Hello, kleeps, it's me John Coulsier, the voice of the Crypt Keeper,
and you're listening to Chronicle from the Crypt. Oh there, I'm Chris
Stashu and I'm Father Malone, 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. Oh yeah,
that's my line. Um, there are bonus episodes after every season,
which I encourage you to go back and watch because because there will not be
another one. This is the final, the final hurrah here. Well,
to be fair, we don't know if we're doing it anything. We'll probably
do a wrap up for this season. Yes, absolutely, I think we
should do an overall wrap up. Yeah, I mean, if you want
to count that as a bonus episode. Yeah, yeah, Well it's more
of a bonus in the sense that likes we're not talking about the show specifically,
right, episode by episode? Ye yeah, I get it. But
yeah so, but this is the penultimate episode of our show. At least,
I'm talking about the show proper, yes, which is a shame because
the episodes we're talking about eleven and twelve of season seven. Confession and Ear
Today, Gone Tomorrow are two episodes in season seven, so let's talk about
them. Read the next line, phony, please, Okay, I see
m D see. Okay, that's enough. I think I see what the
problem is. Your eyes are in terrible shape, probably from watching too much
Tales from the Crypt. To fix it will require coactive lenses, maybe even
radial skeratotomy, although there is another test I could perform. We'll start by
turning out the lights and making you look at this. It's a nasty nugget
about a writer who's pretty fierce cited himself. I call this one confession.
So Confession aired July fifth, nineteen ninety six. It is directed by Peter
Hewitt and written once again by Scott Nimmerfro, and it stars Eddie Izzard and
Saren Hines as a screenwriter and detective, respectively. And Sieren Hines is the
best detective in this precinct, sure is a quirky one. At that Eddie
Izzard is being accused of murdering people because she's a screenwriter who's masquerading as Scott
Nimmerfro. Yeah, basically this is a Scott casting himself saying where fuck you
to the industry, which you know, look, I actually like that sort
of central conceit. It's something I think about from time to time as a
writer, and I often think, like, you know, sometimes you're looking
up odd topics in order to put them into a fictional context, but anyone
who would look at your Google history would think what is wrong with this fucking
person? So on that level life, and you hear that all the time,
by the way, Yeah, so you hear like, oh, we
went and looked at their Google search and it said that you were searching how
to get rid of a dead body. It's like, well, I write
about it for a living, Yeah exactly, So that's I think that is
just a good sort of modern fear, or at least you know from an
artistic point of view that you're trying to do something artistic, but any research
or side work to get to that point can be viewed as DVD and worthy
of prosecution, which clearly happens in this episode where you know it's a screenwriter
who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he's
now an easy mark to blame these murders on. Well, you know what
they say, you can go You can go to jail for being weird.
You certainly can. Those Paradise Lost Kids are a perfect example, and that
is you're not supposed to go to jail for being weird, but it happens
all the time. Yeah, it's it's easy to convince people of something you're
not, I think, particularly if they've never met you before. But anyway,
that like so the fact that it gets turned into that kind of plot
line, I appreciate it about the episode because as it was in the comic
book, not Tales from the Crypt, this was Shock Suspense Story Shock Suspense
Stories number four, written by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein and drawn by Wallywood.
Very beautifully drawn by Wallywood in the comic. But the story in the
comic is guy is driving home and witnesses an accident or finds a body basically
like by the side of the road, has no recourse. He's in the
middle of nowhere, so he drives to the next town to call the police,
but gets pulled over on the way. His car has a broken headlight
and they found glass at the scene, so they, you know, they
shake this guy down to get him to confess and then like the lead investigator
shows up and really starts hammering that this guy did it, even after the
rest of the people are like, yeah, I don't think he actually did
do it. Like, you know, we've beaten confessions out of tougher guys,
and the central inspector just keeps on going and going and going, and
as it turns out, just like in this episode, it's because the guy
had run his own wife over and needed a scapegoat, and so this became
the guy. So thematically it's the same story. I think the twist with
the screenwriter, while you know, is very meta and we're you know,
kind of tired of all of that now. I thought was a good thing
for that time and place. Like, I didn't hate the episode, and
I particularly it was easy to watch because of the two actors on screen,
but all of the machinations around it just felt a little trope and a little
you know, we've seen this all before. And Peter Hewitt as a director,
like, am I wrong? Did Peter Hewitt direct Bill and Ted's excellent
Adventure? Could I be wrong about that? Was it? The sequel?
He directed Bogus Journey, which is directorially speaking, a better film than that,
so it's not even like the I would also say it's just a better
movie in general, but I know, roast me. But also if you'd
like to hear my opinion, go check out the Projection Booth X culture Cast
episode where we talked about all three movies. And I justify my feelings because
you know what, I'll go to the graves saying Bogus Journey is a better
movie. Oh, it is a better movie, there's no question about it.
Oh it's more it's I know, I know, but you know what
that you know what the problem with it is just like I do. It's
the whole this is a weird movie. They're doing weird things. It's not
time travel, it's you know, Hell and Heaven and everywhere in between.
It's Aliens to Alien though it's like I love both. I love both of
those movies, but I will more often than not put on Bogus Journey just
because it is crazier and ultimately funnier. So and also later evil uses not
bad. Yeah, let's make things bad. Favorite line of the movie.
