Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Tales From The Crypt, Season Two, the final seven.

1. Fitting Punishment.

"Mean and stingy cheapskate funeral home director Ezra Thornberry treats his deceased clients with an appalling lack of respect. Following the death of his mother, Ezra's naive teenage nephew Bobby is forced to live with the nasty old coot. Complications arise when Bobby disapproves of Ezra's unscrupulous business practices." (IMDB).

Horrible and mean. Not even worth watching or discussing.

2. Korman's Kalamity.

"Jim Korman (Anderson) is a comic book artist for the popular comic, "Tales From the Crypt." His overbearing and ruthlessly mean wife (Camp) is constantly nagging him and bothering him at work. While taking some experimental fertility pills, the side effects start to take hold. Strange things begin to happen all over the city, strange creatures start to appear... creatures that Jim has drawn." (IMDB).

I have a little tenderness toward Colleen Camp, everyone's favorite T&A French maid from Clue, so this one wasn't the worst, but her character is really awful. Comic nerds might like it just because of the subject matter, but probably not.

3. Lower Berth.

"Enoch, the two-faced man, an attraction at a sideshow, falls in love with a 2,000 year old mummy, eventually leading up to the conception of their bastard child, The Crypt Keeper." (IMDB).

Horrible and mean. Baby Crypt Keeper's "history" is kind of fun though, in an extremely creepy sort of way.

4. Mute Witness to Murder.

"Young woman Suzy looks out of the window of her apartment and witnesses a man murdering a woman in the apartment directly across from hers. Suzy is so traumatized by what she sees that she's rendered mute. Suzy is placed in the care of Dr. Trask, who alas turns out to be the man who committed the murder she witnessed." (IMDB). 

Horrible and boring. Tries unsuccessfully to adapt Rear Window to some twisted, creepy updated 90s version but is really blunt and uninteresting.

5. Television Terror.

"A TV shock journalist gives an on-air tour of an eerie haunted house." (IMDB). 

This was scary to me; old people are scary even without chainsaws. There was a lot of creepy lurking, and not just ghosts that want to scare, but to *harm* and like, dismember. Very 1408.

6. My Brother's Keeper.

"The reckless Eddie and the correct Frank are Siamese brothers connected by their waists. Eddie wants to convince Frank to be submitted to a surgery with 50% of chances of success, but Frank is afraid. When Frank meets Marie in a bar, he falls in love for her and decides to risk. But a secret is disclosed with fatal consequences, affecting the relationship of the brothers." (IMDB).

Semi-entertaining. But still pretty obnoxious. Nice sex scene with the pro.

7. The Secret.

"Orphan boy Theodore is adopted by the Colbys, who are an eccentric rich couple with a very dark secret." (IMDB).

This is the very first episode I ever saw; it's not great, but it will always be nostalgic. Grace Zabriskie as the vampire mother seems perfect to me now, she looked really good. You'd think that kid would start having horrible bouts of diarrhea from all that junk food, wouldn't you? Larry Drake (Dr. Giggles or Crazy Santa from "All Through the House") makes an appearance. But still not all that interesting.

7 comments:

Donald said...

Interesting tidbit: Jim Kormen, the character from Korman's Kalamity, was based on EC Comics artist Jack Kamen. In fact, the original story was called Kamen's Kalamity, and featured the artist himself in his own story.

Jack Kamen, of course, was one of the best and most respected of those old EC Comics artists. He drew about a billion comic book pages, and even went on to do the art for the Creepshow comic book in that George A Romero / Stephen King movie.

Oh, and then his son Dean Kamen invented the Segway. True story.

Anyway, Jack Kamen: One of the truly unsung heroes of the comic book world. Too bad that episode is pretty dumb, however.

Justin Garrett Blum said...

"Oh, and then his son Dean Kamen invented the Segway. True story."

I'm too lazy to verify that, but if that's true, that's a cool family.

Donald said...

It's true!

Justin Garrett Blum said...

Also, I can't believe they did an origin story for the Crypt Keeper. Did the world really need to know?

Anna said...

I know! I watched it and that little "explanation" happened and I was like, um, really? Little gross baby creature playing with a rattle or some such item.

Donald said...

The Keeper's origin was definitely a let down. I mean... a circus freak had sex with a mummy? (SPOILER!!) I always just assumed he was some kind of reanimated ghoul or something.

Actually... until that episode, I never even thought about it. It would kind of like if they devoted an episode the Twilight Zone to show the birth of Rod Serling, and then the last image was of a baby smoking a cigarette.

"Submitted for your approval: A poopy... in my diaper."

Anna said...

rod serling smoking baby . . . YES! I'm laughing very hard.

and I agree with the Crypt Keeper idea, I mean I'm all for explaining him I guess since I found that bit to be the most interesting part of this episode, but yeah, a better history would have been cool. After all, he electrocutes himself in the Bill Sadler episode, I assumed he was old and dead.

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