TALES FROM THE CRYPT:
NIGHT OF HORROR
The series at its worst. Make of that what you will.
I wouldn't count myself a fan of the Tales From The Crypt TV series,but I'm not a big detractor either. I largely find it a rather amusing distraction, but not much more - the quality of its episodes lying between that of the delightful film Demon Night and the terminally limp-dicked Bordello of Blood. This collection of three episodes is not exactly topnotch, veering into dangerous BoB territory.
TFtC was a series rather notorious for letting non-directing actors direct, and the first segment on this tape, "The Trap", is an example of why I say notorious and not famous. Michael J. Fox proves here that his place is in front of the camera - just check out the unforgivably slack, lazy sequence where a coffin rolls towards the flames in the crematorium. Anyway, the plot here concerns a boor with debts who concocts a scheme with his beaten-down wife and his brother to fake his own death to collect on the insurance money. Man, every time you think this one's finally over, it just keeps going with more false endings in a half-hour show than I've ever seen. And at least it would have made sense if, after having plastic surgery, that one character actually looked different.
The second show is called "Split Second", and is about a logging foreman who marries the town slut. Soon he hires a young 'un who, uh, really knows what to do with wood, if you know what I mean. It's directed by Russel Mulcahy, who directed a couple of really good movies but enough flops that by now we should know better than to still hold expectations of him. And Brion James as a hunky, ruggedly romantic mountain man? He actually gets worse as this one goes on, and I normally like the guy. Anyway, it's saved from total tedium by an amusing (if predictable) ending.
The third, "On A Dead Man's Chest", is about a heavy-metal musician (yeah, right - sounds like bad early-90's grunge to me) who goes to a really special tattoo artist (who uses a method that looks a lot more painful than the one I'm familiar with) who doesn't do tattoos on demand - he paints the pictures of the stories that your skin wants to tell, whatever that means. Anyway, after two minutes of screen time and probably a couple of hours of narrative time, he gets a huge tattoo on his chest that looks like about 20-30 hours of work, and he doesn't really take well to it, because it's of the woman he hates. Directed by William Friedkin, who appears to have pissed away his talent along with his career. What's with this band that claims to be the hottest band in America, playing some second-rate L.A. club, anyway? Watch for Heavy D. and Gregg Allman, the latter of whom can't seem to stay away from crap like this (remember Fatal Pulse? No, you don't, unlike me, you knew better than to watch it).
Unexceptional in every regard.