If you’re going to play in the sandbox of EC Comics, you’d better make sure your zombie game is on point, and if your episode of Tales From The Crypt just so happens to be titled “The Thing From The Grave”, that just piles extra pressure on the fact that you have to deliver. Yes friends, there are many types of the undead to be found in popular culture, but there’s nothing quite like the ones found within the pages of the various horror publications that William Gaines founded during the 50s.
George Romero and Tom Savini knew it when they used EC Comics as the basis for Creepshow (the “Father’s Day” zombie is a classic), and episode director Fred Dekker certainly knew it when it came time to helm his corpse-centric installment for Tales From The Crypt’s second season. But if anyone understands the importance of a good, memorable zombie, surely it’ll be the director of Night Of The Creeps and The Monster Squad, right?
Devlin Cates is a professional photographer just trying to do his job but his latest shoot has hit him with a couple of noticable distractions. The first is Stacy, a stunning model who catches Deviln’s eye as he tries to get the correct imagery on film for the ad campaign he’s shooting for; but the other distraction proves to be something else entirely. Constantly Devlin’s his ear is Stacy’s manager/fiancé, Mitch Bruckner who not only proves to be a prominent sleazebag, but is also incredibly possessive of his woman and it does take long for the guy to go from being in Devlin’s ear to being fully in his face. However, despite Mitch’s best efforts, there does seem to be a legitimate spark between the photographer and Stacy that the two decide to act upon in secret.
Finally finding refuge from her the abusive Mitch, Stacy is gifted a necklace from Devlin that he says was given to him by a blind old lady and is in the image of the Mayan God Of truth who apparently will honor the wish of anyone who touches it. But his pledge to protect her is soon tested when a vengeful Mitch lures Devlin out to his remote cabin, shoots him dead and buries him in a shallow grave in the woods. Now free to slime his abusive way back into Stacy’s life, he tries to play off Devlin’s disappearance off as the actions of just another flakey shutterbug, but once Stacy discovers that foul play has occurred, Mitch decides to cash in his chips.
Kidnapping Stacy and tying her up in his cabin, the epic shitheel is planning one last night of “fun” with his former fiancée, but unbeknownst to him, that Maya necklace is actually packing some pretty impressive mojo when it resurrects a rotted Devlin to claim some good, old fashioned zombie vengence. But will the shambling, moldering Devlin manage to get to Stacy in time and save the day?
If it sounds like I’m putting extra pressure on Fred Dekker to deliver an utter opus of an episode, it’s because more than most directors, he’s the guy whose going to get the Tales vibe the most. His awesome, throwback splat-fest, Night Of The Creeps, proves that he gets that cynical but fun, balls out tone that all the episodes shoot for and cult monster mash, The Monster Squad is substantial proof that the filmmaker knows what he’s doing when it comes to giving classic beasties a modern edge. But beyond that, Dekker also was responsible for a couple of scripts for season one, with one of them being Robert Zemeckis’ superlative “And All Through The House”, so if anyone was practically made to helm an episode, Dekker is seemingly your man. Thankfully, he doesn’t disappoint and while there’s a few things that stop The Thing From The Grave from being top-notch Crypt, it delivers all the goods you’d expect from a classic, justice-by-zombie story.
Dekker’s script lays everything out neatly with a quick flash forward to Devlin’s murder setting the scene before we zip back to find out exactly what the hell is going on and like a lot of Crypt directors, Dekker keeps things in a lower gear in order to let the actors take their characters through their paces. Why is this important? Well, primarily because the odious part of Mitch Bruckner is being played by seasoned scumbag performer, Miguel Ferrer, who excelled in embodying snivelling douchebags in such films as Robocop, Deep Star Six and The Night Flier. Well, he’s certainly playing to type here as Mitch is the sort of enterprising a-hole who will quite happily take time out from abusing his fiancé to shoot a man to death for muscling in on his territory and Ferrer is obviously lapping this shit up.
As a result, Kyle (Sleeping With The Enemy) Secor’s heroic photographer is a little on the bland side, but I guess them’s the breaks when you’re playing an ill-fated good guy on a show like Tales From The Crypt – still, if nothing else, he gets to woo Teri Hatcher’s Stacy and while while the future Desperate Housewife and Bond girl doesn’t really have much to do other than be underwear-clad kidnap bait, she proves to be a pretty fetching victim. However, while the set up is nice and solid, it’s the payoff that we’re all waiting for and to Dekker’s credit, he comes incredibly close to pulling off a perfect episode. The success of the episode literally hinges on how satisfying both Devlin’s return from the grave is and now nasty Mitch’s comeuppance is and both manage to score big.
As ressurected corpses go, Devlin’s a big fat winner, with different methods bring used to bring the dead guy to life (so to speak). Some shots are achieved with extensive prosthetics, but close ups are provided by a full, articulated puppet head which gives us a good view into his worm filled eye sockets and his yawning jaw as he fixes his murderer with a genuine, rictus grin. As an EC inspired zombie, it hits all the right notes and arguably beat previous attempts, including the one seen in Chris Walas’ “Til Death”, but while the episode nails it’s eponymous undead, it stumbles ever so slightly when it comes to the payback. Don’t get me wrong, Dekker certainly ensures that Ferrer gets his just desserts thanks to a well placed spade slicing off 50% of his digits and a final, ignominious end that sees Devlin dragging them both into his grave to be buried alive – but while justice is served, the abrupt ending makes it feel like the surving Stacy and the episode at large deserved a bit more closure. Hell, the episode ends before Mitch has even been buried fully and any villain in Tales history has earned us witnessing his final breath, it’s this piece of shit.
An unfeasibly strong episode is slightly let down by a bit of an awkward finish that weirdly denies us the exact thing we’ve come to watch, but the only reason I’m being so hard on the episode is because of the personal expectation that comes with having Fred Drekker at the helm. Still, despite my issues, The Thing From The Grave proves to be prime Crypt and even the Crypt Keeper bits seem to stepping up its game thanks to the horny old bone bag flipping through the pages of Playdead magazine. That isn’t exactly what I was getting at when I said I wanted the dead to rise…
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 