Hello, kleets, it's me John could sear the voice of the crypt Keeper
and you're listening to Chronicles from the Crypt. Hello there, I'm Casualty Chris
and this is Father Malone and we are the hosts of Chronicles from the Crypt
to twice a month look at the horror anthology series Tales from the Crypt,
then aired on HBO from nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety six. But let's
not kid ourselves this last year is it hadn't been great? Yeah? On
each of our podcast we do two episodes of the television series and that's all.
We do have bonus episodes. You can go back and check them out,
but not this time. There is there. The end is the end
that we all feared was coming, is Barrett. We're barreling right towards the
brick wall. Yep. So on this episode of Chronicles from the Crypt,
we're gonna be taking a look at season seven, episode five and six,
Horror in the Night and Cold War. Let's see one small stiffer man,
one giant. Oh hello, Scar Gazes, you're just in time. My
skeleton crew and I are about to last off for a little space exploration.
Can't to join us. God, I hope you're made of the rock stuff,
because we'll be heading freight gears from terror FIRMA bodly going when no pool
has gone before. Hey, pal, what the suit or your launch meat?
Which is kind of like the man in Tonight's tale. He's going places
too, except his destination. It's a little more earthbound. It's a nasty
bit of scarrow dynamic cycle in the night. So Horn the Night is directed
by once again Russell mulcahey. It is written by John Harrison. It stars
Elizabeth McGovern and James will Be and it is about a double crossing jewelry thief
who hides out in a hotel and Shenanigan's happen in a Tales from the Crypt
esque way. Father Maloney is this episode is real bad. Oh, it's
It's one of the worst ones. It's it's an affront too, It's an
affront to entertainment. At least we get some gore here and a little bit
of a little bit of demon fun, but other than that it represents like
everything I hate about the writing on this show. Where Okay, So,
it's a jewelry thief who suggests to his partner that they rip off their boss.
Then he doesn't his partner does. They end up shooting each other.
He absconced with the diamonds, ends up in a hotel squazi Barton Fink esque
hotel where this woman is waiting for him and he doesn't know her, and
and and now there's a time loop where things keep happening and he keeps waking
up from dreams, which I hate. You know. It turns out that
five years prior he had shot this woman to death in the hotel, which
we learned in like the last thirty seconds from a secondary character who's just sort
of I guess the narrator like it doesn't make any sense at all. Well,
you mean the woman that he you mean the woman he killed that he
all of a sudden doesn't magically recognize. Yeah, like what I don't get
this man, Like I really, I mean no, no, you just
like you don't you don't get it. The main character is an idiot.
Yeah, I know, he's so stupid. He forgot the woman that he
killed in the hotel, that he killed her in in the room. Yeah,
and like they don't like it was a oh my god. Okay,
So this is based on a vault. Is that a technical term? Yeah,
Vault of Horror number twelve, written by Ivan Clapper and drawn by Mad
Magazine creator Harvey Kurtzman. I'm gonna say this is liberally adapted it. The
original comic did play to take place in a hotel, but it was a
scenario where a woman shows up in the middle of the night needing a room,
and some odd things occur and it turns out that she was a ghost
who checks into the hotel, like on the anniversary of her death, like
she was killed nearby or something. So it was just a nice little ghost
story. And what I've noticed on Tales from the Crypt, the television series
in particular, anytime you take an or a story like that where it's sort
of simple, the answer for the writers of the show always seem to be
and now let's add crime. They do it in this one, and they
do it in the next one that we're going to talk about a Cold War,
which I can't figure out. Does it somehow make in their minds the
episode more exciting that there's going to be a little bit of gun play,
because that's the only thing I can think of other than the fact that this
is mid nineties and the entire world was ruled by cool talking gangsters thanks to
Quentin Tarantino. Because I think you answered your own question, because in the
next episode we get a bullshit Quentin Tarantino esque homage to pulp fiction, and
in this episode it's a little it's a little bit like reservoir dumb dumbs is
what it is. Yeah, man, like exactly like these you know,