But anyway, as good at director as Peter Hewett was there, I don't
think he can sort of pull this out, and you know, the look
of the thing is very nineties. It's a lot of sort of overly saturated
colors, and you know, we're not sure what world this takes place in.
Everyone is kind of dressed like it takes place in a comic book,
right basically, I mean, you know, if you had said this is
that's what that's that is what I convinced myself of, because otherwise it could
not have been set in reality. Yeah. No, there was a lot
of that in the nineties as well, and I think that sort of got
set off when Tim Burton did Batman and he said it in a kind of
alternate earth where nineteen fifties cars are still around, but it's clearly like late
eighties. Do you know what this reminded me of? Like so much?
And it's an episode from this show, And when I say it, you'll
probably be like, oh, yeah, this reminded me of two for the
show, the David Paymer Tracy Lord's episode two for the show. Oh no,
I don't remember it. I've put it from my mind. Where the
guy where where David Paymer? And that I forget what the actor's name is.
M Vincent Spano were on the train together and it turns out that,
oh, he's the one who's in on it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
it's the same conceit of this episode. It's like, oh, you're
trying to catch the killer. Wink wink, I am the killer, wink
wink, Like fuck off. Yeah, you know it's funny. I had
never seen this episode before, and I had read the comics, so I
kind of knew that the cop was going to be the killer. But they
make a point of him being a bowler and that's how he's transporting these heads
around. So they take pains to have another cop like unzipper the bag and
look inside and what we see is a bowling ball, but it's just the
top of the bowling ball. Even that felt like like, had I had
no prior knowledge, would be like, yeah, that's a false thing.
Obviously the head is in there. Because it's so obvious that this guy is
the killer. There's there's never any doubt that Eddie Izzard's character is not the
villain. So I don't know. It's really lazy, Yeah, and right,
I mean it's it's the laziest. This is the laziest outcome what ends
up happening. I noticed when somebody goes for a field from the original comic.
They tend to come up with some other new modern concept and in their
mind they've revitalized a stale story. But then they really don't do anything to
get into the story itself. It's more about the setup and the twist and
if we can make the twist different than the comic, but you know,
more shocking, which it never is because we're always expecting it. Because it's
Tales from the crypt You know, that is rife this season. And Scott
was as guilty as anybody there. Oh, Scott Nimmerfro, you had to
go meta, you had to complain about everybody. Hey, whatever, right
you used to write for something called Tales from the crypt Ooh, I'm watching
Tales from the Crypt when you got canceled, Like yeah, we get it.
Like look again, we don't want to throw dirt on the dude's grave
because Scott Nimerfro is no longer with us. But oh, it's a little
on the head, bro. Yeah, oh it's which. Most of his
work on the series was like you got an occasional passable episode and the rest
were kind of just, you know, kind of clever revamps of the stories
that it was based on, but as lazy as anything else. It's you
know, can I recommend this episode? Absolutely not. I mean in comparison
to this season, maybe it was better, maybe it was watchable because of
the performances on screen, but other than that, in my own personal sort
of you know, fear of being wrongly accused, but I brought more to
the story than the story brought to me. Well, and again, I
think my biggest takeaway is you have Eddie Izzard and Searan Hines and neither one
of them get any time to do anything. You could have let them sit
in a room for an hour together and just go back and forth, and
it would have been entertaining. Why did you only give us like eleven minutes
of us? That was what Jeane Siskel's old thing after a movie, like
if you liked the performances but didn't like the movie itself and was sort of
wrestling with whether or not he would recommend the movie based on the performances,
he would ask, when I have enjoyed a movie more or of those actors
eating breakfast and talking, And that's the case here, Like, yeah,
of course that would have been great, Like I'm sure you know, those
two guys are interesting enough just to watch, never mind, the stories that
they would have told would have been far more interesting than the sort of wrote
revenge kind of tale. I don't know, it's is this ain't good?
I'm gonna say skip this one. Yeah, I'm with you, I mean,
and it's you know, it's kind of coincidental that Sieren Hines, Steppenwolf
of Justice League fame, is being criminally wasted here too, so he goes
from Game of Thrones to this to Harry Potter. He did play Julius Caesar
on one season of Rome, the HBO television series, and he's very good
in that. I would recommend if you want to see Karen Hines doing his
thing, watch that show. And actually that was a really good He's also
great. He's also great in The Terror. Don't know it. It's a
TV show about Franklin Expedition to the Northwest Passage. Yeah, I know of
it. I have not yet partaken of it. I will check it out.
The first season is about the Franklin Passes. The second season is about
Japanese internment. You know, that thing that totally didn't happen because nobody talks
about it anymore, except for George Decay. He's on the front lines with
that. Good for him. Well yeah, George Decay is actually in the
show about it so spectacular. Yeah, so check that out. Don't watch
this episode. Father Malone said it best. Skip it. And now,
ladies and gentlemen, we transition to the second to last episode of Tales from
the Crypt. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow. Look, lady, I'm sorry
if the product made your skin fall off, but we never do exchanges on
sale merchandise. Next some people maybe at dooming Dale's. The Ghostomo is always
fright, but not here. I interruested into my Blood Special. It concerns
a couple of crooks who are about to learn the benefits of dying wholesale.
