Hell creeps. It's me John Cassier, the voice of the Crypt Keeper,
and you're listening to Chronicle from the Crypt. Hello there, I'm Casualty Chris
and this is Father Alone and we're the hosts of Chronicles from the Crypt,
a twice a month look at the whore anthology series Tales from the Crypt that
aired on HBO from nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety five. That's it,
folks, good night after the last episode. It's not our fault that we're
really not we're not looking forward to these last couple episodes because unless something changes
the ship, the show is on the road and it's all over the UK,
just stinking up the place. Yeah. Man, it's a self fulfilling
prophecy where they didn't care and now they've they've sort of deadened by enthusiasm for
the show as well. Yep. So on this episode, we're gonna be
talking about episode seven and eight of season seven, the Kidnapper and Report from
the Grave. Are you blind that ball was on the line? How Oh
hello, kiddies. I was just warming up for the Wimbletomb tennis tournament.
Normally I love a bit of stiff competition, but this guy is driving me
nuts. Still, the match isn't over yet. We're playing beast two out
of three, which brings to mind the man in tonight's tale. He's about
to play a little die breaker of his own in a sickening haxhibition. I
call the Kidnapper, So the Kidnapper. Aired June seventh, ninety six.
It is directed by James H. Spencer, with Robin Bexter uncredited. It
is written by John Harrison once again, and it stars, of all people,
Steve fucking Coogan, Yeah, as a as a weird man who falls
in love with a woman who doesn't love him back, so he has her
baby kidnapped. Boy, isn't that tails from the crypt It's very very and
speaking to that, of course, this is a It's based on a Shock
Suspense Stories Shock Suspense Number twelve, written by Bill Gaines and Alfeldstein, art
by Reed Crandell. The story is similar. The twist is definitely the same
twist in the comic. But what they did when I thought was everything right
in the comic in that this is a newlywed couple in love. When they
have the baby, she no longer cares about the husband at all. And
but in the comic he doesn't. He doesn't enact the the the kidnapping.
It happens, and he's happy that it happened, until he realizes his wife
is losing her mind, at which point he tries to steal a baby for
her and discovers that it's his baby, which is like a little more like
the layered and interesting to me because I hadn't read the comic before I watched
the episode, and while watching it, like the whole set up with him
working at a pawn shop and she's a homeless woman who's pregnant and he needs
a friend and she's you know, she tells him straight out she's not going
to fall in love with him and they're only ever going to be friends.
Like that just felt like such a waste of time. I kept thinking,
why didn't they just make this about a couple who are already married and we
go from there and like not waste the entire first act and having them do
this like anti meat cute kind of thing, And as it turns out that
that's exactly what they did in the comic, but clearly not at this point
because this has probably written like three or four seasons ago. You know,
people weren't content to let a thing just be itself. They had to like
graft a new plot line on top of it, whether it be warranted or
not. And that's certainly the case here. I mean, I'm not going
to complain about the acting in the episode. I thought Steve Coogan was good.
I think with Julia Sawala another This is the second episode in a row
with a absolutely fabulous cast member in it, and there's some stuff I did
like actually, but overall, oh boy. Also, it's weird that it's
called the Kidnapper by the crypt Keeper and all the reading material you can find
out it's called the Kidnapper, but in the episode itself the title is just
Kidnapper. I thought that was a little weird, what about you. It's
also weird that they thought that this story was worth telling, because once again,
I genuinely do not understand what in the actual fuck they were thinking adapting
this, of all stories. Yeah, I mean, you know, I
don't know. I think there was stuff that could have been mined out of
this as I mean, sure, but in more adept hands people who weren't
just trying to knock out a twenty two minute yelp, yarn. But yeah,
you know, like I said, the comic I thought was like a
little more intellectually stimulating in that it's about, you know, this sort of
relationship thing that I'm sure does happen where you know, the husband becomes jealous
of the child or vice versa, you know, or I think that's a
dynamic worth mining. But they weren't interested in that here, and they were
just interested in a twist which was already on the page. So I don't
know what can be said. Well, and that's and that's the thing about
this episode that really I genuinely do not understand is it is all about the
twist, and that's it. There's nothing else. There's nothing else to this
episode. All it is is a twist about a like we've said already,
a man who is jealous of his not girlfriend girlfriend and her baby that's not
his, and so he schemes to have the child kidnapped and then readopted and
then he realizes, like you said, she goes crazy, Like that's that's
yeah, yeah, and let the fuck here's my question. The mimes.