tough talking guys and just whatever. But like as I said, freely adapted,
this is so insulting an episode in that we're not privy to any of
this character's life or relationships with anyone. It's just him through a random assortment
of scenes of different horrors. I guess, like, you know, when
I don't know anything about this guy or his situation or whatever, like having
the walls start to bleed, isn't I mean, look, you know if
it was happening in my house, yeah, I'd be freaked out. But
like, watching this show and what about it, the walls of the fifty
third precincts, Oh, we're bleeding. I can't help but say it when
you say it, like that's the only thing it conjures up. It's not
conjuring up. Yeah, the mention of that in that film is scarier than
the presentation of it in this one. And Elizabeth McGovern, who's a good
actress, is just kind of wasted here. I don't know why she's across
the pond doing Maybe she was working in England at the time and they sort
of roped her in. I don't know, Like it's and the other thing
is, it's like ordinarily you would set up in the beginning the come up,
it's in the end. In the beginning, he's just doing his job,
makes a suggestion that they do this other thing, but then doesn't do
it himself, so he gets double crossed and then he has to pay,
but he has to pay for a whole other crime that we're not privy to
until the last moments. I don't I do not get this just on a
storytelling level. It's like such a massive failure. Yes, I one hundred
percent agree with you, it is, you know, for me, I
think the biggest disappointment is again again, it really comes back to this really
disappointing idea that the show just doesn't feel like it cares anymore, and like
I'm inclined to a believe that that's the case. Yeah, I mean,
like, does Chris tell me, do you not feel like these are scripts
that were just left over from previous seasons? Like, oh yeah, one
hundred percent. I mean I'm not good there is. You will get no
argument out of me regarding whether or not these are essentially passed over scripts that
other people didn't want to have anything to do with, because that's totally what's
going on here. At first, having not seen this season in its entirety
before, I thought there might be a chance that they thought they weren't getting
another season and then wrote one anyway or wrote one hastily. But yeah,
I think I think this is the absolute certainty here that these are just scripts
that were two below par to include in previous seasons, and now they're like,
oh jeezs we got to do something. Let's just trot these out and
put a put a gloss of England over it. Well, that and the
other the other issue is it really just feels like they've given up, like
a complete just I don't care anymore, We don't care anymore, nobody cares.
Let's just like we're contractually obligated as producers of the show to get one
more season out. So here it is and at the end of the day,
we're fulfilling our contractual obligation and that's it. Yeah, I mean it
is a It is a massive disappointment because the level that we have fallen from
from you know, the man who was death to this absolute fucking nightmare of
an episode. I mean, there is there is nothing redeeming about this episode.
Period period, period, period, period period. Yeah, I'm not
sure what. I don't know what it was trying to say. I don't
know what it exists for. I don't know who thought this was in any
way, shape or form entertaining it. It just kind of shows up and
then leaves. It's you know, I don't feel one way or another about
myself or about being told a good story. It doesn't address anything, It
doesn't ask us anything, it doesn't do anything of value. It is such
a disappointment. I mean, again, I didn't It's not like I had
high hopes. Again, We're at episode five of the seventh season. At
this point, my expectations are so low they're subterranean. So yeah, I'm
gonna go ahead here and say skip, and that's where this episode could go.
Yeah, I'm gonna agree with you. This episode could go in the
trash because it is that bad. Like, I don't even want to talk
about it anymore. Let's talk about the next episode. Relationships aren't about ooze,
right or wrong? Look, do you remember how you felt about each
other when you were newly bleds? Do you want to feel the same way
you felt at your marriage ceremony? Good? Then let go of what you
find irritating about each other before a gross too far, Which is the kind
of advice the young couple in tonight's tale should take their fiends and lovers whose
relationship is clot between a rock and a horrid place. I call this one
cold War. So Cold War is directed by Andrew Morahan but uncredited Robin Bexter.
