Oh sure, HBO managed to change the face of television with the Sopranos, but when it came to altering the type of content you could see on the small screen, then one of the real trailblazers turned out to be a five foot five corpse with a fondness for excruciating dad jokes. I am, of course, referring to Tales From The Crypt – the horror anthology show that ran from 1989 to 1996 that not only pushed the boundaries of showing violence, gore, nudity and swearing on TV without those pesky censors getting involved, but had a wealth of Hollywood heavyweights backing it up.
While you’d think that an adaptation of the old horror EC Comics line wouldn’t attract such established talent, names such as Richard Donner, Walter Hill Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis not only turned up to executively produce, but direct as well, which eventually led to other such names as Michael J. Fox, Tom Hanks and Arnold Schwarzenegger stepping up and helming episodes too. Surely an impressive feat indeed, and first off the Crypt Keeper’s conveyor belt, was the electrifying The Man Who Was Death.
Meet Niles Talbot, a charismatic southern fella with some fairly strong opinions about the state of the world who isn’t afraid to lay them out over a beer. One of the reasons that our Mr. Talbot is such a self-proclaimed expert on humanity is because of his job as the executioner for the state prison, which allows him to pontificate about the ills of society as he flips the switch on the poor bastards who cry and beg on the way to the electric chair.
However, after twelve years of dutiful service, Miles finds himself out of employment when the local legislature abolishes the death penalty and leaves him high and dry. However, not to take things lying down, the former executioner figures that someone has to make the guilty pay for their crimes and starts targeting people who have managed to avoid justice despite being blatently responsible for the crimes they’ve been acquitted for.
Now a full fledged vigilante, Niles first sets a trap for murdering biker Jimmy Flood, zapping him full of 10,000 volts after he dodges jail time thanks to a technically. Next up on Niles’ hit list is the rich Theodore Carne, who was unjustfully found innocent in the suspicious death of his wife, and his accomplice and lover, Cynthia Baldwin, who both are boiled in their electrified hot tub.
Yep, it seems that that even though he lost his job flipping switches up at the big house, Niles is still making the guilty pay thanks to his obsessive new hobby. However, when his latest hit goes tits up and he finds himself caught, word comes through that the death penalty has ironically been reinstated – and guess who’s first on the list?
To be fair, when it comes to proving exactly how revolutionary Tales From The Crypt truly was, you couldn’t pick a better episode than The Man Who Was Death to drive that point home. Not only is the episode (the first of three released simultaneously to kick of the season) helmed by Walter Hill of The Warriors and Southern Comfort fame, but the production values were lightyears beyond what previous horror shows like Tales From The Darkside and Monsters had to offer. On top of that, you can tell that the filmmakers had the room to throw in some flashy instances of genuine flair as the script gives Talbot the opportunity to narrate the majority of the episode either in voice over or directly to camera to really put us in the man’s shoes. In many ways, it’s a classic Tales From The Crypt set up – we meet someone who proves to be willing to do something horrible to get what they want and at the end they get shanghaied by some devastatingly ironic twist in the tail which delivers a fatal jolt of karma to them faster than the switch on the electric chair.
Matters are further aided by the cast of William Sadler as Niles, who would go on to become quite the unofficial mascot of the entire franchise by not only starring in the first episode, but eventually taking the lead in the spin-off movie, Demon Knight, a cameo on Bordello Of Blood and even popped up during a Crypt Keeper’s segment as his Grimm Reaper character from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. With his steely blue eyes and his heavy drawl, he brings you fully into this gritty mini world that Hill has spun as he continuously chats to us like old friends while he waxes lyrical about death. In fact, it’s rare for an episode of anthology television to conjure up a character so complete and well rounded and like many of Walter Hill’s anti-heroes, there’s a sense of an outlaw born in the wrong era about the man as he goes on about his grim task.
Even better is that the cast is peppered with a bunch of character actors who’ll you certainly recognise even if you can’t place the face such as Roy Brocksmith (Total Recall), Gerrit Graham (Phantom Of The Paradise) and Robert Winley (Terminator 2), that all wring maximum effect out of their limited screen time. Possibly the most impressive aspect of the episode, though, is the fact that despite the limitations of the short format, you can still clearly recognise that it’s a Walter Hill episode and he even brings in frequent collaborator Ry Cooder in to do the score to really drive that Walter Hill grit home.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Tales From The Crypt without that biting, cynical humour that pumps through its veins. You can tell that Sadler is relishing playing the know-it-all badass, but he also realises that the punchline lay in how he reacts when karma winds up that almighty kick in the balls that lands him in the very chair he’s spent twelve years zapping fellow murderers into the afterlife. A real nice touch is that all his earlier posturing about staring directly into the eyes of the doomed condemned when he’s fixing their headgear is thrown right back at him when his successor does it too as he snivels for his life.
Of course, we can’t go without mentioning the other aspects of the show that we’ll soon become very familiar with and before we focus on our horrible host, a gargantuan tip of the hat has to go to Danny Elfman’s main theme and inargubly the greatest open titles sequence in history (fact). This leads us nicely into an introduction with the Crypt Keeper himself, now re-imagined from a creepy old man into a glorious, cackling, Kevin Yagher created puppet that screeches his atrocious jokes in the voice of John Kassir. Is he fairly annoying? God yes, but that’s the point and while he might not have the class of Rod Serling or the dry wit of Alfred Hitchcock, it’s impossible to resist the goofy little fucker as he zaps himself with untold volts to aid a punchline and then cracks up uncontrollably at his own jokes.
First tale out of the crypt, and we find that The Man Who Was Death is a perfect opener for a show that not only single-handedly changed the face of horror television, but as an outlet that allowed directors to let their hair down while still operating in their wheelhouse. This fiendish fable may have escaped the reeking air of a mausoleum, but believe me when I say that this opening gambit has come out fresh as a daisy.
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