Were they on the payroll of this organization that steals babies? Like they were
the discuss. The answer is yes. The answer is a stupid yes.
It was a moronic yes, dumb like like items like it was written by
Scott never Fro. Yeah, but it wasn't this time, um, I
know. And the injection of the injection of useless comedies seems to be a
Scott nimmer froism. Oh my god, And like, is this a tried
and true method of distraction where mimes will start yelling at each other and then
leave the view, thus tempting someone to come and yell at them that they're
gonna call the police, Like it's just so unheard of, Like no,
what but this was the method? Like in the comic they wake up in
the morning and go check on the baby. The baby's gone, and there's
like a window open with the drapes blowing like that that made sense. This
is just like why was that not good enough? Ye? Why was that
not good enough? I've got a thing about mimes that I've gotten the trunk.
I'll just pull that out and put it into this episode. I think
mime's talking and yelling at each other is funny. Yeah, and pretending to
beat the shit out of each other, Like what what are you? What?
Are you going for what is the purpose of introducing, you know,
some levity to the situation. I mean, it's not an inherently funny episode.
No, And it's that's like the whole second act, right, it's
like the theft of the child. And again, like what a timewister,
like, if you wanted to do this episode, then you should do the
episode. Do it about the father who like resents the child so much that
he would want somebody to take it away like that maybe, and then you
know, he gets the shit kicked out of him at the end and you
know, discovers the baby he's trying to steal is his own. That to
me is a little bit interesting, or it could have been, but they
weren't interested in giving us that. They were just like, oh, we'll
put this twist on with this character who's despicable from the get go, and
you know, like give us a first act where we like this guy.
Yeah, that's it. The other weird thing, I mean, there is
there's no reason to root for Steve Coogan's character. He's a creep from the
get go. Yeah. I mean it's just desserts, I guess, and
in the fine easy tradition, but you know, but like, get it.
It's unrequited love. It's it's unrequited love. Don't you get it?
Like, don't you get it? Isn't that weird? Isn't that funny?
Ha ha? He gets the shipped out of him and he dies dies at
the end. I have something like that. I mean that that that shot
where it's the sort of point of view shot and they're like punching him and
then the screen like splatters with blood. Like I thought that was a nice
shot. But like that's but like we being actually led to believe that they're
going to murder this man in the park. I think that's I mean,
those people would therefore then be worse than he is, Like if you you
you can't just murder someone with wanton abandoned and he's are like and like one
of them is the kidnapper, right, but uh, like the other people
are just sort of random straight angers who are like, you know, delightfully
kicking the shit out of him until his death. Yeah. I was,
I was so very very lost as to why in God's name that's what they
were going with, Like, okay, so he's gonna get straight up murdered.
I do like the addition of Serena Gordon, who plays the woman at
the beginning of Golden Eye in the car with Pierce Brosen who supposed to be
his like therapist or something, because that was outside of Steve Coogan and Julia
Sawaha. That's that's it for notable actors in the episode. And it turns
out that her character is technically as scummy as Steve Coogan's. Yeah, this
is just an episode of horrible people doing horrible things, which you know,
no good. You know, you can you can make a taxi driver out
of that, but um jesus, this ain't taxi driver. No, and
you know the twist that it's actually you know, his not girlfriend girlfriend's kid
at the end, Yeah, no, shit, Yeah. They also what
are the odds like the size of this like uh like discoloration on the child's
back, which seemed to be in the shape of England, which I thought
was really weird, but they like, you know, as soon as they
showed a close up of it, I'm like, okay, so that'll be
the final thing in the in the episode, and sure enough it's it's her
kids. The last thing Steve Coogan sees before he's wantonly murdered in the middle
of the park is his baby's ass? Okay, yeah, what I'm like.