It's written by once again Scott namerfro and it stars you and McGregor because
this episode, because you were right. We had talked about this episode a
little bit before we had recorded, and you said, there are a lot
of hard urs, and boy, there are a lot of hard ours,
you and McGregor. It also stars arn't there. It also started Jane Horrocks
and Colin Salmon. Salmon, I bet as how you pronounce it and Uh,
yeah, it's about a crime couple who run into Colin Salmon's character.
Salmon's character and yeah, he's a vampire and there zombies and yeah, once
again it's really stupid. Yeah, and you know, even more so than
the previous episode. This is kind of more insulting because of the talent on
screen, You and McGregor. Everyone knows him, Jane Horrocks, who was
for years on absolutely fabulous as a character Nam Bubble, which he was really
good. Everyone knows Salomon, probably from that first Resident Evil movie thanks to
a laser grid. He's also in the James the Pierce Brosdon James Bond film
Oh yeah, that's true. This is shockingly based on a Tales from the
Crypt story Tales from the Crypt number forty three, written by Carl Wessler and
and drawn by the always incredible Jack Caman. Like I mentioned in the last
one, here we have a story, a simple story. It's about a
husband who notices that his wife has a suitor, and the suitor intends to
kill the husband, and before he lets the guy shoot him, the husband
tells him the story of how he met the wife and how they fell in
love, and it involves him going to this like old dark house where her
family is, and he discovers that there's zombies and that in order for him
to continue to love their daughter, he has to die, which he says
no too, and tries to run, but they've actually poisoned him with strychnine
and the new suitor doesn't believe the story, and he shoots him a bunch
of times, proving that he's a zombie. And now the husband says,
you know what, I've had enough of her. You can have her,
and makes the guy a zombie. So instead, when we've got to updated,
let's make it the lamest Tarantino knockoff possible and have the suitors show up
three quarters of the way through, and now twist he's a vampire like one.
I mean, nobody cares, but there's a fake out because you think
you and Mugregor's character is actually a racist. Yeah right, you don't want
to mess with his kind? Could get it because he's it's because he's vampire,
and he's he's an he's an American living in England, so he doesn't
really understand the terminology. But I notice at the end when he's talking about
when they're clearing up the racism question. He does say there's only two kinds
of people that rate, which is a very English thing to say. It's
like the script itself is wildly inconsistent. But yeah, Ewan McGregor does stick
to his terrible American accent throughout, and bravo for the fortitude. But Jesus,
don't do an American accent anymore. You're really bad at it. Excuse
me, what are you doing? My name is you? And Mugregor It's
it's the least worst part of this episode. There's so many other problems,
namely the fact that, again, what is the point of telling this story?
What is this story's point? I mean, what it is meant to
be entertaining, because it's not. Is it meant to be scary, Well
it's not. Is it meant to be ironic and funny, Well it's not.
It's nothing. Again, It's an episode without purpose. The story that
it's telling is not inherently interesting. There are no stakes. And at the
end of the day, the twist that, oh, Colin Salmon's character is
a vampire and there's zombies, that's not a twist. That's just who cares?
I mean, that's that's incidental to the episodes progression because we don't even
know what happens to his fucking character. By the way, right they all
go out the Winnow I assume that they went out in the daylight, so
they survived and he didn't. But not like they attempted in any way to
make anything clear. And I gotta say, the makeup on you and Greg
McGregor at the end would be really good if like a friend did it and
you saw him at a Halloween party. But for a Tennilsome encrypt episode,
this obvious like latex appliance supposed to be approximating his mouth and then underneath his
nose ye, and then they give him him lines of dialogue to say and
you can see his actual mouth like moving underneath the appliance. It was so
sloppy and dumb. Yeah, there's the there's an angle where you can see
like the actual like appliance like patched onto his nose. Yeah, and it
is awful. Yeah. No again. You know, there is this sentiment
about the seventh season of the show that it is a complete waste of time
and that there is nothing to any of these episodes. I mean, I'm
not the first person to the last person to say this. There is not
some sort of grand you know, love for this season of the show,
and we're seeing why it is a it is you know, it's it's Yesterday's
Leftovers reheated twice. I mean it's it's it's the biggest way. This season
has been the biggest waste of time. I can I can't even imagine how
in God's name anyone worked on this season of the show and said, yeah,
this is good, this is this is quality content. Yeah, and
I don't want to rag on this show. We love this show. We
wouldn't be doing this if we hated this show. We're not how did this
get made. We're not here to shit all over everything and then chortle our
way to the bank. We're genuine fans of this show. And it is
a fucking shame that this show is going down the tubes so quickly. It's
almost like the expedited the process of quality just completely falling apart. Yeah,
it's you're absolutely right. I am in no way reveling in the dreary state
of this television series. Like I'm very disappointed, as a euphemistic term for
it, it's yeah, I'm I'm I'm baffled by how bad it got.
