Just in time for Halloween festivities, fans of the widely popular “Tales From the Crypt” rejoice as the Collector’s Editions of Tales From the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight and Tales From the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood hits home entertainment shelves everywhere on October 20, 2015 via Shout Factory.

I received advanced copies, already watched twice through, where I discovered a little nugget of information that was new to me (although some readers are already aware).

On the “making of” bonus feature for Demon Knight, the writers reveal that the “Tales From the Crypt Presents” theatrical run was slated for three movies, with two of the planned sequels being completed films probably in your personal library.

Which two?!

According to the doc and varied sources online, as well as confirmation from AICN’s Eric Vespe, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn was supposed to be the “Tales From the Crypt Presents” sequel, with Robert Zemeckis and Perter Jackson’s The Frighteners concluding the trilogy.

From Dusk Till Dawn was originally planned as the follow-up to Tales From The Crypt Presents: Demon Knight, but due to disagreements with producers, Tarantino and Rodriguez took the film elsewhere. (source)

On the other hand, Wiki explains that Zemeckis was to direct Frighteners, while Vespe tells us on Twitter that Jackson told him he was always going to be behind the camera.

Jackson and Walsh conceived the idea for The Frighteners during the script-writing phase of Heavenly Creatures. Executive producer Robert Zemeckis hired the duo to write the script, with the original intention of Zemeckis directing The Frighteners as a spin-off film of the television series, Tales from the Crypt. With Jackson and Walsh’s first draft submitted in January 1994, Zemeckis believed the film would be better off directed by Jackson, produced by Zemeckis and funded/distributed by Universal Studios. The visual effects were created by Jackson’s Weta Digital, which had only been in existence for three years. This, plus the fact that The Frighteners required more digital effects shots than almost any movie made up until that time, resulted in the eighteen-month period for effects work by Weta Digital being largely stressed. (wiki)

Another wiki surprise reveals that, as a follow-up to Demon Knight, producers planned to make a film titled Dead Easy (aka Fat Tuesday), a New Orleans zombie romp. “We were rewriting it, and it was getting scarier and more intense, but a lot of the humor had been lost, and we always felt that was an important part of “Tales from the Crypt” — scare people, then let them laugh.” Gilbert Adler told Fangoria in 1996. The third film that was planned, Body Count, also never found its way to the screen.

I find this infinity cool for a wide variety of reasons, mostly because both Dusk and Frighteners still feel like they could live in the “Tales From the Crypt” universe. With Bordello of Blood being a slight disappointment, and Ritual barely even finding a release here in the States, it’s fun to pretend that the Crypt Keeper could have easily been behind both of the aforementioned horror classics…

This Halloween, after watching Demon Knight and Bordello of Blood, why not follow them up with Dusk Till Dawn and Frighteners. Let’s pretend that us hardcore “Tales From the Crypt” fans received a SAGA of genre classics in the mid-90’s…

Thanks to Twitter follower Dallin A. for helping me through this.