Editorials
Hello Boils and Ghouls: The Legacy of “Tales From the Crypt”
HBO’s horror anthology series Tales From the Crypt premiered 27 years ago today. It would be selfish to solely credit the HBO series for it’s footprint in the horror genre, so to truly understand the legacy that Tales From the Crypt has left behind, one must go all the way back to October of 1950, when the first issue of Entertaining Comics’ (formerly Educational Comics) Tales From the Crypt (then known as The Crypt of Terror) was unleashed upon the world.
In 1950, William Gaines, son of EC’s founder Maxwell Gaines, realized that he and his editor Al Feldstein both sought to create the same type of horror fiction in a post-World War II era when male readers had grown weary of the standard detective comic books that were being released at the time. Readers were demanding something more risqué. They wanted something with lots of gore. Gaines and Feldstein begane to inject elements of horror into their crime stories, and thus paved the way for Tales From the Crypt. No issue was more important than Issue #15 of Crime Patrol, titled “Return From the Grave!” This particular issue, which was the December 1949/January 1950 issue, served as the introduction of the Crypt Keeper, functioning as the host of the story. By the time issue #17 rolled around, Gaines and Feldstein had changed the title of the series from Crime Patrol to The Crypt of Terror. After three issues of that had been published, the series was renamed Tales From the Crypt in the October/November 1950 issue. The series would go on to publish 27 issues before ending in 1955. The final publication was the February/March 1955 Issue (#46).
Of course, Tales From the Crypt wasn’t the only horror series for EC Comics (It doesn’t make a lot of sense does it? That expands to Entertainment Comics Comics.). EC also had The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear to keep up with. Each series had their own host: The Crypt Keeper for Tales, the Vault Keeper for Vault and the Old Witch for Haunt. Each host would invade the other series and trade barbs with the other hosts, while constantly trying to one-up each other. Their sole purpose was to add some levity to juxtapose the sheer horror of the tales being told within the comics.
The Crypt Keeper didn’t always start out as the emaciated skeleton we know today. Hi initial appearance was that of a man in a long robe. He eventually grew more and more grotesque (and more humorous) in the comics before being portrayed by British actor Ralph Richardson in the 1972 film adaptation. It wasn’t until 1989 when HBO premiered their anthology series Tales From the Crypt that the Crypt Keeper took on his now iconic look.
Five Decades of Crypt Keepers
In the mid-50s, horror comics were criticized by authority figures and were thought to have caused delinquency among minors, which was becoming more of a problem in America. As a result, many restrictions were placed on comic books (they were forbidden from depicting zombies, vampires and other monsters), thereby making it nearly impossible to maintain the creative liberties they had once held. Gaines cancelled Tales From the Crypt and EC’s other horror series, releasing a final issue for February/March 1955 (Issue #46).
The world would go without another taste of Tales From the Crypt until 1972, when the aforementioned British film adaptation was released. Two of the five stories included in the film were adapted from Tales From the Crypt while the other three from from Vault of Horror and Haunt of Fear. It received moderately positive reviews and was able to earn back its budget of £170,000. The following year saw the release of Vault of Horror, which served as the sequel to Tales From the Crypt. Oddly enough, none of the vignettes in Vault of Horror actually came from the Vault of Horror . Four of the vignettes were adapted from Tales From the Crypt, with one coming from Shock SuspenStories. In a questionable creative decision, the Vault Keeper was left out of the film.
On June 10, 1989, HBO premiered its adaptation of EC’s Tales From the Crypt, simply titled Tales From the Crypt. To fully understand the cultural significance of Tale From the Crypt, one must realize that in 1989 HBO was primarily known as a premium cable channel where you would watch uncensored movies. The channel didn’t have the amazing lineup of television series that it has right now. When Tales From the Crypt premiered, it was the first show put on television that was able to escape the censorship put in place by the network standards and practices and put as much profanity, gore, sex/nudity and drugs as they wanted on the screen. Because of this, it put HBO on the minds of television viewers everywhere. Not everyone was in love with the series, but enough viewers watched it to make it one of HBO’s biggest hits (which makes it even more depressing that it isn’t available on HBO Go due to rights issues). The pedigree of the show’s executive producers is quite impressive, made up of several talented film directors and producers: Richard Donner, Robert Zemeckis, Joel Silver, Walter Hill and David Giler.
In this adaptation of the EC Comics series, the Crypt Keeper was a ghastly skeleton puppet voiced by the superb John Kassir and operated by the late Van Snowden (who did the puppetry for Chucky in the original Child’s Play). Since the series premiered 27 years ago, HBO’s incarnation of the Crypt Keeper has become the definitive version of the character, with Kassir’s memorable high-pitched cackle permanently ingrained in people’s memories. As for the episodes themselves, the stories were taken not just from EC’s Tales From the Crypt, but their entire collection of horror comics (the aforementioned Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, Shock SuspenStories, as well as Crime SuspenStories, and Two-Fisted Tales).
My association with Tales From the Crypt is that of it being a taboo. Tales From the Crypt, Married….With Children and The Simpsons were the main three shows I remember my parents forbidding me from watching as a kid (I was born in 1989). Hell, I wasn’t even allowed to watch the animated series Tales From the Cryptkeeper and that show was made for kids, but I digress. Before I became more seasoned in the horror genre, I had actually thought that the television show was an adaptation of the films Demon Knight and Bordello of Blood (they used to play on Syfy, formerly Sci-Fi Channel, all the time). Silly me.
As many of you may know, a reboot is being planned for TNT under the supervision of M. Night Shyamalan. While that may sound like a terrible idea, anyone who watches Wayward Pines knows that Shyamalan can actually do very good television. Everyone had an initial scare when it was announced that the reboot would not feature the Crypt Keeper, but luckily those worries have been alleviated by Shyamalan himself.
Take some time today to celebrate the 27th anniversary of HBO’s Tales From the Crypt! The DVDs are selling for affordable prices on Amazon so there’s really no excuse not to! Don’t forget to share your memories of the series in the comments below. To read more on the subject check out our own Daniel Kurland’s 15 Best Episodes of the series,a television show he is extremely passionate about, since he so rudely stole writing duties from our own Jess Hicks. Have fun, kiddies!
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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