Editorials
From Game Shows to Rap Albums: The Oddest ‘Tales from the Crypt’ Offshoots
Success can be a tricky thing. There’s a fine line between taking advantage of a property’s popularity and ruining any goodwill towards it through overexposure and diluting the brand. At the same time, there are franchises that seem eternally resilient to odd spin-offs, merchandising, and experiments.
Tales from the Crypt was already one of EC Comics’ top titles, but its adaptation into an anthology horror series for HBO elevated its pop culture cache to unprecedented heights. You know you’ve got a hit on your hands when your guest stars include Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt, Demi Moore, and Ewan McGregor. Accordingly, it made plenty of sense when Tales from the Crypt, which heads to streaming for the very first time tomorrow on Shudder, expanded into cinematic installments.
However, there are many inexplicable Tales from the Crypt offshoots that need to be seen to be believed.
Tales From The Cryptkeeper
Franchise expansion and pushing popular IP in unexpected directions is at an all-time high now, but there’s something to be said for the lawlessness of the late ’80s and ’90s where everything from RoboCop to Beetlejuice and Godzilla received cartoon spin-offs. In this sense, Tales from the Crypt feels like it’s in good company, but it’s still a very risky endeavor to take HBO’s uncensored horror series and translate it into a Saturday morning cartoon. Tales from the Cryptkeeper ran for three seasons (the final season returned five years later and was rebranded as New Tales from the Cryptkeeper), which still managed to adapt over three-dozen EC Comics stories into kid-friendly morality plays that still had bite.
Curiously, Tales from the Cryptkeeper would incorporate fellow EC Comics characters, the Vault-Keeper and Old Witch, who were absent in HBO’s live-action series. The animated series even finds room to develop the Crypt Keeper’s character in small, satisfying ways. If nothing else, Tales from the Cryptkeeper is a great gateway into anthology horror for younger audiences.
Secrets Of The Cryptkeeper’s Haunted House
Tales from the Crypt didn’t seem like a natural fit to turn into a Saturday morning cartoon for children, but there’s still an internal logic to an anthology series that tries to expose younger audiences to spooky morality plays. That being said, giving the Crypt Keeper his own family-friendly game show doesn’t make any sense at all and it even sounds like the twisted setup to a Tales from the Crypt episode.
Secrets of the Cryptkeeper’s Haunted House exists in spite of itself and, most impressively, this gonzo concept kind of works. Two teams of kids must compete through five events that apply creepy spins on Nickelodeon-esque challenges, like Fireball Alley, Worminator, and Vampire’s Lair. Secrets of the Cryptkeeper’s Haunted House featured an impressive blend of computer-generated elements that contestants would interact with in live-action. It’s a spectacle that was somewhat revolutionary back in 1996, even if it looks rather ridiculous now.
The gonzo gameshow would even receive a Daytime Emmy nomination in 1997 for Outstanding Game Show. There’s plenty to appreciate in a horror-centric gameshow for kids, even if most of the contestants likely had no idea who the Crypt Keeper even was. It’s also kind of hilarious that encyclopedias were given out as consolation prizes on a gameshow that’s hosted by a sadistic corpse.
Tales From The Crypt: Have Yourself A Scary Little Christmas & Tales From The Crypt: Monsters Of Metal Soundtrack Albums
The Crypt Keeper’s forte may be in tense tales of terror, but he became enough of a pop culture icon during the ’90s that he managed to headline a number of soundtracks and albums. In addition to Original Music from Tales from the Crypt and Demon Knight: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, there was also Have Yourself A Scary Little Christmas and Monsters of Metal. The first of these was a Christmas-themed album from 1994 that featured the Crypt Keeper perverting classic Christmas carols into sordid songs, such as “Twelve Days of Cryptmas,” “Should Old Cadavers Be Forgot,” and “Deck the Halls with Parts of Charlie.” “Moe Teitlebaum” is actually a surprisingly gruesome carol about embalming a live family.
Coming along several years later in 2000 was Tales from the Crypt: Monsters of Metal. This soundtrack album was more a showcase for the various heavy metal and death metal bands that provided music for Tales from the Crypt, such as Black Sabbath, Megadeth, and Pantera. Naturally, there are also six original tracks where the Crypt Keeper gets to let loose. A music video was also filmed for the generational bop “Crypt Jam,” because of course it was. At least the Crypt Keeper never had to resort to autotune.
