Tales From The Crypt – The Complete Sixth Season
Picture: C Sound: C+ Extras: C- Episodes: C+
With the
anthology show dead for the most part, a few have been good (Shades Of Darkness from 1983, the
Christopher Lee Tales of Mystery &
Imagination from 1995) while most have been awful and the last great one
was Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected
(all reviewed elsewhere on this site) and none after have been big hits. Anthology shows migrated to cable TV, where
they were schlock, all the way up to the current disaster that is Masters Of Horror. By default, the biggest hit since the Dahl
show came from the U.K. is Tales From
The Crypt, a show with many big name producers, recognizable actors and
name directors. By The Complete Sixth Season, whatever the show was before, it had run
out of steam.
There are
15 shows for this 1994 season, with part of the problem being that the show
fell into a formula with puppet/host The Crypt Keeper’s puns giving one new
respect for the animated TV classic Groovie
Goolies. The show still had money in
it and the combination of HBO’s money and co-producers Richard Donner, David
Giler, Walter Hill, Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis still attracted top talents
interested in being in a show that offered more freedoms than network TV
did. However, the conclusions were often
“telegraphed” by the predictable, sardonic mentality of the show at this point
and the show was in decline.
Stars
this season include Catherine O’Hara, Peter MacNicol, Rita Rudner, Richard
Lewis, Anthony Zerbe, Teri Polo, Isaac Hayes, Bibi Besch, John Savage, Terry
O’Quinn, Kimberly Williams, Benicio Del Toro, Esai Morales, Wayne Newton,
Shelley Hack, Corey Feldman, D.B. Sweeney, Rachel Ticotin, R. Lee Ermey, Miguel
Ferrer, Hank Azaria, Ben Stein, Austin Pendleton, Michael Ironside, Bruce
Davidson, Kelly Coffield, John Lithgow, Sherilynn Fenn and Isabella Rossellini. Zemeckis, Russell Mulcahy, Stephen Hopkins,
Vincent Spano and Masters Of Horror founder
Mick Garris are among the directors.
The 1.33
X 1 image was finished in analog NTSC video, though the show’s actual episodes
seem to have been shot on film, so these are old masters. Color is odd, funny and limited, while detail
and depth are soft. The Dolby Digital
2.0 Stereo is supposed to have surrounds, but they are very weak and were
either always that way, dated and/or this is second-generation tracks. A “virtual comic book” version of the Whirlpool episode is the only extra.
- Nicholas Sheffo
