Tales From The Crypt... Oh How We Miss Them

The Cryptkeeper welcoming us back for another wonderful, 'Tale From The Crypt'!

Back in the late 80s there was a late night horror TV anthology series that was just something to be hold... It had some truly scary episodes, some truly funny episodes... but rather they be scary, or funny, most of them were truly something to enjoy... And with those episodes, you would get horror movie quality special effects (the like of which made horror movies great, and which have been found to be lacking in most modern horror movies...) And in all of this, you get some truly amazing talent, (including: Tom Hanks (Apollo 13), Larry Drake (Darkman), etc...) And along with the amazing talent of filmmakers like, 'Robert Zemeckis' (Back To The Future) and you got the amazing HBO late night smash hit, 'Tales From The Crypt' (1989 - 1996)!

Based on the EC Comics series of the same name, this series debuted on HBO on June 10th 1989 and would go on to superstardom, and become one of the most famous horror anthologies of all time, making, 'The Crypt Kreeper' (Don't let the name fool you kiddies, he may look scary... But he is more awesome then will give you a jump!)

The face of late night TV in the late 80s - the mid 90s... A face that only a mother could love!

Now the reason that I say that this series would probably go on to be one of the most famous horror anthology TV series of all time... The reason for that is this... Well you might say that, 'The Twilight Zone' is that... The truth is, is that what makes, 'The Twilight Zone' one of the greatest anthologies of all time is not because of the horror aspects of the series, but because of everything (the science fiction side to...)

No in the case of Tales From The Crypt... They became the, 'The Twilight Zone' of horror anthologies, having pulled off a long list of celebrated 80s and early 90s superstars, including (Besides those mentioned above): Dan Aykroyd (Ghostbusters), Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Brad Dourif (Child's Play), Margot Kidder (The Amityville Horror), Bill Paxton (Aliens), Malcolm McDowell (Halloween)... And that is just to name a few!

Legendary actor: 'Kirk Douglas' in a scene from, 'Tales From The Crypt'!

 Included in this also is the fact that most of this series was extremely well written, with stories that were extremely well crafted, with enough character development, that when the shit hit the fan (and I mean this show had episodes that were about 1/2 hours long, so the fun gore moments, when the shit hit the fan came rather quickly...)

And along with great stories and great acting talent was the fact that this show... considering the fact that (well at least when I got in to it... And I got in to it when it was still on the air) was still running on late night, had some surprisingly great special effects that I would say would rival just about any special effects that you would see in any movie!

The use of an, 'Electric Chair' is just one example of some truly remarkable special effects in the series!

But besides what I mentioned above, one of the coolest things... And I imagine that this probably would sound pretty odd, but the truth is, is that I would say what tops out this series over all is, 'The Crypt Keeper'... I mean John Kassir (Batman: Arkham Origins), did an amazing job bringing the crypt keeper to life and giving him this sort of bad ass hilarity that just made him perfect!

In the end, I guess what I am trying to say is that there were few series (anthologies or otherwise), that are made these days like shows like, 'Tales From The Crypt'... I know that: Tales From The Crypt Presents: Bordello Of Blood (1996) didn't do all that well in the theater, but this series in it's heyday was truly prolific, and left a mark on the world of TV, and for the fans like me, we miss that, and would love to see, 'Tales From The Crypt' come back in all of it's glory!