I call this bit of Gash and Carrie Ere Today Gone Tomorrow. So Here
Today, Gone Tomorrow. Is directed by Christopher Hart. It's written by Stephen
Dodd and Ed Tapia. It is based off of Haunt of Fear eleven and
it stars Robert Lindsay as a as a safe cracker who gets in with some
bad folks. And this is, without a doubt, one of the dumbest
things I've ever seen. It's real bad um. Yeah, So he's a
safe cracker, shocking in its lack of logic, safe cracker who's losing his
hearing. It gets um taken in by a millionaire's wife who wants this guy
to cracker safe but of course he has this embeddiment and that he's losing his
hearing. But she knows a guy. She also wants him to crack her
safe. Yeah, but she's only using sex to sort of sway him,
which which I actually appreciated that the characters. I thought that was the euphemism
we were going. Yeah, of course I was. No, no,
no, I'm continuing it. Uh, that's one aspect I like that.
The guy wasn't really falling for that, like that I like. But anyway,
so he undergoes a medical experimentation where they replace his ear drums, her
ears in general, with that of an owl. So now he can hear
it well, but he doesn't know He doesn't know that it's an owl yet,
right Yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's the big conceit, right Yeah,
So so you know, I don't know, it's just stupid. It's
all double crosses. It's the same thing we've seen a million times on tails
from the Crypt. But yes, it was an owl that they used for
to replace his ears, and now he turns into one for some reason.
Well, no, no, he doesn't turn into one. He turns halfway
into one, because if he turned into one, then I would have less
questions than I have now, which is what where was her tail and her
fur? Yeah? Yeah, exactly. The girl had undergone experimentation as well,
like have replaced her eyes, I guess, And so now she has
some of the attributes. But oh god, you're you're missing, You're missing
the important part. They don't replace them in the people who are getting them.
They give them to someone else so that they're like a Petri dish for
it, and then they kill that person and take the organ from them to
put into the person. Because science is slow, says the other actor in
this, David Gant. It's very overly complicated for what is a nothing of
a payoff where we get some poor prosthetic work from the team over there in
England. I got to say across the board this season, whoever's doing the
physical effects the special effects makeup for this season of Tels of the Crypt like
did not do a good job. And anyway that continues understatement of the year.
Yeah, I mean you would if you went to a home haunt around
Halloween time, You're going to see better makeup than we got out of this
season of Tales from the Crypt, including this transformation at the end which guy
gets a beak. I guess can't talk anymore. No, no, he
gets a beak. There's no guessing here. It just looks like shit.
It's it's really bad. Now. Now you mentioned that this is based on
Haunt of Fear number eleven. I had not seen this episode, and I
had I was not familiar with the comic book derivation of it, so I
went and got Haunt of Fear number eleven. That story was written by Al
Feldstein alone and drawn by Jack Davis. Here's the thing that story Here Today,
Gone Tomorrow is about two guys running a fertilize fertilizer factory or production plant
that is next door to a cemetery. They receive an order that they cannot
possibly fill, but it will make them rich beyond their wildest dreams, so
they tunnel through the basement of their factory into the graveyard, taking all of
the corpses in order to turn them into fertilizer. Later in the story,
these guys are on a trip, some business trip, and they're in the
middle of corn fields when their car breaks down. They see a farmer's house,
get out of the car to go call someone, and as they're walking
through the field, the ears of corn come to life and pummel them to
death because that field was fertilized with the corpses that they had delivered to the
fertilizer company. Now, I thought that is the most freely adapted episode of
Dales from Crypt of all time. But I mean the fact that they went
from killer corn to a guy with a beak that is a jump right now,
One would think so, except when I dug a little deeper, I
discovered that this is not based on Ear Today, Gone Tomorrow, even though
they use the title, it's actually from a genuine Tales from the Crypt much
book number twenty four. The original story is Wow. The original story is
called bats in my Belfry where There's no safe cracking, which, by the
way, sounds like the most hilarious like student like a euphemism. I got
some bats in my belfor if you want to come get up That concerned a
guy who was losing his sight. Was it his sight? No, it
was it was his hearing. Okay, sorry, yeah, because they replace
it with a bat in that room, Yeah yeah. In that version,
he's an actor, is a stage actor, and he's about to sort of
get a big role which will catapult him to fame. And he's had this
wife who's lived with him the entire time he was struggling as an actor,
and now here it comes and he knows, like, I could probably fake
it, but I'm going to miss my cues. I have to do something.
Talks to a guy he knew who was you know. Basically the story
plays out as it is a friend of his who sympathetic says, listen,
I do know this guy. He's doing this experiment where he's replacing organs with
working organs. It might work for you. It's not an owl. They've
replaced his things with a bat, which he knows full well from from jump
like, he knows he's getting a bat's hearing. As it turns out,
see, it's if the story is so tales from the CRYPTI, it's out
of hand. The wife has a lover and they're going to bump this guy
off. Wouldn't be Tales of the crypt without that. Yeah, right,
So he can hear them having a conversation because he has vampire or bat hearing
now, And when the guy comes after him, they they're in an alleyway
and the guy's going to kill him, but it turns out that it was
a vampire bat that they used to replace the thing, so he has become
a vampire and he kills the guy, goes back, kills the wife,
takes their bodies, feeds them to his friend who had an eye transplant with
the cat and is now ferrell and needs to eat flesh. So there you
go. It ends up being kind of freely adapted either way. But Jesus
christ Man, I wanted them to have made that Haunt of Fear story with
the ears of corn smacking these guys to death. That could that could have
been at least hilarious. That sounded like the episode I wish we had got.