And you know, I've said I didn't watch the season seven at the time
and aired, but that was basically because I didn't have cable television at the
time, because I was an avid fan of the show, so I had
been holding out hope that it was my fault in not watching it and that
that maybe the quality was going to rise up. But good lord, Like
we reviewed the first couple of episodes, they said, well, I don't
think it's the worst. I think it's pretty on par with the previous season.
But that is absolutely not the case. The level of quality has dropped
precipitously, and it feels really sad to think that nobody was giving a shit.
They were all just sort of cashing paychecks at this point. Well that's
what it feels like, and that that outcome shows on screen. Yeah,
I mean, you can't just copy Quentin Tarantino and expect that that's good enough.
So and you know, like whatever anyone has to say about Tarantino,
like the dialogue crackles and this is and this is just aping it. But
like it's so I don't know, it's so juvenile, just like lots of
fux and ass bag your ass bag, like, oh my god, Like
yeah, good's that's on par Well, don't forget that awesome scene where Quentin
Tarantino is purely ripped off just because they can, where you have two characters
dancing very Uma and Uma and Travolta esque. They're almost dancing like Uma Thurman
one might boy and you know, look on a purely technical level storytelling wise.
Okay, so she's a zombie. They have to be cold blooded,
right, they're dead, so anytime she would come in contact with a human,
she would feel the heat off of them. Same with the vampire.
These two characters encounter each other, they even they kind of hint at it
almost where when he kisses her for the first time, he kind of gives
her a look like something's wrong with this one. But like, wouldn't they
both just recognize it, like you're clearly not a human. They would recognize
it if they were in the bathroom together and she didn't see his fucking reflection.
Yeah, how about that, like the like which they were by the
way, so dumb, I don't know. Hey, how about this skip
this one? Skip both of these episodes? Oh yeah, not only skip
pretend that you've never even heard of it. I mean, look, if
you want to see you and McGregor as a young actor, watch, shall
I guarantee you he was cast in this because of Shallow Gray. Oh,
no doubt. I don't even really like that movie. But at least he's
not doing this fucking accent. No, he's putting his best foot forward in
that movie, and in this movie they're everyone's feet are tied together and no
one is able to move an inch forward without them all falling down flat on
their faces. It's a it's a fucking shame because again, it's not because
of the talent of the actors involved. We know that for a fact.
So yeah, what is it? Well, it's a misplaced sense of I
don't know, it's like this misplaced sense of the story that you're telling is
somehow important. I hate to break it to everyone, but the problems with
this episode go straight to the script. That's hard. Stop, that's the
problem. Everything else is perfectly fine or perfectly serviceable. Yeah, exactly.
The direction on both of these episodes is just fine. Like if there had
been an interesting story going on, then you know it could have at least
been passable, but like, yeah, the writing drags down everything else.
And look, you know we've talked a lot about Scott and Nimmerfro, And
you know I didn't ask you to do this podcast because you were friends with
Scott and Nimerfro when he was alive. Yeah, that just happened to be
something that we found out or I found out long after the fact when we
got to our first Scott and Nimerfro episode. But I mean I have to
ask you, like you know it just like what do you think was going
on? It's just it's I mean, you knew him better than you know,
You know him better than I did, and you knew him rather well
from what I can tell. I mean, can you can you even begin
to kind of piece together in your head what may have been going on to
lead to these like really it feels they feel very lazy scripts. Yeah.
