Hello, kleets, it's me John can Sear the voice of the Crypt Keeper,
and you're listening to Chronicles from the Crypt. Hi. There, I'm
Casualty Chris, and this is Father Alone, and we are the hosts of
Chronicles from the Crypt twice a month. Look at the horror anthology series Tales
from the Crypt that aired on HBO from nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety six.
But I think I can speak for both of us at this point,
Father Alone. Maybe nineteen ninety six was a year too far. Definitely,
let's say season seven was a season too far. And on this episode of
Chronicles from the Crypt, we're going to be taking a look at what is
ultimately our penultimate episode of this show, talking about Tales from the Crypt,
at least at least the show proper season seven, episode nine and ten,
smoke rings, and about face that tell me Luca Brassi slips with a fishes.
Here's a strange guy. But that's not why I called this meeting of
the Five families. But to Hacklias, the Bonetties, the others. The
reason I told you altogether is this as godfather of the Goglioni family, I
say it's time that we anhorganized crime, stop frighting each other. I want
there to be peace amongst us. I want there to be a whole lot
of pieces, which is kind of like the young man in ten Night It's
Tale, he wants a whole lot of something too. In a nasty nugget
eye call Smoke Rings. So Smoke Rings aired June twenty first, nineteen ninety
six. It is directed by Mandy Fletcher, written by Lisa Sandoval, and
it starts a lot of folks, but the ones that you're going to recognize
right off the bat are going to be Daniel Craig and one of my favorite
character actors, as I know you like him as well. Paul Freeman not
in this. Also Dennis Lawson's great Wedge Antilles. Yeah, I say from
something known, much more from something else, Yeah, Wedge Untilies from Star
Wars. So Father Malone again, we kind of let the cat out of
the bag. The Baby season seven has not been going that well, maybe
being a very light term. What did you think of the Daniel Craig episode
of this season? Because we've been talking about it like, oh, this
is the episode one Daniel, you know, what did you think of the
Daniel Craig episode. This was my first experience with the particular episode. It's
one of those episodes that whenever somebody will publish like a retrospective of the show,
like, they'll include a photograph of him from it, and I always
think, wow, Daniel Craig was in an episode that probably was pretty good.
That's incorrect. This episode is not very good. He's okay in it
all. The acting actually is pretty much across the board good. Yeah,
it is the plot of this episode that actively works against it. It really
does. And so let me just say Smoke Rings is not based on Tales
from the Crypt. It's based on a Vault of Horror number thirty four,
written by Al Feldstein and art by Reid Crandell. It is similar in that
it's about an advertising firm. In the comic, however, it's a guy
who approaches a female copywriter at an ad agency because he has a great idea
for a new way to advertise a billboard for cigarettes that actually shoots out smoke
rings to grab the attention to people. And she thinks it's a great idea,
so she leads him on that she's going to sell the idea and then
they're going to split the money, but really she just wants the money for
herself. So most of the comic is her just constantly convincing him that everything
is still on the up and up, when it's not until the point where
they've built the billboard and the guy isn't going to take it anymore. He
knows that she's trying to screw him. So they meet at the billboard itself,
and the smoke rings that come out of the billboard are made from steam,
which there's a giant vat in a little warehouse kind of structure underneath the
billboard. That's where the steam vessel is, the giant thing of water,
which she tosses him into to get rid of him. And then the next
day they're unveiling the billboard and they have her up there and the first smoke
ring comes out and it just kind of envelops her and kills her. So
there's only the only way to go when adapting this particular comic is up,
unless, of course, you make what we had to watch. They somehow
made it worse. Uh. Yeah, No, This is one of these
episodes where at the end of it I look back and say, what was
even the point of telling this story. And look, we've taken a lot
of flack and we're going to continue to take a lot of flack because this
podcast will exist until the imminent heat death of this planet. But we have
taken a lot of flack on this show, at least from people listen to
this show for you know, we don't like the show. We don't care
about the show. We're not fans of the show. You know, blindly
liking something because it's the show and not being able to view it critically is
worse than being critical of something. And I'm what am I leading to with
all of this? This season of the show is awful with a capital A.
We have seen very few, if any episode so far this season that
are redeemable. They have all been the worst versions of things we've seen before.