That's what I mean, because that sounds it sounds just stupid enough to
work. I read I read that comic and I was like, are you
kidding? Why didn't we have this? And then I saw what they had
actually drawn from the I'm like, oh, okay, they just pulled the
title. That's that's a drag. So well, yeah, because you couldn't
call it bats in the Belfry without it having bats in it. Yeah,
because making the character a bat would have made no sense. Oh wait,
it wouldn't have mattered. So why did you change it? In? Like
that's what I've never understood, Like, I don't understand the logic here,
like why did you change the Why did you steal a name and then rip
off an episode or adapt an episode? But in adapting the episode, whose
title would have made sense? Should you or would you or could you have
kept the animal that they used to turn him into as a bat? You
wouldn't have had to change it at all, and turning him into a bat
wouldn't have mattered. Yeah, well, I think that the thinking must have
been, Wait, he turns into a vampire because he has a vampire bat.
Think that's just silly, let's have him. That's what it so unbelievable.
Who the most unbelievable of things is this guy turning into a vampire?
Who not him turning into a goddamn owl? That's you know, that just
happens, you know. So they made the right call here in avoiding the
utter ridiculousness of a man turning into a bat or a vampire by the end
of the episode, and god forbid we ever get a decent vampire story here
on Tales from the Crypt, Donald Longtooth has entered the chat. Yeah,
sure, has put him in the waiting room. We don't want him part
of the call yet, Donald long to They also wrote a couple episodes of
the show. I don't know if you know that I'm aware of his his
prolific work in the early seasons of this show. It's a you know,
season season seven has been bad. Yeah, that's I mean, speaking of
euphemisms, Yeah, it's a it's it's a it's a pit, it's it's
it's never and it's a train wreck. Yeah, like quicksand you just can't
get leverage to get up on top if if. What it feels like is
all of the the positive movement and positive progression that we've made with this show,
and all of the good that the show has done, because a lot
of this show is really good, has been completely wasted in this seventh season.
The seventh season feels like it is doing its damnedest to try to ruin
the entire show. For us, it does seem that way. I mean,
and I know we've said this before, like if it was their intention
to do a Viking funeral, then they they did it in the laziest way
possible. If they if the idea it was you got one more season,
and this is definitely it, even though you thought, you know, and
you had thought you had already been sandbagged. And then they're like no,
no, no, one more like why wouldn't you turn it up all the
way, make the Gorrioust episodes, the craziest episodes, the sexiest episodes.
It's like it was like a missed opportunity on every level, like like putting
aside, just make competent tailors from the crypt episodes. No, like you
could have gone whole hog, and instead what we've gotten is just like it's
not vegan sausage. Yeah, it's it's so it's such a shadow of its
former self, and that anyone who was in charge was fine with that is
really dismaying. And he and here is the thing. We went into this
season knowing that the season was going to be bad, because I we've heard
nothing but that from folks who love the show, and look We've gotten reviews
on iTunes about people who think that we don't like the show, And why
would you talk about this show if you don't like it. If you can't
be like, you know, objective about the ship that you watch, that's
not our fault. Yeah, and I that's your fault. I would I
would suggest you can just because you like something doesn't mean you can follow it
blindly off of the cliff. Yeah. And I would suggest that these people
go back and actually watch the show as we did. It was eye opening.
I'm yeah, no, no, we're we're wrong because we don't like
the show, even though we've spent the last four fucking years watching the show.
Yeah, these people who are just sort of you know all they do
what it seems to me, most of these people, just as we did,
remember the best episodes and remember how much the crypt Keeper made them laugh
or interested them in horror, or you know that it was a gateway for
them for horror, and like that's all valid and honestly and frankly, we
are in the same boat in many respects and we were four years ago,
right, And but at the same time, I don't think critically thinking like
I never said to anyone it was a perfect series. Like I couldn't.
I couldn't rail at somebody for telling me that they didn't like the show.
I would say, well, you should watch these episodes because those are great.
Speaking to your comment about people following it blindly, why not go back
and watch it? Like, Ultimately, what I'm trying to say is,
even as bad as the past two seasons that I've been, and they've been
really, really bad, it has not lessened my love for the show one
iota. The things that I remember, not initially from watching it, I'm
still gonna remember, and there are a few gems there that I was not
even privy too before rewatching it. So I'd say, definitely, everyone go
back and watch as many episodes as you want, because it will startle you
the ratio of good to bad. But I will say I'm not in too
much surprise at how many bad ones there are. Well, given what kind
of show this is, Uh well, I mean you're speaking about anthology,
right, I mean even even the best anthology shows are going to have some
clunkers, no question about it. But yeah, Twilight Zone, the original
run of the Twilight Zone. Absolutely not every not every episode of that is
good. Yeah, people remember you know Nightmare and twenty thousand Feet certainly great
episode or you know, any episode that touched you or scared you. Those
are still touching and scary. But there was a lot that never sort of
saw the light of day after a while, certainly not when they start putting
like best of you know, playlists of shows and movies and whatever. You
know, you you you're only going to give the best, and so your
opinion is going to stay that that was the best or anthology series of all
the time. I will say this about too and their crypton. I know
I've said this before, but as far as you know, the track record
of anthology shows has always hit or miss because it's always based on the writing
and who knows what's being brought to the table while you're in the gears of
making a television show happen. But in this case, you know how many
years they have to have been on year six making the show by now?