Look, I mean, Steve Coogan's character in this episode is kind of
a deplorable piece of shit. But at the same time, why are you
gonna Why are you gonna give us this moment? What is the point?
By the way, though, this is the lowest rated episode of the entire
series on IMDb, So well, uh, geez, you know what,
Like, there are worse Um, yeah, I think we're about to talk
about one. Oh you think so? I think so. Let's talk about
Report from the Grave, Breton's Hackgriculture fans, I'll be with you in a
moment. I've just got to finish with the arty chokes. Come on already,
I already. Nah a little water and some feartalizer, and before you
know it, I'll be horrivesting my own little field of screams. You didn't
know your pal the crook keeper had a green thumb, did you? Well?
I do. And the rest of me is pretty damned moldy too,
which brings to mind Tonight's tale. It's about a scientist who's a bit of
a scare crobber himself. I call this one report from the Grave. So
Report from the Grave is me Report from the Grave air June fourteenth, nineteen
ninety six. It is written and directed by William Malone, not Father Malone,
and it stars James Frain Sibah Yeah, thank God for you. Stars
James Frain and Sibahan fil Jesus Christ Sibahan Flynn. She was a couple.
You know what. You know what I was gonna say it. I don't
even want to talk about this episode. This episode a piece of shit.
This is This is worse than the lat than Cold War, This is worse
than the Kidnapper. This is worse than Horror in the Night. This is
the worst episode of the show period. There's no way they think it'd be
worse than this. Yeah, I didn't even understand what the point of the
story was. They tell it in these really obtuse, bizarre, roundabout ways
of getting to the point, and then at the end of the episode,
shockingly, there is no fucking point. Does seem that way? I don't.
And the perform and the performances are the performances are so forgettable that it
is it is the worst episode of this show that I have seen. And
that is a saying a lot. I'm not gonna say it's surprising it's in
the seventh season, but I had no idea what this episode was going for,
and frankly, I don't think it did either. Yeah, and it
seemed to me the first episode where they did this particular thing which became a
thing because of this director who directed the House on Haunted Hill, the still
body but like the twitchety head kind of thing that the sort of like dominated
early two thousands horror where suddenly twitching things or terrifying in some way. I
hated that. I like James Fraine, the lead on it. He's on
he was on Gotham for a couple of seasons and he's now on Star Trek
Discovery as Sarek Spock's dad. He's really good in those not I mean,
you know, he did a good job in the episode for what he was
given that but like what was given though, that's the question. Yeah,
what was he not? Not much like it's a serial killer, but he
is a cult leader and he's saving all of these bodies for some reason.
And in this guy just so happened my favorite thing, Like, you know,
he creates this device that you can like converse with the dead, and
his first instinct is to seek out a fucking serial killer like experience his thoughts
and memories. That's always oh, and then also give it to his girlfriends.
Yeah yeah, exactly, Like she sort of puts the helmet on and
he doses her with the serial killer and then we get a bunch of ghostly
goings on. I mean it reminds me of the Horror in the Night episode
we just talked about, um, where it's just sort of like a random
assortment of images that are supposed to be disturbing and none of them like land
at all, like, which is hard to do. Like you gotta figure
this gotta be something they could do to make something either shocking or frightening or
disturbing in some way. But um, yeah, not a lot hangs together.
I mean I found this more watchable than some of the recent episodes we've
been um seeing, But that in and of itself is surprising to me.
I really thought you would have been coming down hard on this one. Oh
look, it's so sca it's so scattershot, it's practically unintelligible, and like
that is that is saying something for a show where the last couple episodes have
been complete wheelspinners. This is the ultimate wheelspinner. Like, tell me what
the conclusion of this episode is other than he kills himself for whatever reason?
For whatever what reason? No? I like, Yeah, characters, characters
in Characters in fiction have to have an internal logic. Otherwise, without an
internal logic, characters can float through the air, jump up and down,
and hit the ceiling no gravity. They can stretch their arms thirty feet.
There has to be a logic that dictates how stories and characters play out.