And this episode is right there in a long list of episodes where it's
twist first, everything else doesn't matter. Character development nope, interesting dialogue nope,
interesting scenes nope. Gore and other visuals nope. Like why are we
even here now? Why are why are we here watching this show? If
the show has stopped respecting our time? You know, we've said this probably
a couple of times now that it does feel like the material for this season
is just the leftovers from the previous seasons, that they just opened the trunk
and pulled these out. I maintain that that's what happened, which is a
drag because this is the last season and they felt like we didn't deserve better,
but also a drag because you find out that you're going to get one
more season and it's going to be in England and removed from everything, and
now you could actually take all the risks in the world. This is you
know, this is going to be the last season, so like, you
know, blow it out, like make it insane. Instead, we're getting
the filler episodes from previous seasons instead of what could have been a spectacular,
bloody gory And to the tailors from the Crypt franchise, they you know,
a Viking funeral instead of just a somber cremation. And you know that's the
sad reality is that they just kind of let this show die. Died on
the vine, right, But let's let's talk about the episode itself. Obviously,
they used the comic more than not as far as somebody who got screwed
over by an ad agency and getting revenge. It's the same basic plot here.
We have Paul Paul Freeman, who you know was fired and stepped over,
and he needs to get back at these people. So he's invented a
device that subliminally makes people crave whatever object you're offering them, which is a
great tool for advertising. And instead of just going to any ad agency in
the world and saying I'll sell this to you for ten million dollars or a
billion dollars, he uses it in this petty revenge scheme. And he doesn't
even do it himself. I mean, he uses a proxy, which is
the Daniel Craig character. And then, as you say, Chris, it's
just like they're so caught up and we have to have a twist and a
twist and a twist that I don't know. It's just laughable in a way
and at the same time not but that doesn't represent something that I kind of
hate in stories like this, Revenge or not, where somebody has invented a
device that is like so revolutionary that they would be rich beyond their wildest dreams,
and instead they use it for as just a plot device for the story
we're seeing. It's really dumb. I wish people would stop doing that.
And then on top of everything else, it's a twist within a twist.
Yeah, who's double crossing? Who oh? And then it turns out that
Paul Freeman's character actually is in on it because they're testing the new device,
the secret device that they were actually testing on Daniel Craig when he was supposed
to be testing the device that Paul Freeman gave him. No, no,
stop. Yeah, you're dragging yourself into a hole of your own creation.
You're downward spiraling so hard show with your incomprehensible, convoluted storylines that go nowhere,
that are now just attempting to salvage name value of the series by still,
you know, copying the titles of old Vault of Horror stories. Yeah.
Like, I've got this device and I think it could be a real
winner. We need to test it out. I'll pretend to be a guy
who lives in these steam tunnels and we'll find a criminal who's really charming,
and we'll go through this big charade, like what the hell are you kidding?
No, it's very convoluted, and yeah, Daniel Craig is the best
part of the episode, but that's because he's not I mean, he's not
given much to do, but he's the character you see the most. It's
because it's Daniel Craig. He's a movie star for a reason. Like Ah,
the sad thing about Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of Daniel Craig,
but I think that's because of the most of the roles that Daniel Craig
has played. The writing is not great. I e. James Bond,
but I will agree with you he's a charismatic actor. He's more charismatic in
this then he is in a lot of the Bond movies, which is funny
given how important charisma is to that character. But that character that Bond,
that is that Craig plays as Bond is a charismaticalist black hole intentionally, but
he is a charismatic actor and it shows in this. But even his charisma
can't save this episode. No, nothing could save this episode. It's rotted
from the core, which is a dumb idea just to you know, waste
twenty two minutes of time, like you know that, you know it's there's
nothing supernatural in it, which is as anyone who's listening to the show knows.
I prefer and that's fine. It's not even a real love triangle.
It's just I don't know. It's poor. It's poor, and it's a
story that ultimately goes nowhere. There is no payoff, there is no you
know, earned twist. The twist is very lazy. It's not good.
