38 - S:6::EP::11,12 "Surprise Party" & "Doctor of Horror"

Hello, creeps, It's me John can Sear the voice of the Crypt Keeper and you're listening to Chronicles from the Crypt. Hello everyone, I'm Casualty Chris and this is Father Them Alone, and we are the host of Chronicles from the Crypt, a twice a month look at the horror anthology series Tales from the Crypt that aired from nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety six on HBO. But again, don't let them know, because they don't even have that show on HBO in any form or fashion. On this episode of Chronicles from the Crypt, we're taking a look at season six, episode eleven and twelve, Surprise Party and Doctor of Horror Greetings, Thrill shriekers. Kay to join me on the scale lift good your pile.

The Crip Keeper's quite the excreme skier. I just love the feeling of going Fester and Fester talk about hackshilarating, which is kind of how the man in tonight's Tanna Tale feels. He's just started down a black diamond run of his own in a nasty nugget I call Surprise Party. So Surprise Party is directed by Elliott Silverstein, written by Colem Decay Coleman Coleman. It's written by Tom Lyons and Coleman Decay.

It stars Adam Stork, Claire Hope, and Jake Busey, and it aired December twenty eighth, nineteen ninety four. This is the final episode of nineteen ninety four and boy, what a bad episode. Man. They went out with a whimper that year. Boy, what is with this show?

Man? I don't know. It has full on given up. Yeah, I'm really I'm looking forward to see what the English do with the next season. This episode is atrocious.

Yeah, okay. It is not based on a Tales from the Crypt comic based on Vault of Horror number thirty seven, written and art by Johnny Craig. The story is almost identical, except this one the guy's a little more determined. We get the sort of backstory that he's come home to inherit this property, and you know that's that's the sort of main reason for being there. In the comic, it's weirdly happenstance where the guy is just driving through this backwooded area and his car dies and or gets stuck, and then he goes to this house where a party is going on.

In the comic, However, this when he goes in, he believes it's a costume party because everyone's dressed like the seventeenth century, and so it was his like great grandfather who in a fit of jealousy burned the place down, and now they're all corpses. So well, you know that it pays off almost exactly similarly, It's just weird that they it turns out that the guy is the relative, but he just so happened to be driving past. Like at least when they wrote the script here, they gave him the purpose of going. Yeah, I don't know what they were doing in this episode, because look, the only actor I even recognized in this episode is Jake Busey. Well, I have no Adam Stork from he was Larry Underwood in the television miniseries of Stephen King's The Stand and I did not like him there, and I do not like him here.

He seems he seems oily and untrustworthy. Well, and that's I mean that. I mean, look, that's what they're going for with his character, right, Yeah, but the guy kind of gives off that vibe anyway. Yeah, no, I completely agree. I mean, this is another one of these like stories in the vein of what was the first season's episode where it's like he travels back in time and he sees the woman's they're being murdered by the mother.

You know what I'm talking about? How does it lover come hack to me? Yeah? With Amanda Plumber? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it feels very similar.

It's very similar. It's so weird that, like you know that updates some in a good way and sometimes really poorly, Like why does it have to be this house in the middle of nowhere? It's like, you know, some standard spook show kind of storytelling, particularly when you already have an episode about the old dark house where bad things happened and he's going to learn about its past, like figure something new, Like are you guys not even watching your own series? We've seen this, Yeah, We've seen this story so many times now, Like why why keep beating us over the head with the same story over and over and over again? You know, I don't know, it's there supposed to be some twist here, like yeah, okay, I mean I think we the audience knows from the moment he goes into that place that this is these are ghosts, right, I mean, or are we supposed to be convinced that it's otherwise.

I don't know how you couldn't, right unless you're rain did everyone's talking about the house. See. I guess that's where the comic is sort of superior in that we're frontload of this information that something terrible happened. You don't want to go out there, whereas the other guy just shows up at a house and there's a party going on. So at least a tricked the reader into thinking that that's just he happened upon a costume ball.

Here, it's so set up that there's something in that house that when he gets there, it's like, oh, okay, they're ghosts. Got it? So bravo for supernatural and boo for poor execution, which is par for the course. Well they heard, they heard that we wanted a supernatural episode, but what they didn't realize is this is not what we were talking about. No, we were talking about something good.

Yeah you got it, like halfway you got a supernatural episode. Like again, it just goes back to this idea of like we've seen this before, like we have actively seen this kind of story before. Told better question mark, Yeah, I think so. I think that lover Come Hacked to Me episode is more much more successful than this one, I would agree. I didn't like Levercome Hack to Me much either.