And this episode shirks any of that and says, you like a straightforward story,
We're not going to give it to you. Like character motivation, You're
not going to know what it is. You like a villain, Well,
he's there, but he's not there, And you like a conclusion that makes
sense while there isn't one. It's like the episode is going out of its
way to do everything it can to upend typical storytelling conventions. Yeah. I
mean, like you just said, that's that you need all of those things
just for any story. It's like an afterschool special needs to adhere to those
But when you start dabbling in the supernatural. Then there becomes a whole other
subset of rules that need to be adhered to and given to us in a
concrete way, so we know what the parameters are. And this and this
whole season, anytime they've dipped their toe into the supernatural pool, it's just
been a grab bag of random like weirdness for weirdness sake. It's like the
entire run of American horror story like you ever seen that, You ever seen
those You ever seen those gifts of people online where they're jumping onto a frozen
lake and they don't realize it's frozen or they just don't care. That's this
season of the show. It is a fucking face plant on a frozen like
you say, dip your toe in the supernatural aspect of the season, they
are face planting repeatedly on frozen ice because they have no idea what they're doing,
none the supernatural stuff. How many supernatural episodes have we had this season?
Two? Three? You could make the case that Horror in the Night
is one last respect I guess four if you consider last respects. But again,
you know, so far it's been report from the grave, Cold War
Horror in the Night and last respects. That's four episodes, where eight episodes
in and that's half of the season, and those episodes have been worse than
even the ones that were bad on their own, the ones that were just
bad in spite of in spite of the lack of supernatural. Yeah, I
mean, my main complaint last season was that they had strayed so far from
the supernatural elements. As as a fan of that type of story, I
felt like I was getting short shriffed. But if this is the kind of
supernatural they want a traffic in from now on, then you know what,
just do all shock suspense stories and have criminals by all means, stay away
from the supernatural. Yeah, I mean, don't definitely don't do this now.
This was This was not based on tailsmocause this is a vaultive horror Vultive
Horror fifteen written by Al Feldstein and drawn by Jack Caman. You want to
talk about a liberal adaptation. The comic book story was a group of old
men who get together to tell ghost stories to each other. One of their
members has died and they're going to initiate a new member who's been on the
waiting list. I guess you can only get in when somebody died. But
in order to fulfill his obligation to them, he has to do something they
set him as a task, which is to go dig up the former member
and bring something like a watch or something. Actually it is his wristwatch,
because his wrist watch was very particular, and one member objects vehemently to this
as a task. Nevertheless, the guy goes and does it and returns and
says there's nothing in that coffin. So they all go to investigate the cemetery
and the guy has dug in the wrong spot. But it turns out that
one member of their group, the one who objected, was having an affair
with the guy's wife and poisoned him. And the twist as it not really
a twist at all, But what happens is the grave of that of the
guy who was buried is there, except he was buried without a coffin,
and the ground above it breaks open as these guys are there, as if
he's coming back to life. But it was, and it was gases from
his body like forcing their way out of the earth, and like that supernatural
supposed element makes the guy who committed the crime confess to it. So it
turned out there was no There was not a whiff of supernatural in it at
all, and they really should have stuck to that or I mean, I
don't think they should have done that story because it was dumb as well.
But this is what they came up with instead. And you know what,
honestly, there's probably an interesting story in here. This idea of like talking
with the dead, like could have been mine for something really good. Unfortunately
it's just a grab bag of nonsense. And again it has absolutely no conclusion.
The conclusion that a character kills themselves is a conclusion if there are stakes,
right, there aren't any. No, there were no stakes at all.
It's barely it was barely intelligible storytelling to begin with. And you know,
the other thing I want to point out is that I didn't notice till
I sort of looked up the credits on it. But the serial kill,
the dense serial killer, is named Valdemar, And this is very similar to
a Edgar Allan post short story about called the Fact in the Case of m
Valdemar, where a man is hypnotized before right before death, and then he's
unable to go to the next world or remain living in hours. He's just
sort of trapped there, which was adapted and should point out just a couple
of years before this episode by George Romero for a movie called Two Evil Eyes,
where I thought he did a really good job with it. So it's
not even like William Malone read this short story or read the comic book and
said, well, I don't want to do that. I have this idea
for this other thing. It's I read the comic, I don't like it,
and I'm just going to rip off something else, and not in any
intelligible way possible because the Romero adaptation of it, the rules are obviously set
and it's structured and it doesn't deviate, and the scares come because of it.
