane) may be the protege of Zorbin the Magnificent (Martin Sheen), but he can never equal his master. He blames everyone he can, including his assistant Greta Kreutzel (Maryam d’Abo). When he fires her, she notices that he has Zorbin’s medallion. She asks if he murdered him and he laughs as he shakes his head yes.
Bon soir, kiddies! I was just in the middle of my French lesson. Your pal, ze Crypt Keeper, has decided to see Le Mans! Imagine me in gay Scaree, sitting in a nice little café on the rot bank, sipping a glass of Cha-bleed while I write ghost-cards home to all my fiends. Or I could stay home and tell you tonight’s tale. It concerns an ambitious young magician who wants to expand his gore-izons, too, in a tasteless trick called: “Well Cooked Hams.””
Greta is hired by another magician, Franz Kraygen (Martin Sheen), who invites Miles to his show and shares a trick known as the Box of Death, where he is stabbed numerous times and yet lives. Miles wants the trick for himself, so he killed the older illusionist.
Using the box, Miles becomes a major star and Thomas Miller (Martin Sheen), a Hollywood director, wants to make a movie of his act. Of course, all of these people are all Zorbin and they’ve all faked their deaths, all to get revenge while the audience applauds the death of Miles.
Directed by Elliot Silverstein (The Car) and written by Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en), this is a fun episode with a great ending for the villain.
This episode comes from the story “Well-Cooked Hams!” in Tales From the Crypt #27. In that tale, written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Jack Davis, two American producers want to bring Paris’s Grand Guignol to Broadway. When the owner won’t give them the rights, they kill him but he comes back from the dead to get his revenge on stage.
Directed and written by Bob Gale, this is the tale of three pledges of the Gamma Delta Omega fraternity — Waters (Keith Coogan), Arling (Wil Wheaton) and Henderson (Jason London) — and the abuses they suffer at the hands of Les Wilton (Kevin Dillon).
“Fright Court is now in session. Will the defendant please approach the bench? You stand accused of watching too much Tales from the Crypt. Do you understand the charge? Neither do I. But I’ll tell you this: if convicted, you’ll receive a stiff sentence. You may even do a little horrid time. How do you bleed? Alright, then. Let the trial begin. Our first piece of evidence is a tale about a couple of college boys who are about to undergo a little trial and terror of their own, in a writ of habeas corpses I call: “House of Horror.””
To make it into the fraternity, the three pledges must enter the abandoned Cougher House, a place where an axe murderer’s ghost is said to haunt. Les has it all wired up thanks to techie Sparks (Michael DeLuise).
At the same time, the frat is working to find a sister sorority with Delta Omega Alpha by meeting with their leader Mona (Meredith Salenger). President Tex Crandell (Brian Krause) accepts her invitation and asks her to watch the pledges be abused. However, the house seems to have scares that they didn’t plan on. But what if the girls are in on it? And what if they have a chainsaw?
If you recognize the house in this story, that’s because it’s the Valkenvania Court House from Nothing But Trouble. That’s also Courtney Gaines as one of the frat brothers.
This is a really fun one with a quick set-up and lots of shocks.
It’s based on the story “House of Horror” from Tales from the Crypt #21. That was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Harvey Kurtzman.
Andy (David Paymer) and Emma (Traci Lords) are having the same dinner and the same conversation about work and finally, Emma has enough and tells her husband she wants passion, so she’s running away. He chokes her and as she tries to fight back, he stabs her, leaving her for dead.
“I tell you, ladies and germs, that ghoul-friend of mine makes me so crazy. She told me she thought she’d look good in something long and flowing, so I threw her in the Mississippi! Hmm. And how about that Ernest Hemingway, always shooting his mouth Oh. Hello? Anybody? I know you’re out there, folks. I can hear you bleeding! Is this on? Hmm. I know what this crowd wants. A little slay on words! Maybe a couple of nasty fright gags? Something along the lines of tonight’s nasty nugget? It’s a little tale about marriage, or if you prefer, about wife and death. I call it: “Two for the Show.””
He’s soon being questioned by Officer Fine (Vincent Spano) about what has happened to Emma. Afterward, as he loads a box with her body in it on a train for Chicago, Andy has to get on board, as Office Fine asks what’s in the trunk. He says that he’s going to meet his wife, which means he must take the train and sit next to the cop, who keeps asking him about killing his wife. After all, Fine has a wife he’d like to murder.
What would the odds be if their wives were having an affair with one another?
Directed by Kevin Hooks (Passenger 57) and written by Gilbert Adler and AL Katz, this has some good twists and turns. And you knew I’d like it just because Traci Lords is in the cast.
