Tales from the Crypt – TV Shows for Halloween viewing!

It wouldn’t be Halloween without watching a couple of episodes of Tales from the Crypt!

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Tales from the Crypt  (HBO)
The Thing from the Grave  – Season 2 episode 6

 

Teri Thatcher plays, Stacy, a young model with an abusive boyfriend. Her photographer wants her to get away from the bad situation and gives her the keys to his pad. That night she shows up at his place and he professes his love for her. He wants her to stay with him and gives her a necklace saying, as long as you have this gift I will be there for you when you need me. As they kiss and lay upon the bed, we see “Mitch” the abusive boyfriend outside the window spying on them. Several nights later, “Mitch” lures the photographer to his summer house in the woods where he kills him and buries him. Then Mitch confronts Stacy saying he’d like to start over and that he would forget the past if she would.

Suspicious, Stacy goes to the photographer’s place to check on him. With that, she has failed the test and Mitch brings her to the summer home to kill her too. The dead photographer hears her screams and digs his way out of the shallow grave to save her. He drags the abusive boyfriend, Mitch, back to the grave site and holds him down as he drags the loose dirt on top of them both.

The usual rich lighting captures the right mood for the chilling ending. The make up on the dead photographer was excellent, very corpse-like but allowing facial movement. I will admit that part of the highlight of the episode is Teri Thatcher sporting skimpy bathing suits and lingerie. Naturally that sex appeal had always been a part of the allure to Tales from the Crypt, offering the little naughty visuals allowed by cable television but not allowed on broadcast TV.

Miguel Ferrer plays the part of, Mitch, the abusive A-hole boyfriend to the hilt making us viewers really loathe his character. This is your typical Tales from the Crypt episode; a love triangle, jealousy and a murder, resulting in a return from the dead due to a promise or curse. A little bit of campy fun and highly visual horror drove the series to become a horror favorite in the early 90s and although the themes and plots were familiar tropes pulled from the comics of several decades earlier, they are still fun to watch.

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Groovy Baby! Ash vs Evil Dead, season 2, starts this Sunday!

Ash vs Evil Dead, season 2, starts this SINday! Oct. 2nd

Sunday Oct. 2nd. Season 2 begins of what could be my favorite Horror TV show of all time. Why my favorite?

More cussing, more gore, more naughty tid-bits and more Motorhead songs than any other TV series ever made! Plus Ash is a character that is a lot of fun to watch 🙂

Don’t believe me? Just watch this trailer:

Ash Vs Evil Dead – Sunday Oct. 2nd on Starz Channel!

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Ash Williams, Bronx native Pablo, and Kelly are back to fight the evil hordes of Deadites with special guests like Lucy Lawless as Ruby, helping out whenever possible!

Ash

Deadite

Deadite

Pablo and Kelly – aren’t they adorable?

Kick some Ash!

We got this!

Oh, we don’t got this…

poor kelly…

blood vomit…

The demon

oh. crap!

Ruby

Ruby got her but kicked

more of The Demon

Pics curtesy of STARZ

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Ash vs Evil Dead – a quick overview

Ash vs Evil Dead

So on Halloween night we watched the premiere episode of the new Starz channel series, Ash vs Evil Dead.

Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are up to their old tricks. And all I have say is:

Ash vs Evil Dead = AWESOME

The bizarre camera movements, old style make-up effects, plenty of gory deaths (decapitations, exploding heads, etc.), all the campy comical aspects and Ash’ s snarky one-liners – everything a fan of the original films would want was evident in this first episode. Look forward to an exciting season!

Trailer has some spoilers:

Theme song:

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Kolchak: The Night Stalker – my favorite horror TV episodes – Halloween edition

Kolchak: The Night Stalker
Season 1, episode 1

Series 1974/1975 – 20 episodes – following two full-length made for TV movies

Darren McGavin
Simon Oakland
Jack Grinnage
Ruth McDevitt

Created by Jeff Rice
Directed by Allen Baron

The Ripper – S1 E1

Chicago, May 21st, 3:AM, location: the Boom Boom Room, Dancer Michelle Shiff dances her last number…forever.

A woman screams. A strange man darts from the dressing room leaving behind her mutilated body.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, several women at exotic dance clubs and seedy massage parlors are murdered by a strangely dressed assailant yielding a cane. (The cane pulls out into a sword.) Carl Kolchak, reporter for the Chicago Independent News Service,  arrives at each crime scene often before the police, much to the dismay of the police Captain.

There is a strong similarity in this case to the killing of five women in London, in 1888, by a murderer only known as, Jack the Ripper. Further investigation leads Kolchak to believe that this killer, Jack the Ripper, and the killer in several other similar incidents, were committed by the same man. The killer travels from one city to another, killing five woman at a time, before moving on to the next. Germany, Italy, New York, five women murdered and mutilated through the years, all with the same MO.

The supernatural adversaries in the show were always interesting. They were always like super-villians, throwing police across the sidewalks, getting shot but not stopping, and displaying powers beyond normal humans. In this episode, the Ripper jumps from a four story building to the street, in order to evade police. Vincennzo is stuck between having the timid reporter, Updyke, writing a weak uninteresting story, or Kolchak going overboard with his story about a two hundred year old serial killer. Kolchak and Vincennzo argue and spar about the reports, which adds an exciting element to the hard-boiled reporter’s style.

They sure know how to ramp up the tension in these old shows and this episode sets the bar high for the series. Kolchak discovers the home of the killer and enters it looking for clues. Naturally, the Ripper comes home while Carl is in the house, and the reporter nearly dies trying to get that elusive photograph.

This is the first episode of the series and although the music and some of the ideas are dated, the show is still entertaining. Much of that is because Darren McGavin plays a convincing role making you want to believe stories that should be relegated to Weekly World News, and tabloids that concentrate on the weird and paranormal. I enjoy his acting and personality whether he’s playing Carl Kolchak, or the father in A Christmas Story. Simon Oakland as Vincenzo is the perfect counter to Carl’s insanity.

Fun Facts:

The Characters and story line were based on novels by Jeff Rice. 

Dan Curtis and Richard Matheson had worked together on the previous made-for-TV-movies, but declined to work on the series.

Darren McGavin declined to renew his contract after 20 episodes because he had taken on the producer’s role in a struggle to make the show better and never received credit for it (or pay). There were 3 scripted but un-filmed episodes at the time of his departure.