No, I didn't either. But you know, as we tend to do here on this podcast, it's sometimes comes down to just comparison. It's hard not to draw a line between the two, Yeah, particularly when they're going to go ahead and ape the other one so closely. And then like the finale is you have Adam Storks burned corpse on the ground, and it like slows zooms into it, like are we supposed to Are we supposed to care? Are we supposed to feel bad?

Are we supposed to feel something? Do you know what you're doing? Like, we're given no character to root for, which you know, even the worst of a character, if they were the lead, you can root for them in some way. But this guy just seems like a dick and he should know better. And I don't know all these ghosts.

Jake Busey is so weird. I mean, I like Jake Busey, but oh yeah, I'm not saying he's a bad actor. I like him, but he is a weird actor. He's weird to look at, just just unusual. Which is good, you know for character actors.

Go, I think we're going to get a few more interesting ones in the next episode. Yeah, he's definitely wasted in this episode too. Yeah, it felt a little like the Frighteners there, just I kind of wish it was the Frighteners because at least it be entertaining exactly, And oh, I don't know this season. No, this season was just this season is just a disappointment. I mean, this season so far has been just one disappointment after the other.

It's called surprise party, but there's no surprise here. No. You know exactly where this episode is going from the moment he shows up at that house. You know, you know that this is a character who is interacting with ghosts and or dead people. How is this going to come to fruition?

Well, what ends up happening is exactly what you think. They get their revenge on him, because yeah, just because it's like a Freddy Krueger logic, like I can't get the people who hurt me, I'm going to get their relatives. I guess it was his father who did it, right, Yeah, in the seventies. Yeah, to cover it up, he did it. And so there you go right, Well, what a I'm sick of this show's logic and I'm sick of this show's sad attempts at Supernatural.

It feels like it feels like they don't even care anymore, Like it really does, right, Yeah, Like this is such a far cry from season one or two, or three or even four. I'm hoping for a love triangle. That's that's how bad this is. That's that's what we want. Now give us give us a love triangle, please please, and some old age makeup.

So with that in mind, let's talk about the next episode, Doctor of Horror. Yeah, kids, these days, with their long hair, you can't even tell the boils from the guls. And when they do want to cut, they go to one of those fancy salons like Josie sleigh Bear did, sassoon. It's enough to make your terror your hair out. M I guess that towel was a little too hot.

Still, I think it's a good look for you once it's grown out. I'm sure you'll love it. Which brings to mind the young men in tonight's Tata Tale. They're about to try a new scare style as well. In a delightful little dye job by call Doctor of Horror.

So Doctor of Horror is directed by Larry Wilson, written by Larry Wilson, stars Hankers Area, Travis Tritt, Benstein, and Austin Pendleton. And Austin Pendleton is a mad doctor, mad scientist who is intent on finding a human soul and to do so he has to steal corpses or murder people. Enter Hankers Area and Travis Tritt, who help him do that. This is the first good episode we've had in four episodes. It's a good one.

I liked it a lot. This felt to me exactly what Tails from the Crypt as a series is supposed to be doing. It's not the greatest. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but the jokes are funny, the sent up is good, the characters are good, even the makeup. The makeup is pretty pretty spectacular.

There. I'll point out that, like all good Tales from the Crypt episodes, this is based on Valtimore. Valtimore Number thirteen was written and the artwork was done by Graham Angles. In the original comic, it's actually just closer to the old Burke and Hair story where it's about the doctor himself who teaching surgeon at a university and he can't get corpses to practice dissection for his students and it's becoming an issue. And then he hires two guys to go get him a body, and then it spirals out of control and they end up killing him and he's gets dissected, which is what happened with Burke and hair Well kind of anyway here, however, you know, they've added this whole mad doctor soul extraction plot line and the two idiots or basically the leads.

And I said it before, I'm gonna repeat myself. I really like this one a lot. Well, even if, even if I have problems with this episode, which of course I do, because it's not perfect it, I almost am willing to overlook them because this is the first episode in four episodes where we have had anything interesting happen. Yeah, and it's fun. Man.

I'm not saying all these episodes need to like get you know, make me laugh or entertain me on a sort of surfacy level. But I'll take it now, man, because we've been getting so many dour episodes that don't invest me emotionally at all. Like I liked these guys I liked what was happening here, So I find it funny that Travis Tritt is in this episode, which is super weird. It is super weird, but not unwelcome. He's good.

I mean, him being in this episode is like a kin to Wayne Gretzky hosting Saturday Night Live. Obviously he's got improv skills, like what are you doing? But I think Travis Tritt acquits himself very nicely. Yeah, and I think Hanka's area plays a villain really well. I mean, look, there's enough going on here to like that.