The World Of Tales From The Crypt Tabletop RPG
Fantasy, science fiction, and even cyberpunk genre fans had their share of options regarding tabletop RPGs. Horror fans weren’t nearly as fortunate, despite games like Chill trying to cater to this audience by embracing 20th-century horror iconography. The World of Tales from the Crypt wasn’t nearly as popular as Chill, and likely arrived a little too late, but it was a valiant attempt to translate campy B-movie horror into a role-playing game. Released by West End Games, designed by Greg Farshty and Teeuwynn Woodruff, The World of Tales from the Crypt uses the traditional MasterBook rules system.
The 144-page guidebook lays out a basic framework in which the gamers have summoned the Crypt Keeper, who sends them into different horror adventures and contains one pre-made campaign, “Circus of Souls.” There are good bones for a horror table-top experience here, especially one that’s self-aware enough to embrace camp just as much as it leans into true horror. The fact that the RPG’s guidebook is largely written in the Crypt Keeper’s voice and that the “role-slaying game” is meant to be a pun-filled experience may leave some gamers more exasperated than excited.
Tales From The Crypt Radio Dramas
Tales from the Crypt feels deeply steeped in the ’90s, but the franchise was of course pulling from EC Comics from the ’50s. Accordingly, it’s not a huge stretch to see these genre stories get adapted for an even older and more nostalgic form of media — radio dramas. In 2000, Tales from the Crypt had a brief revival in the form of radio shows that adapted classic EC Comics stories into episodes that ranged from 34-46 minutes. These Tales from the Crypt radio dramas had most of the HBO series’ producers on board, along with John Kassir back as the Crypt Keeper, and big guest stars that included Tim Curry, Gina Gershon, John Ritter, and Oliver Platt.
13 episodes of these radio dramas were planned, but only eight were ultimately recorded and offered for free on the Seeing Ear Theatre’s website, and for sale on Audible.com. Seven of the recorded episodes were released on CD in 2002 with more episodes being announced at 2006’s San Diego Comic-Con. Despite these plans and an interest to carry the series over to satellite radio services like Sirius, a lack of investors led to new episodes never materializing.
The Tales from the Crypt radio dramas really demonstrate a passion for the craft and they’re far more than just audio versions of classic stories. These are rewarding horror soundscapes that match the energy that fans come to expect from a Tales from the Crypt project. It’s too bad that more Tales from the Crypt radio dramas weren’t produced for Spotify or other modern audio streaming services. The Tales from the Crypt radio dramas are also the only place that you’ll hear the lyrics to Danny Elfman’s iconic Tales from the Crypt theme song.
Tales From The Crypt Terror Trivia Challenge 1-900 Hotline
1-900 hotlines are of the few things that are even more ’90s coded than Tales from the Crypt. While these pay lines were predominantly used for sexual conversation, psychic readings, or crying, they also found a surprising calling in the horror community. In addition to a Freddy Krueger Hotline, the Boglin Horror Hotline, and the “Creep Phone” was the Tales From the Crypt Terror Trivia Challenge. This 1-900 number was a contest where callers matched wits with the Crypt Keeper as they answered trivia about old horror movies and Tales from the Crypt episodes.
Weekly winners were announced who received Tales from the Crypt merch, cash prizes, and even an autographed photo of the Crypt Keeper. However, the grand prize included a trip for two to Hollywood where the winner would get to meet the Crypt Keeper “in the flesh” and receive a sightseeing tour in a hearse. The Terror Trivia Challenge would return the following year in 1991, albeit with an even better grand prize that included a cameo in Tales from the Crypt’s upcoming season. Many horror trivia hounds likely found the Crypt Keeper’s puns a lot less funny upon receiving a hefty phone bill.
Inscape’s Tales From The Crypt PC Game
A Tales from the Crypt pinball cabinet was released in 1993 by Data East and is still likely filling space in a dinghy bar somewhere. However, there were also plans for a proper Tales from the Crypt video game, which would have been released for PCs in the mid-’90s. Developed by Inscape, who was best known for point-and-click adventure-horror games like The Dark Eye and Bad Day on the Midway, Tales from the Crypt would have followed the same point-and-click formula.
A Tales from the Crypt CD-ROM game, especially during their apex in the ’90s, feels like a no-brainer, especially when series like Goosebumps and The X-Files embraced this trend. The Tales from the Crypt game would have been structured into three chapters that were pulling from different EC Comics stories — a nautical story, a tale in a wax museum, and a circus-centric story that would have been an original story for the game.
These different stories would be navigated by a budding cartoonist named Killjoy who would gain inspiration for his own winning comic after finding the “keys to success” in these worlds. There’s definitely a certain charm to seeing the Crypt Keeper rendered in lo-fi 3D animation and it’s unfortunate that Inscape’s acquisition by Graphix Zone and subsequent bankruptcy led to the game’s cancellation. John Kassir had even recorded dialogue for the game’s cutscenes.
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
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