TALES FROM THE CRYPT: BEYOND TERROR
It's Charlie-Brown-average

  The other two Tales From The Crypt cassettes I reviewed were pretty consistent within themselves if not with each other - one tape had three good episodes, one tape had three bad ones.  Somewhat fittingly, this tape has three so-so episodes.

The first story is called "Abra Cadaver" - not exactly a promising start there - starring Beau Bridges as a guy who, in an act of revenge for having had a heart attack due to an ill-planned surprised party - tries out his theories of reanimation on his friend-slash-research-funder.  This one reminds me both of Reanimator (right down to the glow-in-the-dark green reagent) and Stephen King's short story "Autopsy Room Four", in which an apparently dead body looks on in horror as he's about to be autopsied.  (it is doubtful that King is the first writer to tackle this, since this story came out years after this episode, but I for one found it a pretty entertaining story)  Directed by Stephen Hopkins, this wasn't bad, but was too predictable.

The second segment, "Carrion Death", is like Duel with an unstoppable motorcycle cop instead of a big semi.  Kyle MacLachlan plays the object of the pursuit, a murderous armed robber who, this being a Tales From The Crypt episode, you just know is gonna get what's coming to him.  The dialogue and direction (both courtesy of Steven De Souza) are both terrible, and MacLachlan's performance is the worst I've ever seen from him, but I found the plot rather entertaining, taking a pretty fun twist about halfway through.  It's a little contrived that this villain is too squeamish to do what needs to be done to easily extricate himself from this situation (it would involve a rather meticulous disembowelment), however.

Finally, we get to "None But The Lonely Heart" (directed by Tom Hanks, who has a small role), where Treat Williams plays a con man who meets rich old widows (via video-dating) and knocks them off, with obvious motives.  He starts getting anonymous letters from somebody who's on to his game.  It's slow-moving, but Williams has a lot of fun with the role, and watch for Sugar Ray Leonard as a gravedigger.

I'd recommend this tape if you're a fan of the series; while it's not the garbage dump of Night Of Horror (which I would recommend only to the most die-hard fan, or fans who want to cure themselves), I can't praise it like I would Vault Of Horror.  

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