I'm willing to overlook the problems again because there's been so many problems with everything else that we've watched. It's it's really frustrating how poorly this show has gone about giving us any interesting, anything interesting to watch recently. So this is a bit of a redemption in that regard. It kind of is. Yeah, and I mean I liked most of it.

Again, I feel like the thing with the soul is a little tacked on, but yeah, I mean, and it was, but but I enjoyed that extra supernatural element to it. I enjoyed it as much as I could given the circumstances, because I felt like it was tacked on, but it made sense. And any episode where you get to see ben Stein laid out and dissected is a winner in my book boy, In't that the case? Yeah? Yeah, I liked this episode.

This is a fun episode. But yeah, it also again, it also benefits from comparison to episodes like Surprise Party or Stared in Horror on our last episode that are just so atrocious and such dumb, literally dumb episodes that I have a hard time making an excuse for them. So when you watch something like this, it's like, oh, this is kind of a welcome respite from those. Yeah, it certainly feels like if they had dropped this episode into season one, two or three even it would be a low light during those years. But the fact that it's here and it's so far down the list, it's it's it's winning, it's a it's a good, good example of this show.

It could not come soon enough. Yeah, No, I completely agree, completely agree. I think anywhere else this episode would have been a complete, kind of complete, just like non issue. But given where it is here, like, yeah, it's like, oh good, finally something that we can maybe sink our teeth into. And I liked how intrigued the Hankers Area character is by the entire proceedings that he just wants to learn more and more and more.

That was kind of cool rather than just have, you know, the sort of regular sort of conniving. Let's get some money out of this. If I do have problems with the episode, I get why the corpse revives to come get his soul, but feels a little like that other Miguel for Ever episode we were talking about where the corpse comes back because it has to, and we're dealing in supernatural elements already, so a word or two as to why a corpse could come back might have been welcome. While on the makeup on Travis Tritt is kind of laughably bad until he gets right up on top of Hayka's area. Yeah, then it's pretty good.

I thought it was bad. Oh no, no, no, I liked it. I liked it. I thought was pretty good. I thought it was goofy looking because it's so obviously just a face cast of Travis Trip.

It's just goof It's goofy looking, but like not in like a not in like a so bad that I'm like up in arms about it, because again, like with what we've seen this season. Like anything, anything mildly supernatural is more entertaining than nothing at all. I think the makeup here was a little more cartoony than what we usually get, but then again, I thought that was in keeping with the rest of the episode, so I enjoyed that, and overall I enjoyed this episode. Yeah, I again, um, it benefits from its location and proximity to other episodes, but I think I think it's a decent episode. It has some interesting entertaining moments.

It is pretty funny, so yeah, I'm always good to see people who are sort of comedic playing villains. That's always good. And I love Austin Pendleton too. We should mention him. He's a fantastic character actor.

I mainly know him from my youth as Max doc Hopper's assistant in the Muppet Movie, which he was great and long and the storied career, and he's always welcome when he shows up on screen, so I was really happy to see him. You know, he's he definitely is. He's great, He is a very He's a welcome presence in this episode because he plays the straight man the entire time. Yeah, which they could have He could have hammed it up and gone like they do on some of the more comedic episodes, but the fact that he played it as straight as he did was pretty great. So on the next episode of Chronicles from the Crypt, we're actually ending season six, we're taking a look at episode thirteen, fourteen and fifty Comes the Dawn ninety nine and forty four Slash one pure horror, and You Murderer.

All I remember about these three episodes is You Murderer, which is, ohoh man, what a weird episode. It's it's one of the episodes that everybody who has watched this show knows about. Yeah, it's it does not hold up. I don't think it. I don't think it was that great to begin.

We'll talk about it obviously in the next episode. But yeah, it's not it's not good. It's not good. No, it's not. It is.

It is a weird It is a weird, weird, weird episode. But until then, where can people find you, father Malone? Check me out over on my YouTube channel at five Films. Got a lot of content for you over there, and you can also hear me over on the Dreams for Sale. The Twilight Zone eighty five podcast where we talk about the best reboot of the Twilight Zone of all time, and once a month or so you can hear me over on the Culture Cast talking movies.

As for me, you can find me on Twitter at Casualty Underscore Chris. That's where I talk about all the podcasts that I am on. Follow us on Twitter at Chronicles FTC. Chronicles from the crypt dot Com is where you can find the podcast. Big thanks always to John Casire for the intro, and we'll catch you on the next episode.