No, sorry England. So let's move on to the next episode. About
Face, the whole thing. I'm a vampire. Ah, so she eats
called justin king match smells Yeah, my goold thinks I'm a vampa leather and
me when we embraise, I said, fab old bloodsucker my right off of
face. Yeah, thank god? Thanking him a chat. Now, I'd
like to play for you another little rhythm and booze decomposition of man. It's
about a man who's about to make a good progression of his own and a
nasty five finger hackxercise I call about Faith. So About Face aired June twenty
eighth, nineteen ninety six. It is directed by Thomas E. Sanders.
The screenplay is by Gilbert Adler, Ale Katz and Larry Wilson. And the
kind of the biggest actor of note and this is Amelda Staunton. Yeah,
who would go on to be Dolores Umbridge and Harry Potter. Yeah, which
another another Britain connection there, obviously again with the show being filmed in England
during the time. What did you think of this episode? Father m On
It's an improvement over the last one. That's not saying much. I know
a lot of times it's all by comparison, So if you had shown me
this devoid of the previous one, I'd probably mark it less. But it's
it's okay. It feels more Tales from the Crypt than not. But it's
just not very good. I mean, the first of all, the makeup
is weird. It's you know, the makeup for this entire season has been
off. They seem to be doing like relying on just sort of I'm assuming
television level makeup artists, whereas in America it was like, you know,
a team not necessarily run by Kevin Yeager for every single episode. But when
you think about makeup art like I know who Kevin Yeager is, Like I
couldn't tell you who did the makeup in this like didn't stand out, you
know, I don't know. It's it's okay. Anna Friel is good in
the role. She's one of those actors who seem like they were going to
be big for a little while. They they they got a lot of roles
like that. But I think the last thing I saw her him was that
Land of the Lost remake with Will Farrell, which is awful. I think
she's good, but you know, it's okay, it's it's good. It's
like a little bit of a shocker, I suppose, like, okay.
This is a Haunt of Fear twenty seven, written by Carl Wessler, drawn
by Graham Angles. The story is effectively the same. It doesn't sort of
have the take on like this priest and his wife, like that's not in
the original comics. The original comics just a guy and he's married to his
wife, and she gives birth to twins, and they tell him that one
twin is so horrible that he should never see it. And then and then
a comic goes fifteen years later, and which is just ludicrous, because how
would you not see both of your daughters at one time in fifteen years,
no matter how stringent the wife is in keeping you from them. And then
he decides that he needs to kill the one so that the other one can
be happy or something. I don't know, it's really bad. I view
the episode as an improvement over the last episode and as an improvement of the
source material, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's that great. I mean,
what do you think, Chris, It's bad. I mean, it's just
not good. It's again, it's another one of these love triangle stories with
a twist that comes out of nowhere that adds nothing, that ultimately makes me
question what was the point of telling this story if this was always going to
be the twist? Just I'm so sick of the twist in this show just
not having a purpose. And then you have these poor actors in this show,
like Amelda Staunton, who's a great actress, and she's just sitting here
like looking at the screen, like help me, I'm being held hostage.
Yeah. I did, Like, I mean, I like the interplay when
the bad twin would sort of come out and menace them, Like I thought
that was I thought that was pretty good. But the as he said,
the twist is eventually just predicated on a deformity, and like that's enough of
a shock and is it? No? Like I'm not saying it needed to
be more, but it kind of needed to be more. Yeah, I
would agree. I think I think it needed I think it needed something.
It needed something to offset how generic the setup felt. Oh you have a
sleazy priest. Man, we've never seen that one before. Oh and he's
you know, going around and acting more pious than everyone else. But it
turns out he actually has two daughters. Man, this is such a unique
story that you're telling. Yeah, it's really somebody who you know, wanted
to take a jab at organized religion. And I don't have any problem with
that as long as it's something original. And this was not exactly what you
said, like, oh my god, this guy is actually like a licentious
prick and he preaches the gospel. Like how many times have we seen that,
Like, you know, a million times exactly. That's exactly it,
And it just it doesn't like the story is so not even the caliber of
Tales from the Crypt at all at all. It's not a it's not a
caliber of even the like even some of the stories that they were telling in
season six. This is so much more generic than the show deserves. Yeah,
if if you know, we had to subtitle this entire season it's these
actors deserved better. And we've said that for previous seasons certainly, but it's
always on an individual basis, Like there are highs and lows, and in
the lows we tend to commiserate with the actor who had to portray the part.