In here, it's just like, oh, well, my visual storytelling
of freaky images will be enough. They weren't enough watch House on Haunted Hill
if you doubt it. Yeah, but like she came back for him,
Yeah, this this season is exhausting. That's not the word I would use.
The word I would use his utter disappointment. Yeah, I mean,
I understand, I agree that it is exhausting, but I go one further
and this is just it's it's nightmarish. I mean this this season is just
nightmarish. It is. You know what the scary thing about this season is
how fucking bad it is. And that's that's it. Yeah, I uh
math how many more we got? Five? That hurts? There's gotta be
something good, right, Yeah? Am I am? I a sucker for
always holding out hope that we're going to get a good one. Well that's
the thing, you know, There's gotta be one. There has to be
one. I would hope to God that there's one. Please please Lord snoo
SNeW please crypt keeper, give us one, just one, just one,
Like that's that's all I'm asking for out of thirteen episodes. Yeah, I
just want to tell our audience once Hey, by the way, this episode's
worth listening or this episode's worth watching. That's all I want. Is that
that hard? I hate that they've put us into the position of decimating this
show week after week. Yeah I do too, because again, I you
know, I really liked this show. This is you know, this is
a show that I returned to regularly for reasons that you know, aren't aren't
some sort of like mystery. This show has a lot of really good,
fun episodes that deserve to be rewatched, like The Man Who Was Death,
like cutting cards, like so many episodes of this show, and then you
get to a season where it completely shits the bed. Yeah, and you
know, we talked about this in the last episode. We've been talking about
it all season. But like, you know, the English can do short
horror fiction really, really well. You know, there's an entire subgenre of
anthology films from the nineteen seventies where, you know, not they're not all
gold, but a lot of the stories are really good. And it feels
especially disingenuous this season where they make the move to England, but then they
keep all the writing. They're sort of in house writers, like they didn't
want to pay anyone to come up with a new thing. They just wanted
to those episodes to be made over there with their with their people, And
I think maybe that injection of new blood could have been Interestingly, there were
lots of um up and coming filmmakers in England in the in the nineties that
I'm sure would have jumped at the chance and given us something of interest.
At least from an English point of view, these do feel like they're just
sort of America The bad American ones cloaked in you know England, or is
Danny Boyle, where are any where are any British directors of note? I
mean, it's not like the original seasons of the show didn't get directors of
out for the episodes. I mean, you know, they had well known
the well known actors directing, and then all of a sudden, it's just
nope, we're just we're just giving up, just completely. Yeah, I
mean, you know, I don't know for certain, but I'm sure if
they if they even offered it to Danny Ball, he'd be like, well,
this script is garbage, you know, and like, I've got a
I've got a career I'm working on here. Yeah, I don't want to
be lumped in with episodes like Cold War and other nightmarish pieces of garbage that
don't deserve to be called Tales from the Crypt. I mean, that's that's
the other thing, right, I mean, it's it's really hard to even
consider these episodes tales from the Crypt episodes there, it's almost like we're watching
another show. Yeah, if if you had given me this season and said
this is a series called The Damned, it's a British anthology horror show.
I'd be like, okay, and I would have no ankling that it was.
And we have mentioned this before too, but it's it goes right down
to the crypt Keeper introductions and outros, like they they have absolutely nothing to
do with the story, Like I rewatched h and All through the House last
night, and like the crypt Keeper comes in and he's dressed as Santa Claus
and he's making Christmas puns, and then we get a Christmas episode and then
he makes more puns about Christmas at the end. It's all part and parcel
here. A couple episodes ago, we had one where they the crypt Keeper
was an astronaut for an episode that is about a ghostly hotel, Like what
the what the fuck is going on? What? Were like, But it's
funny, geez man, self fulfilling because he's doing weird He's doing weird things.