“Two for the Show” is based on a story in Crime SuspenStories #17 that was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Jack Kamen. Actually, that story works alongside another story in the same issue, “One for the Money,” as the corpse in that story pays off this one.
I watched this on basic cable at my parent’s house with my brother once and I was so shocked that the Coreys would be in an erotic thriller. Since then, I have watched so many giallo movies and am even more shocked that two of America’s teen idols — fallen on rough times, mind you — are basically in a movie that seems with a little more sleaze and perhaps a prog rock soundtrack could be giallo.
Made for HBO and eventually released on VHS, this film was directed by Brenton Spencer (who ran camera on First Blood Part II, Friday the 13th Part VII, episodes of SCTV and Blue Monkey) and written by Robert C. Cooper (who produced, wrote and directed many episodes of the Stargate TV universe), Blown Away centers around Megan Bower (Nicole Eggert), whose life is tragedy-ridden. Her mother died in a car accident and she’s nearly killed by a wild horse before being saved by Rich Gardner (Corey Haim). That night, she invites him to her home for a party and into her bed, but as her father Cy (Jean LeClerc) is his boss, he runs as soon as the rich old man gets home.
His girlfriend Darla (Kathleen Robertson) finds out and dumps him, which allows him to date Megan until her father disapproves. Rich goes to his brother Wes (Corey Feldman) for advice, who tells him to win her back. This includes fighting a man who she pays off and starts making out with and getting in another fight at a bar with Darla, all before the next day, when Rich catches Wes in bed with Darla. Meanwhile, Megan asks Rich to kill her father as revenge for killing her mother.
The next day, Darla dies in a horse accident — these horses in this town! — and Cy supposedly beats Megan into oblivion. This causes Rich to go all in on the plan, which is to put a bomb on Cy’s bike. He watches as the old man is blown off his bike and off a cliff, but as he falls, he tells him that he didn’t kill his wife. Rich is now the prime suspect for Detective Anderson (Gary Farmer) and he refuses to rat out his lover. As for Wes, well, he’s angry that his brother killed Cy and not their abusive father.
You know where this is going. Megan and Wes have always been together, but she’s only for herself, so she kills Wes and almost kills Rich before the cops show up and do what cops do and that’s shoot to kill.
This is the movie for girls who grew up on the Coreys and want to see them bone. They rented this in the days before online porn and Netflix and chill, threw on the rental while their boyfriends said it was dumb and then realized that they could get away with seeing Nicole Eggert nude and everyone was as happy as fumbling teenage sex can make you pleased.
It’s like a Lifetime movie except you get to see the bare asses of both Coreys. You may watch this and wonder why guys would kill for Nicole Eggert and as someone who has written many essays and done the homework and cleaned the houses and been there in bad times for women who had no interest in me yet were attractive in my past, I will tell you that none of those girls were Nicole Eggert in a quasi-giallo so yes, I would have blown her dad up real good no questions asked, no quarter given. This is why I was a dopey fat teenage in Western Pennsylvania and not a 1980s star in a Canadian direct to cable erotic thriller.
Also: If you want to see Corey Feldman do his dancing moves and then get shot with squibs going wild, this is the movie for you.
Billy DeLuca (Bill Paxton) has just finished two years in jail. He goes right back to crime, getting his brother Virgil (Brad Dourif) to help him get revenge on the ice cream company that caught him stealing from the company funds. If he gets to kill the guy who caught him, Earl Byrd (Michael Lerner), and manager Ms. Grafungar (Lainie Kazan) even better.
“Chop ’em to the left! Chop ’em to the right! Chop ’em every chance you get! Fright, fright, fright! All right, creeps. It’s fourth and ghoul. They’re probably expecting us to run a ghost pattern, so let’s run a scream pass instead. Of course, I could pull out a few other surprises from my playbook, like tonight’s tale. It’s about a couple of brothers who are planning a little high scaring of their own, in a nasty bit of offense I call: “People Who Live in Brass Hearses.””
Billy loves his brother, but he has such a limited intelligence that he can’t stop yelling at him. Imagine how tense things get when — spoilers! — it turns out that Earl also has a brother, a much evil and conniving person than anyone else, and he’s fused to the ice cream man for life and has been stealing even more than Billy.
Directed by Russell Mulcahy (Highlander) and written by Crypt vet Scott Nimerfro, this has a great cast and a gruesome bad guy. Well, nearly everyone is the bad guy. You know what I’m trying to write.
It’s based on “People Who Live in Brass Hearses” from Vault of Horror #27. Written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Jack Davis, this tale is about Mr. Byrd, a strange old undertaker who has a twin brother. That’s the only thing the story has in common with the TV show.
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