Yeah, I think in Scott's situation, he I think he really cared early
on and by the end was looking to get out. I'm sure I told
you in the past, like the reason those X Men movie got movies got
made is because Scott he as far as who he was tight with producing why
it was Richard Donner and his wife Laura Lauren Schuler Donner, and he was
the one who brought Lauren Schuler Donner like the X Men thing, and that
was picking up around I mean started. I know, he didn't get a
movie till two thousand, but you know, scripts were being written as far
back as like ninety three, and I think he thought that was his out,
but was not the case. Well, and he wasn't wrong, yeah,
you know, and I mean he wasn't wrong. X Men was his
out, yeah, eventually, but he you know, he ended up with
you know, look like getting a writing gig as hard in Hollywood, and
this was sort of a steady paycheck. But it seems as everyone stopped caring,
so did he. And I've always said, like, you know,
he did better work later, particularly on the television series Hannibal and Tron Uprising
for that matter. Yeah, like, you know, I think he was
a good writer. It's just that this was not his love horror and horror
comics, and you actually, I think you kind of need somebody who loves
the whole medium in order to make a good show. I mean, you
know, I mean, you know, can you write a love song if
you're not in love, but like probably not well. And again it's like,
I don't want to drink a cocktail mixed by someone who doesn't drink alcohol,
like I don't. Will not take your opinion seriously because how can you
how can you definitely do anything if you refuse to have any interest in the
thing that you're doing or talking about, you're not your heart's not going to
be in it. And that comes across on screen, it really does.
Yep. And so that's that's where we're at now, nobody caring, including
us. And yeah, to your point, Scott Nimmerfro worked on one of
my favorite TV shows of all time, Hannibal, and he wrote amazing episodes
of that show, not ironically, they're actually really good. And that is
a horror based show. I mean again, that's a psychological horror show,
you know, right, But that's more in keeping with what his attitude.
Sure, and you know, it seemed to me that the way he dealt
with the comic book sort of horror was to kind of lean into the comedy
of it, and that was a huge mistake because he was not No I'm
not saying he wasn't a funny guy, but he was not a gifted comedic
writer. So you know, pulling off a show like this is hard anyway,
never mind in the hands of somebody who doesn't quite understand it. No,
for sure. And again, if your heart's not in the right place
and you're looking at this is a stepping stone, not a legitimate career,
you know, pinpoint in your career. Hey, it comes across on screen,
that's what we get. We get season seven, seasons five, six,
and seven, but seven in particular, Jesus age Christ I mean,
look like I think at that point he was clearly doing what he could with
the detritus of the previous seasons. But you know, you can't polish a
turd, as I say, no, you cannot. So speaking of polishing
turds, I think we're both saying skip these last two episodes. On the
next episode of Chronicles from the Crypt, we're gonna be talking about saying,
we're gonna be talking about season seven, episode seven and eight, the Kidnapper
and Report from the Grave. Yeah, they're probably not going to be good
now. But until then, where can people find you fought him along?
You can check over check me out over at father Malone dot com. You
can hear my podcast Dark Destinations. It is a radio drama travelogue where our
characters travel to infamous fictional towns. You can also hear me over on Dreams
for Sale, the Twilight Zone eighty five podcasts that Chris and I also do
together with our friend in Detroit, our man on the street, mister Mike
White. And as for me, you can find me on Twitter at Christmas
clause I have gone and change my Twitter handle because hey, casualty, Chris
shockingly is not a particularly on point idea during the middle of a global pandemic.
Yes, we're in a pandemic and no, don't tell me we're not.
As for this podcast, can find it on Twitter, at Chronicles FTC
and at Chronicles from the crypt dot Com. Big thanks as always to our
good friend mister John Casier, the voice of the crypt Keeper, for the
enter to the podcast. We'll catch you on the next episode, Boils and Goals.