EXHUMED: Tales From The Crypt - Page 3

Nice write-up.  I love Carrion Death.  In complete agreement that it's one of season 3's best.  (And a great title).  Also, if memory serves, in the season 3 premiere the episodes ran 1) Loved to Death 2) Carrion Death and 3) The Trap.  I remember that they were really playing up Michael J. Fox directing and that The Trap was the closer.

Loved To Death. It's not great but it is one of the few episodes to actually deliver on the article's claim that Crypt had nudity in it. And Andrew MacCarthy is actually really good.

By the way, I just saw Fright Night for the first time in twenty years, and it seems like a pretty good episode of Crypt. So who knows why Tom Holland ended up being such a wet blanket of a Crypt director, or as a director in general. C'est al vie

Last week I tackled Abra Cadaver.

This week, John brings us the pretty great Top Billing, featuring Jon Lovitz as a master thespian.

More great write-ups.  I'm in total agreement on Top Billing.  Really underrated ep.  Terrific cast and it's played with a good tone, which is where a lot of these go off the rails.  It's funny because there is another episode coming up (can't remember if it's in season 3 or 4) that is nearly the exact same story and twist but that one, starring Mimi Rogers and Buck Henry and (I think) directed by Stephen Hopkins, isn't half as fun as Top Billing.

Yeah, it's Only Skin Deep (not to be confused with Only Sin Deep, the Lea Thompson nonsense from season 1). We'll get to it in due time, but it makes a nice companion piece, if only to show why one works and one doesn't.

Season Three does a really nice job accruing the right celebrity for the right role. Even the iffier ones feature someone like Tim Roth.

Ahh "Beauty Rest."  Yes, that's the one.  I remember enjoying Buck Henry and especially his final song during the reveal, but Top Billing's lead character and, as you mentioned, the wonderfully prickish antagonist, help Top Billing stay in favorable memory for much longer.  And I agree about season 3's casting.  Even the one with Tim Roth you mentioned, (by the Tales From The Darkside The Movie director and Romero composer) I remember enjoying that one for how seriously Roth takes it; like he's still in the Altman film playing Van Gogh.  The Roth choice must've been an easy call for this part coming off his brooding-artist performance in that flick.  A no brainer.  That, and I remember liking Atherton as the art collector.

My one question about star casting in Season 3 is actually coming up next.  Tobe Hooper's episode "Dead Wait" is one that I really enjoyed.  Tobe Hooper really goes for it in both the sex department as well as some genuinely squirm-inducing gore scenes.  A really good cast with James Remar, John Rhys Davies, and Vanity...  But then there's the Whoopi factor.  Coming at the absolute height of her popularity:  an HBO staple with all the Comic Relief specials at their peak, and coming right off of her Oscar win.  I could be mistaken, but her inclusion was such a star-coup at the time that they even included her in the crypt keeper sequences.  I haven't watched the ep in a while, but I have the feeling that her presence might be the only thing that rubs me the wrong way today.

Last week's incredibly violent (and incredibly stupid) Dead Wait.

This week, John took on the slight and goofy The Reluctant Vampire in which Michael Berryman out acts Malcolm McDowell. Only on Tales from the Crypt.

http://www.chud.com/46475/exhumed-tales-from-the-crypt-episode-3-8-easel-kill-ya/

http://www.chud.com/47373/exhumed-tales-from-the-crypt-episode-3-9-undertaking-palor/

http://www.chud.com/47658/exhumed-tales-from-the-crypt-episode-3-10-mournin-mess/

There's the last three. Season Three continues unabated. Coming up are some of the more interesting episodes of the series, though not the best.

http://www.chud.com/48582/exhumed-tales-from-the-crypt-episode-3-11-split-second/

One of my better ones, I think, despite the typos.