Right? This is I came out in ninety seven, and they had to
have filmed it in ninety six. They've been doing it since eighty nine,
I would assume, I would assume. Yeah, So there's the wealth of
material in all of the ec comics. It's inexcusable. Like I know,
they tried, you know, we've talked about it before. They tried to
make a spinoff show, the Two Fisted Tails, and that didn't pan out.
Nevertheless, I guarantee you if you're read through all of Two Fisted Tails,
you're going to get a few supernatural and or sort of bitterly ironic stories
that could have been transposed here, which they did a couple of times,
but not really. And you know, the majority of the s is based
on Haunt of Fear and Vault of Horror. Anyway, Like you can't tell
me every issue of Tales from the Crypt or Haunt of Fear. You've got
five stories in it, multiplied by how many issues, multiplied by how many
titles. The fact that they're only doing twelve thirteen episodes a season and they
didn't find a gem or something that could be polished into one is part and
parcel. With the last two seasons of the show, people just didn't care
anymore and weren't giving their best effort. So anyway, long long way to
say that I still love the show, but if you're defending this season,
I don't know that I can continue to talk to you as a rational human
being. It's really bad. Well, and let's not kid ourselves. And
this is something that we haven't really brought up, and I know we had
talked about maybe we would talk about it. I still think maybe we do
have one bonus one or two bonus episodes in us. And I think I
think you know and I know the things we could cover. But you brought
this up because you brought up two fisted tails. So I want to bring
this up for the audience in case the audience doesn't know. There wasn't just
one other show that they were trying to launch from Tales from ther There were
two. There were two. There was another show that was running a year
later and they ran in for one season. It ran it into the ground,
and it was on HBO and it was produced by the same group five
people. And that show was Perversions of Science. We watched one episode of
it together when I went when my wife and I came to visit you what
two years ago now, we watched an episode together, the four of us,
and it was offensive and shocking and really dumb. But again it goes
to this idea that like they had Tales from the Crypt, and they didn't
use any Tales from the Crypt stuff. Yeah, and then they just go
in there like, oh now we have access to easy comics, is weird
science, weird fantasy, an incredible sci fi? Like okay? And you
know what, that only reinforces what I said, because they had those books,
which they didn't adapt any of those for Tales from the Crypt. There
are plenty of horrifying stories in those three titles. And just I don't think
that they were like holding off and waiting to do this separate series. I
think that it was just an afterthought, like, well, let's keep the
money train going. And I did watch the entirety of Perversions of Science after
we watched the one episode, and there are some good ones, but then
there's a lot oh good, yeah, but there's a lot of you know,
good enough episodes, which well there's only ten episodes, right, I
mean, yeah, It's it's sad to me because we I hope we talk
about it. I think we should talk about one or two Perversions of Science
episodes, the good ones, yeah, the good ones, not the ones
with sex change. Paul Williams, Yancy Butler's something about a fuck I don't
know. I think we're not. The way you just described it is going
to make people think it's good, it's not. It's not. It's not.
It sounds good, but it's not. It's It's sad to me because,
like you said, you look at the sources for those episodes, and
those kinds of stories felt like they should have been adapted before you adapted Two
Fisted Tales. Totally, there's enough horror in weird science and weird fantasy or
horror like Two Fisted Tails. Stuff is not horror adjacent. It's like horror
double adjacent, like Two Fisted Tales is not adjacent. Sci fi is closer
to horror than action is absolutely or Cowboys story. Yeah. The funny thing
about that is they, you know, they made Two Fisted Tales like like
they had made the pilot for Tales from the Crypt with three separate tales by
sort of bigger named directors, and in that case, one of the stories
is adapted from nothing, like they didn't even trust their source material in their
pilot. It's really sad that Tales from the Crypt ends up looking like the
poster child for what's wrong with the industry now, truly, right, Like
Oh, we have this cool source material that actually is really good. Let's
just ignore it completely and just use the title that's yeah, that's that that's
going on, thanks twice and Benny Off Yeah, or you know, um
like our recent DC fair Like or dexter a fundamental misunderstanding of the of the
property to begin with, but knowing that people love it, so let's go
ahead and adapt it. But you know, you know what, and I
don't think you got to give the fans what they want. I'm not I'm
not that guy. Like you know, you can adapt something in the spirit
of the material and do a creditable job of emulating what people loved about it
in the first place, but you have to have had that love of the
show or whatever property we're talking about to begin with. Just sort of you
know, merchandizing it effectively is never going to result in something good. And
it does feel that way with the ec comics, maybe more with the other
titles. I'm sure those five guys the executive producers had read Tales from the
Crypt Revolt of Horror and remember like loving it and the feeling it made in
them when they were kids. Without sort of going full bore into all of
the issues. So like Tales from the Crypt, at least early on felt
like the love of the material was there, whereas both two fisted tails and
perversions of science, it was just like, well, what can we do
with this, which is never a reason to do anything. And look,
I will I don't think I will ever say or I don't think I will
ever have a nice word to say about David Geiler. So you could take
four of those people out, yea, I'm sorry, Yeah, I mean,
you know, look, I think Walter Hill is one of the best
action filmmakers of all time, but like as a producer, but you will
remind me saying anything positive about Guyler. Well you know, look, Hill's
right there with him. I mean, look, they the pair of them,
attempted to remove Dan O'Bannon's name from the Alien script, replacing it with
their own. That is literally the reason why I don't like either of them.
