Monster Mania Day 10: Tales From The Crypt Quick Picks

Written by Stu Cooper

My favorite type of television is anthology based TV. It is actually a dying artform at the moment now that episodic story arc television is popular. But back when I was younger we had shows like The Twilight Zone, Tales from The Darkside, Are you Afraid of the Dark?, and of course the king of anthology shows...Tales From The Crypt! When I was young my family actually had HBO for most of the 90's and I was fortunate enough to see some of the episodes very early on, before they started airing on FOX. Of course I probably shouldn't have been watching it given the mature content (the sex, violence, etc). But that certainly didn't stop me. The host of the show is originally what attracted me to it. The Cryptkeeper is about as memorable as it gets with his cackling laugh and stupid jokes. He also often gets into a funny situation in each episode, or in some cases interacts with celebrities. The character ended up evolving into a symbol of horror in the 90's. It is hard for me to narrow down my favorite episodes because I'm sure there are ones I've forgotten, so I'm going to post a few of the ones I remember the most. The DVD's are pretty cheap so I would recommend picking up the whole series. I keep hoping and praying that HBO will revive the series one day. It's still a great format for a show and there is already a huge audience for it. The cartoon and comics are pretty great as well if you get the chance to check them out.