Revisiting Tales From the Crypt

“Greeting, boils and ghouls!”

                It’s probably been twenty years since I heard my old fiend the Crypt Keeper greet me with that pun, and then follow it up with his cackling laughter as he introduced another episode of the Tales of the Crypt. 

                For those of you who don’t know, or never had the privilege of watching Tales From the Crypt, you’re missing out on one of the greatest horror anthologies television has ever produced.  Premiering in 1989, Tales From the Crypt combined campiness and horror as it retold stories from the old E.C. horror comics line with titles like, Tales from the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear, The Vault of Horror, and Crime SuspenStories. 

Crypt Keeper as Elvis

The episodes were hosted by the Crypt Keeper, who filled the intro and outro with his pun-filled monologues.  The stories may have been able to stand alone, but the Crypt Keeper definitely made the series stand out from its contemporaries like The Dark Side or the remakes of The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone.  He made each episode fun and stamped it with a signature, much like Rod Serling did with the original Twilight Zone.  Did I just compare the Crypt Keeper to Serling?   Yes.  Yes, I did.

How could you not love this mug?

                Anyway, though some of the special effects seem a bit dated now, the show holds up well overall.  I think part of the reason for this, is they didn’t go overboard trying to produce truly hideous monsters or creatures.   Like I said, the Crypt Keeper himself is a puppet, and an obvious one.  If they had tried to use computers to portray him, it would never hold up today.  We focus instead on his personality. 

                The episodes themselves vary in theme, from the truly horrific and straight up slasher flicks, to Hitchcockian (Al actually makes an appearance in an episode) twists and turns.  Every episode is different, and there-in lies its charm. 

                Like I said, the show first aired in 1989 and ran to 1996, and it is a very 90’s show.  You’ll see a lot of familiar faces from that era, and not all of them come from horror backgrounds.  Arnold Schwarzenegger directed an episode, and some of the stars include Bobcat Goldthwaite, Leah Thompson, Morton Downy Jr., John Lovitz, and a host of others (way to many to name here).   The list of directors is as long as impressive as the actors.  I mentioned Schwarzenegger (not that he’s known as a director) but others include Tobe Hooper, Michael J. Fox, and Robert Zemeckis (who also served as a producer).

Don Rickles and his hand in the memorable episode "The Ventriloquist's Dummy"   

                Tale From the Crypt was produced by HBO (why they don’t stream it, I’ll never understand), so they were able to get away with a lot of the violence and sexual content other anthologies from the era weren’t allowed to show.  I watched this show as a kid when my parents let me stay up late (or when they had already gone to bed) but I wouldn’t call this a show for kids.  While the cartoonish Crypt Keeper may assuage some of the edge of the horror series, with his puns and comical innuendos, the show is very much for adults. 

                The other side of that argument is that its based on old horror comics.  The producers probably grew up with these comics as kids, and knew that kids like me would be pulled into their show by the host, and stay tuned for the thrills provided in each story.  Watching Tales From the Crypt was fun, because it felt like you weren’t supposed to be watching it.  Much like reading those old EC Comics.  The love of the show has stuck with me for over twenty years now, and if I had kids, I might let them stay up late on Friday nights to watch another tale brought to them by the Crypt Keeper.

                If it causes nightmares?  Well, then I guess it means the show aged well.  Unlike the Crypt Keeper.  Heeeeyahahaahaaa!!!!!

Five Things That Influenced Me As A Writer

I get asked a lot why I write, or where my ideas come from.  I don’t know the answer to either of those questions.  I started writing at an early age.  It’s something I’ve always known I wanted to do, and I’ve never given it up. 

                While I can’t answer either of those questions with a satisfactory answer, I can give you a brief list of what has influenced me as a writer.

1.        Comic Books

Comic books were my first literary love.  I discovered comics when I was a little kid.  My father worked the flea market circuit and took me on a trip to Canton, Texas.  There was a comic dealer there who had boxes and boxes of them, all for a quarter a piece. The cover art drew me in and the stories kept me going.  I’d devour the stories about super heroes, beg a quarter off my dad, and go back for more.   I was enthralled. 

                It wasn’t long after this I started writing and drawing my own.  First, I wrote stories about Superman and the Incredible Hulk duking it out, then I graduated to my own set of heroes.  The first stories I sold as a writer were comic books, written for my dad.  He’d give me a dollar to find out what happened in the next issues. 

                That counts as self-published, right?

2.       History

History is another influence that got me at an early age.  History is full of fascinating stories about heroes and villains.  Great adventures that lead to great discoveries.  It was always one of my favorite subjects in school, and when I got my hands on the history book I’d be studying that year, I always skimmed through and picked out the most fascinating stories.

                I’m still a history buff, and read biographies when I get my hands on them.  It used to be the Civil War, or Native American histories, but now, it’s just about anything I can get my hands on.  History is so much more fascination than fiction, because it really happened.  Lewis and Clark jumped into the great unknown west and mapped rivers and mountains no American had seen before.  John Dillinger escaped from jail, locking up thirty people in the process, and rode out of town in the sheriff’s car.  You can’t make those kinds of things up, but you can draw inspiration from them.

3.       Books

Books.  I just love them.  I love the smell, the feel, the covers, and what’s inside them.  You’d be surprised how many people there are that want to be writers who refuse to read.  Not me.  I read every chance I get and go through withdrawals when I don’t.

                I can’t name a particular book that made me want to be a writer.  I will tell you a brief anecdote about Earnest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.  In my freshman year of high school, we were given a summer reading list, which I almost immediately lost.  The only book I could remember being on the list was, For Whom the Bell Tolls, so I picked it up and read it.  I loved it.  I had no idea who this Hemingway fellow was, but that book changed everything for me.  It wasn’t just good versus evil.  It was, why is there good, and who is evil.  There were questions posed.  Nothing is clear cut. This was life put into fiction. 

                Turns out For Whom the Bell Tolls wasn’t on the reading list.  It was an optional, or something.  But I’m glad I read it, and I’ve been a Hemingway fan ever since.

4.       Teachers

I have bad teachers and I’ve good teachers.  The bad ones don’t care.  They go through their lesson plan and rarely look away from the board to the little faces staring up at them, or lost in their own world waiting for the bell to ring.

                The good ones pay attention to the faces.  They give feedback.  They listen.  The ones who inspired me to try my hand at the craft of writing weren’t all English or Lit teachers.  Some of them were history teachers, and some were science.  But they infused imagination in their lesson plan.  They saw what their pupils were good or interested in and encouraged them to pursue it.  Teachers play a huge role in a person’s formative years, and this is no less true for a writer.

5.       My Dad

I’ve already mentioned him in this article, but he bears mentioning again.  The Old Man could tell a tale, as they say.  He was so good at it, it was hard to tell where fiction and fact merged.  He knew how to put a little bit of truth into every tale.

He was a natural storyteller and a voracious reader.  My interest in history comes from him.  He encouraged me to write and draw and supported my comic book habit even when he only had a few dollars in his pocket.  He wasn’t a perfect man.  We had our fights and disagreements, as fathers and sons always have and always will, but I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it wasn’t for him.

 Aspects of him turn up in my writing probably more than I am aware and I wish he was still here to read my stories, and give me a quarter to finish the next chapter.