Yeah, and it is the same reason that I know you have an
issue with that totally. That's and like, and he's a writer. That
cuts to the core of our friendship here, I'm not kidding, Like you're
the only person. Well yeah, but like we're both very much in the
same vein of Obannon in a lot of ways, like abrasive, don't shut
the fuck up, don't know when to shut the fuck up in some respect.
Yeah, and look at what happened to Dan O'Bannon. I mean,
you know, I mean it's not like Guyler was like your shit's shit,
it's shit, We're going to rewrite it, fuck you. It's not like
he was destitute or anything. But there was the potential there for like actual
cinematic greatness, which I think he delivered on a number of occasions from without
the director's share and one time in it because Return of the Living Dead is
probably the best zombie movie ever made. But oh it is, yeah,
and it is so and that's and that's coming from you, the person who
likes Day of the deads or Dawn of the Dead someone yahdahna dead is like
my favorite movie of all time. But I can recognize that Return of the
Living Dead it's a whole other animal. It's it's scary in ways that Romero
hadn't not considered but chose not to portray. He was more interested in a
particular viewpoint, and um, you know, O'Bannon was working actively in the
opposite direction of everything Romero had done. And why was he doing that because
he was a writer and respected what Romero had done, and was, if
anything, paying tribute to the man, which any writer ought to do,
including Walter Hill and David Geyler, and taking someone's name change it. And
they did it in the sloppiest way possible, where they just changed the character's
names and maybe wrote one more scene and then you know, submitted it for
arbitration, like get the fuck out of here. Well, and here's the
funny thing, right, this happens all the time in Hollywood, dear listener.
You might not know it, but Father Malone can attest to it,
and I can attest to it having spoken to people and or no people and
or have been friends with people that have heard about these kinds of things happening.
And nine times out of ten nothing comes of it. Right, Like
the movie doesn't go on to be one of the most influential horror sci fi
films of all time. Right, But in this case, it did,
sure did. Yeah, And that's the problem, one hundred percent is in
this scenario that is the problem. In this scenario, you have cameras in
front of people twenty thirty years later, and these people are going, yeah,
well we rewrote the script, and me and Walter Hill we rewrote it.
It's like, fuck you, fuck both of you. Fuck the hills
you both fucking are standing on right now because you're both full of shit.
Yeah. Look, I mean they brought an element of the Hill doesn't even
show up. Guyler's the one making all those claims in the Alien documentary.
Maybe because Walter Hill knows how wrong he wasn't doing it and Guy, well
that's my assumption. Yeah, which is why I like, which is why
I give Walter Hill a little bit more of a pass of Geyler. But
the I forget what it's called, like the making like, oh, what's
it called the Beast or something. It's on YouTube, you can watch it.
It was from the Alien quadrilogy. It's the making of ALIENA and David
Guyler. It just seems like such a fucking prick. Yeah, just unrepentant
asshole of the highest order. And look, most people, well in the
industry aren't like this. But the people that are are like him. They
want they just want whatever they want. They don't give a shit what it
takes to get it. Yeah, it's funny. I just read an interview
yesterday with Dana Vann and it was sort of late in life, and they
were talking to him about Alien and he was like, you know, I'm
on record as to what happened, and they were asking him about the sequels
and stuff, and he's like, those guys detest me because I showed them
for the liars that they were, So I have zero involvement other than getting
a paycheck from here on out. And it's clear that we can talk about
that many movies because those guys didn't give a shit about the property to begin
with, and they'll just let anyone make anything now as long as they're you
know, as long as the money train keeps on Roland, they don't care
how if the quality dips and gets worse and worse, which it clearly has
with that franchise. Oh and there's part of me that would love to know
what those movies would have looked like had Guyler and Hill not stuck their stupid
little noses and everything true, there were some interesting, interesting concepts out there
that they put they they put the knicks on. Yeah, because look as
much as I like aliens, which I know you like aliens, too.
I mean, I would like to see a universe where we got to see
what Dan O'Bannon got to do with it. Dan O'Bannon and Ron choose it
truly, But you know, at the same time, like O'Bannon seemed pretty
set in them. You know, I think he admired what Cameron did with
Aliens because it took it to a different genre, because O'Bannon recognized that the
story was done as far as you can't go back to another horror movie with
these guys, with this particular alien, because that it's all based on the
sort of surprise and anticipation and any of the scares from the first film can't
really be replicated without you know, the law of diminishing returns. So I
think it was content in cashing his checks there for Alien and that that was
only involved and he wanted with it. But you're right, and ultimately,
you know, push comes to shove. If somebody was going to write an
Alien sequel, I'm curious to know what his ideas were because they probably would
have been pretty wild. And if people don't believe that, don they're done.