But here it's like every single episode it's like, Wow, these are
good people, Like I'm excited to watch them do their thing, but they're
not given anything character wise. And ultimately, if they were just ciphers as
characters and the plot was interesting, then we could root for that. But
they kind of cut their legs out from under them at the get go.
What can we tell you, folks. Yeah, I think my exasperation with
this season is I'm disappointed by the fact that it was all true the things
I really didn't remember about season seven because I had seen it, I just
didn't remember it. Man, Like, I this really is the worst season
of the show. Yeah, it kind of is. And without a without
comparison, yeah, it's stultifying. It's shocking how just kind of across the
board. It's the most wrote tales from the crypt stories you could imagine,
and on top of everything else, you have characters who are being written in
such a way that the actors who are portraying them are having to essentially just
look around and ask themselves, like why am I even doing the show?
There? They're those the scripts are not even giving these actors anything to do.
Yeah, ultimately, very disappointing. It's wild, it's it's it's wild.
How cheap the show looks now, it's wild. How poor the writing
is. It's wild, how poor the directing is, how it all looks
like a set. It all looks very set down now. Like, man,
the stark contrast from season six to seven is just it's so I didn't
think it was going to be this obvious, but man, it was.
It's been obvious and just end slowly declining. Yeah, you know, the
first couple episodes of the season, they were avoiding some of those pitfalls.
They seem to be out on location and it was interesting looking and even if
the episode wasn't spectacular, there was some good visuals going on. But it's
like this slow decline where any little joys you could snatch from some of the
earlier parts of the season are now stripped away entirely, and now it's everything
I don't like about tamacrypt Like you said, like to me, No matter
the story if it's shot well, I'm gonna at least derive a pleasure from
that that it doesn't look like it's a bunch of actors standing on a sound
stage and it's OVERLT and you know, you get the sense when you see
something like that that ever is just waiting for lunch time, you know.
And in these past few episodes and obviously on into the future, it's been
kind of a drag how workman like it's been. It's funny because, like,
you know, if the plot's not good and it's shot well, then
I can kind of give it a pass. Or if it's like a really
well written episode and the production value ain't great, then I'll give that a
pass. But this is this is aiming for the first baseline. That's not
you know, like they're not swinging in anything here. They're just got everyone
seems to be cashing a check. And what's a particular drag about that is,
you know, these are a lot of really good actors and in some
cases actors who hadn't yet kind of made it, so you know, they're
hungry for this kind of a role where they get to like do their stuff,
and then they're not really given anything to do, so they just sort
of go back into anonymity until their big break. This could have been their
big break had the series supported them in a way. Oh, I completely
agree. I mean, that's that seems to be for me. The biggest
kind of shape of this show is just like how how much it is wasting
the time of people who need this kind of work. And like you said,
these people are they want to be successful, you know, I mean,
good lord, you know Emelda Stanton, she wasn't the star that she
was then or now she wasn't then that she wasn't the star then that she's
now neither with you and McGregor, yeah, or you and McGregor, Daniel
Craig. And it's like Jesus Christ, Steve Coogan, like Eddie is art
is in an episode coming up like this, you know, there's a lot
of really good talent on the way or you know that we had gotten but
ill served yea, And I mean in the new in the in the next
episode we talk about is that the one that has uh, it's someone that
has Eddie Izzard and Saran hines Um and Alan Armstrong. It's probably not gonna
be good. You'll have to tune in and see don't get your hope.
So until that episode where we talk about episode eleven and twelve, because I
figure we leave the final episode for its own episode, just like we left
the first episode. It's own episode. Where can people find you, Father
Malone? You can check me out at father malone dot com. I got
links there to all of the cuckoo things that I do, including my radio
drama Dark Destinations. It's a monthly radio drama. You can also using father
Malone dot com get to the other podcast that Chris and I do with our
good friend Mike White, which is Dreams for Sale, the Twilight Zone eighty
five podcast. And as for me, you can find me on Twitter at
Christmas Clause. That's where I am. That's where I'll be. I do
the Culture Cast a couple other podcasts. You can find out all about them
over on my Twitter. Big thanks as always to John Cassir for doing the
intern of the podcast, and we'll catch you on the next episode.