Isn't that funny? And then like let's make the most tenuous connection here
at the end that's kind of like a guy in this story. He also
is out of this world, Like what what? No? Yeah, but
like you're missing the point though, Like it's funny, you know what?
And I would overlook it if it were actually funny. Yeah, I know
that's I mean, that's the thing, Like, you know, ultimately,
at the end of the day, you you can really really, really really
really overlook a lot if it seems like you're trying, if it seems like
you're putting your best foot forward. I love all kinds of things that are
not quote unquote good. I love a lot of things as do you,
that you know are failures, but they're at least trying. It's a successful
failure. You know, they did something different, they tried. If you
entertain me, then I can overlook a lot. But yeah, if you're
unwilling to like at least make a move in that direction and expect me to
overlook all of the other bullshit that you've decided it doesn't matter. Get the
fuck out of here. It's it's a shame. Skip and skip. It's
a shame. It's a disappointment. And I I I yearn for the days
of the man who is death. Well, I think we were yearning for
those days throughout every season. But what a nail in the coffin. This
is is a we're not even gonna attempt to think about trying to give you
that level of quality we're just giving you whatever the fuck it comes into my
head and you'll like it because you're a fan of the show. Well,
and that's the other thing, right, it's this. It just feels like
they are okay with giving up. Yeah, right, like they they they
know that they've given up. They want you to know that that they've given
up, and that's it, and you should give up to, I guess
is the message I'm I'm getting from them. Even though it feels like worse
than you should give up to. It doesn't feel like you should give up
to. It's you'll take what you're given, right, because if they expected
us to give up too, they probably never would have done what they did,
would just make another season of the show to waste everyone's time. Yeah,
I mean, I hope everyone. I hope everyone got a got a
bunch of paychecks out of this, and you know, we're able to enjoy
their lives a little because that's the only benefit I can see from this season
coming, I mean, the from this season in general. But yeah,
skip skip hard, skip both these episodes. Skip basically this entire season so
far. So on the second to last season based episode of Chronicles from the
Crypt, we're gonna be talking about episodes nine and ten Smoke Rings and about
Face, and I'm pretty sure correct me if I'm wrong, Father Malone.
Smoke Rings has none other than Daniel Craig. Oh well, let's see how
he how they waste his talent. I've not seen either of these episodes.
We're guaranteed to find out, and like I said, just like a sucker,
I'm holding out hope there's gonna be a good one. That's gonna be
a gem. And what's crazy is it doesn't even have to be a gem.
It just has to be competent at this point, and I will give
it a pass or a watch. I I you know, we went into
this season with this again, this idea, this statement, this notion that
so many fans of the show really do not like this season and that this
season is not good. And I think the both you know, the both
of us were really hoping definitely not praying, but hoping. Yeah, we
were hoping that that was maybe an overblown maybe that's not reality, and then
no, that is reality truly. So where can people find you, Father
Malone? When you're not here? Find me. I'm going to spend most
of my time over at Father Malone dot com. You can check out my
radio drama podcast called Dark Destinations, where we investigate towns that don't exist,
and you can also hear me over on Dreams for Sale. The twilight Zone
eighty five podcast that Chris and I do with the Projection Booths Mike White,
where we look at the nineteen eighties reboot of The Twilight Zone, which is,
oh man, so much better than this. I was about to say,
literally, anything is better than this. As for me, you can
find me on Twitter at Casualty Underscore Chris. You can find the podcast on
Twitter at Chronicles FTC and on the Internet at chronic Us from the crypt dot
com. We do not know what we are doing past the end of the
season of the show, so if you have any ideas, keep them to
yourself, saying tweet at one of us. You know, I mean,
I know that there are fans of the show, and I have seen them
on Facebook and they listen to our podcasts. So if there's something that you
guys want us to cover, give us some ideas, because we are quickly
approaching the terminus of this show and we don't know what we're doing if anything,
So make a case for us to stick around, and if you don't,
we're still going to anyways. Tough shit and it's always big Thanks to
John Cassir for the intro to the podcast, and we'll catch you on the
next episode.