Dan O'Bannon and Ron Shoe Set made Magic together after the fact. Just
go watch total recall they wrote the script for that movie. Yeah, O'Bannon
really, but yea yeah, and that movie. Look, I don't know
who. I don't know a person who doesn't like that movie, but I'm
not sure that that person exists because that movie is just so good in every
way? Or should they? Yeah? And that you know what, I'm
just gonna keep singing Obandon's praises because when he adapted that script. You know,
if you read the original story that it's based on, it's the first
act of Oh yeah, that's all there is to it. And so like
Shoots, it came to Abandon and said, can you what can you do
with this? And he's like, well, this is just the first act,
So I'll write I'll write the first act for you and you can take
it to somebody else. But here's what you ought to do. And she
was like, no, that's terrible. Brought it to another writer who wrote
a second act, which was terrible, as O'Bannon predicted. He came back
to Oban and said, okay, do your second act, and then you
know, at the end he was like, you guys are expecting like a
James Bond thing. Here at the end, it needs to be a James
Bond and he was like, no, no, no, no, no,
no, nobody wants him to go to Mars actually, and brought it
to another writer same thing, brought it back to Obannon, who sort of
finished the script, and then they collectively got rewritten a number of times.
If there are dumb things in that movie, it wasn't from O'Bannon. If
you'read his original script, it's it's really tight and not as fantastical as what
we got. And Shoe said O'Bannon wrote Dead and Buried, which is also
another amazing film that doesn't get enough talk. Totally it's you know, look,
it's this whole thing with tales from the Crypt. Like the more I
look at the people involved in the making of the show, the more I
realize who the problem was. Well, yeah, I mean, look,
it's very like, it's very apparent. Let's just put it that way.
Well, the you know they say the fish rots from the head down,
right, Once those guys like, look, I think a couple of them
were like devotees of the show, and I recognized it for what it was.
But I think once those guys checked out, the other co executive producers
who had already checked out, like there was no redeeming it. I mean,
you still had interesting and creative people behind the scenes. I'm not going
to say that, you know, anything after the first or second season wasn't
good, because there's plenty to mine out of seasons three, four, and
five, But once we get to six and seven, it's really patchy and
bad. So anyway, so do you were so before we talk, before
we get to our final episode, which is the next thing you'll hear is
our final episode on talking about the show proper, I want to ask you,
father Malone, where did the show Let's use this colloquialism because nobody uses
it anymore. Where did the show jump the shark? Uh? It can't
jump the shark anymore, it's already jumped in. The question is where was
that moment? Where was the momentum? It's not the it's not the three
Little Pigs episode coming up. I can gartt know you know it, FONSI
was back home by the time we got to the Pigs m jump in the
shark. You know, I don't know that. I can sort of point
to a definitive episode and go it never recovered from this because, as we've
said, it's it is an anthology show, so you're even in the worst
season, you're gonna get maybe something good. But I think once once we
got the season four maybe or maybe once they started making movies, what was
the what was the when did Demon Knight come out? In the chronology of
our tails from the Crypt, So Demon Knight came out in nineteen ninety five.
Ninety five. Wow, that's pretty late. M Yeah. So,
so that was the thing I was under the impression before we started this podcast
that Demon Knight was like while the show was still on. No, Demon
Knight was in between season six and seven. Okay, well, clearly they
knew that was on the horizon. And I'm gonna say anything past season four,
I'll say the start of season five, I'll mark that as the end
is nigh for the show. Do you know what's insane? Though? Demon
Night and Bordello of Blood. So Demon Night comes out the thirteenth of January
in nineteen ninety five, so season five of the show had already aired.
Okay, Season six of the show is about to finish, So not between
six and seven as much as is just right at the end of season six,
so maybe, and then Blood comes out after well, Bordello of Blood
comes out in ninety six, in August of ninety six. Okay, so
the show is over when Bordello of Blood comes out. It's weird thinking about
it now. Demon Knight and Bordello of Blood feel like they belong around the
third season of this shoe. They do, because as much as I can't
really recommend I can't really recommend Bordello of Blood at all, but there's a
lot in Demon Knight, though you could recommend it over shit that we've seen
in season seven. Oh yeah, so certainly. Yeah. No, That's
the thing. That's the lesson we've learned doing this podcast is like, once,
if you're doing two episodes together and one of them is good, it
becomes magnified how good it is based on the dreariness of the other one.
And if you put those two movies against anything season six and season seven,
I'm going to watch the movie again, like, you know, rather than
waste time watching what are effectively mediocre episodes that seemed better because of what's around
them, Like I'd rather watch a ninety minute movie where you know it may
not be the best movie out there, but they seem to be trying,
and it felt more tonally consistent with the show as I knew it in seasons
one through four. Absolutely, yeah, it's it's very weird. The movies
now looking back, feel like a holdover. I think I would say the
movies were the time the show started going down the tubes, but they happened
so late that it's it is. I would agree with you. I think
it's around like halfway through season four. Yeah, probably probably for me.
The show kind of starts trending downward after What's Cooking, you know what.
