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.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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