That's that's a pretty good touchdowne for it. Like that What's Cooking is the
Christopher Reeve episode, right that was like the last truly amazing episode of this
show. I agree, like one where I was wrapped watching it. Yeah,
and it's one that's like consistently looked at as one of the best episodes
of this show, rightfully, So that, yeah, it's really good.
That's it. That's the Tales from the Crypt episode. Everything else is feels
like an imitation of Tales from the Crypt. You know, We've said this
a bunch of times, but like you know, we also do a show
about the Twilight Zone reboot from eighty five, and it counts there too.
Sometimes you're watching it, you're like, what does this have to do with
Tales from the Crypt like at all? Like this is why are we watching
a crime thing? You know, like you're going to throw in a twist
at the end, so then therefore it's worthy of this. No, weed
those stories out, get back into the fucking shit man, Like there's plenty
of good horror out there. Yeah, I've never understood the lack of horror
in this show. I've never understood it. I have never understood it,
and I will never understand it. Because I bet if you go back and
maybe I will in between now and when we do our final kind of wrap
up episodes, I would love to know how many of these episodes have verifiable
supernatural elements in them? Very few, because I bet it's less than half.
I bet it's less than a third probably. But you know what's funny,
like even an episode that had no supernatural elements, And I'm going all
the way back to the beginning here, like whether or not Zamachis pulled off
and all through the house as he certainly didn't, as well as the original
movie. Like, regardless of whether or not it's successful as an episode,
you can tell it is designed to frighten you. Does that make sense?
Like there's a there's an intent behind it. It's I'm going to figure out
a way to scare you at some point in this episode, whereas later episodes
it was like the trappings of horror were enough, and that's you know,
I don't know that. It always bothers me. It's like, yes,
the setup is a scary one, I get that, but you're not really
doing anything in an attempt to freak me out so well, and also,
what I always felt like the show wanted was the show wanted to be kind
of not nasty about it, but it kind of reveled in scaring you.
That was the point of the crypt Keeper, where he's like, isn't that
scary? Like, yeah, he's supposed to be a rope boy, the
crip. He's supposed to be a release sidelined on top of everything else.
Yeah, I mean his jokiness is to like ease you in and out of
what's supposed to be a harrowing experience. Not wasn't that dumb? Wasn't that
guy dumb? Like that's been his episode like wrap ups for season seven,
like this person was an asshole? Weren't they? They sure were? Now
back to my bit, Oh yeah, but I mean I feel bad for
John Cassiir and like Kevin Jaeger, like the puppet looks like shit. John
Cassier is just being given these like really boring, out of place lines.
Yeah, but you know what when they were given the where are the assholes
here? Mind you? That's the Problemactly when when those guys were given stuff
to do, they knock it out of the park. So again, this
season is garbage. Don't watch this one? Could did I say skip it
already? I think I've been talking for twenty extra minutes. Skip this episode,
Skip this season in general. Skip skip skip skip skip skip it,
skip it, don't look back. Don't look in this season for quality because
it's not here now. And that's a shame because tailors from the Crypt did
all of us dirty. Yeah. If you find enjoyment in this season,
great, good for you. I'm not telling you you can't enjoy it.
Frankly, I don't even care if you enjoy it, just like you shouldn't
care if I enjoy it. But I think we can all agree as fans
of the show, which we are, the effort that they put forward in
this season, and especially this season, and somewhat the last one lacking,
and that's not okay, not in any way, shape or form. No,
So on that we will bring you our five episode talking about the show
proper on the next episode, and we're gonna be talking about the only fully
animated episode of the show. It took them ninety three episodes to get there,
but they're here now, and we're gonna be talking about the Third Pig,
which I kid you not, the final episode of Tales from the Crypt
is based on the Three Little Pigs, because even the final episode of the
show isn't based on Tales from the Crypt right to the end, right they
they hung the lantern on it too. They're consistent. I mean, it
does beggar the question, though, could they have done this show like that
where they take stories and put them through the Tales from the Crypt lens.
That's the question I want answered on the next episode because I've never seen it,
but I'm I'm curious. We will discuss the answer is now. Until
then, where can people find to your father Malone? Oh? Great God,
damn you. No, you can hear me. If you want to
check me out any of the crazy non sense I post, go to father
Malone dot com. I got links there to everything, including the main thing
that I do, which is I write and produce a half hour to forty
five minute radio drama every month called Dark Destinations, where we bring you to
towns that do not exist. You can also hear me with Chris and our
goodman Mike White over at Dreams for Sale the twilight Zone eighty five podcast.
As I've been quoted as saying the only decent reboot of the Twilight Zone that
exists. Not only have you been quoted saying it, I say it at
the beginning of every podcast. I know. That's what I'm referring to.
Yeah, as for me, you can find me on Twitter at Christmas Clause
and that's where I am culturecast other things I post it there. Yeah,
that's where you can find me. You can find us on Twitter at Chronicles
FTC and on Instagram and yeah, that's where you can find us Chronicles FTC
dot com or excuse me, chronicles from the crypt dot com. Big thanks
as always to John because here Um for for being the crypt Keeper that we
uh we definitely deserved because man, that guy's still he's still putting in work
right until the end, so you gotta give him credit for that, and
uh yeah, we'll catch you on the next episode.