Sure, Tales From The Crypt excels at a lot of things – unleashing gore onto primetime television, allowing established filmmakers, to kick loose and have fun, providing much needed hosting duties to corpses – but one thing that it’s managed to pin down over it’s expanded second season is the art of blatant stunt casting. While other shows would use such a thing to enhance the episode, with Tales Of The Crypt it could be the episode and never was this more apparent than with “Television Terror”.
To really get how satisfying this episode truly was back in 1990, it really helps to know of the rather irritating legacy of Morton Downey Jr., a talk show host who may have slipped into the realms of the forgotten, but who was fairly instrumental throughout the early 80s for the creation of the trash TV crazy that soon blossomed into what we know as the Jerry Springer show and other such things. But how does this sync up with a Crypt episode about a haunted house and a chainsaw waving ghost? Well stay tuned, we’ll be right back after these messages…
Horton Rivers is a tabloid news host whose arrogant demeanor may have pushed him to the top of the sleazy, opportunistic pile, but it also means that his bullying, ruthless nature has left him utterly despised by all who work with him. In fact, even Sam, a fellow employee that he’s sleeping with, is finding his “it’s all about me” attitude to life grating, but despite suggestions to the contrary, Horton is convinced that he’s found a new story that’ll draw in record viewing numbers.
Five years earlier, Ada Ritter owned a boarding home for the elderly and was discovered to have slaughtered twelve of her borders in various, gruesome ways in order to cash their social security checks and as a result, it’s said that the boarded up Ritter House is more haunted than the facial expression of a Vietnam veteran. As a result, Horton is hosting a live transmission that’ll see him enter the house of horrors to either uncover secrets hitherto found by authorities, or prove the existence of ghosts.
Entering the property with his determined cameraman, Trip, Horton explores the Ritter abode will little success, but as the night goes on and viewers ship wavers, some strange happenings start to occur. But soon visions of Ada Ritter’s slain victims soon give way to more tangible threats and it seems that despite being dead, the ghost of Ritter herself is still willing and able to violently take a life.
With Trip getting cut off early and the ghost taking control of his camera, Horton desperately tries to stay alive as his ordeal starts getting people to tune in in droves. But with ratings up, Horton’s about to realise that his producers would rather keep the cameras running than save their host – even when he’s getting menaced by a homicidal ghost with power tools.
Back in the day, Morton Downey Jr. (no relation) held court on a talk show predictably called The Morton Downey Jr. Show that would see the host chain-smoking his way though numerous hot button topics of the day and various social whipping boys (heavy metal music, horror movies, wrestling) in a right leaning show that would see him trash talking all comers to a braying audience. Leading with his confrontational catchphrase of “Zip it!”. However, as popularity waned, Morton amusingly turned to the very things he’d vilify to pivot in his career and is probably most famous for playing to type as the typically loud mouthed and obnoxious TV journalist in Predator 2. However, for those who really knew Morton’s work, his appearance in Tales From The Crypt would end up being a prime (time) example of giving the public what it wants.
It’s hardly a stretch for the former talkshow host to play a brash, entitled version of himself, but when you realise that Tales From The Crypt only has a limited amount of time to make its point, his casting is tantamount to genius. In fact, while it could be argued that what Morton is doing could hardly be called acting, morphing his infamous screen persona into a parody of itself is a savvy move that does bear saluting. Besides, he’s so good at playing a swaggering prick that he truly seems born to be on a show that years earlier, he probably would have been targeting on his own and it provides a meta bit of irony that’s perfect for the Crypt. But while a pitch perfect spot of casting delivers a magnificent asshole for the episode to torment, the presence of Morton Downey Jr. isn’t enough on its own to guarantee that Television Terror ends up being a slap up example of Crypt Keeper fare.
However, what does is the fact that stuntman turned director Charlie Picerni actually delivers an episode that shoots for scares just as much as it does gruesome deaths and wry meta-humour. For a show stuffed with zombies, murderers and various trippy concepts, Tales From The Crypt ironically rarely gets genuinely scary, but much in a way that was preempted by infamous BBC mockumentary, Ghostwatch, or various segments from the V/H/S anthology franchise, the episode aim to give us a semi-first-person account of a haunting as we alternate between Morton’s screaming face and whatever the cycloptic eye of his camera captures. Old people can be scary, dead old people scarier still, but Television Terror offers up mutilated ghost pensioners who really don’t like people trespassing in their resting place. However, despite the reputation Tales has for violence, I was impressed at how far the episode goes when it comes to delivering the bloodletting we’re all so anxious to see.
We get a cool and genuinely freaky fake-out when Horton stumbles upon the hanged body of Trip the cameraman, only to realise that someone is still operating his camera – it’s a great “oh shit” moment that’s so good, you get a little stomach drop even though you can’t can’t the character it’s happening to. However, the best is reserved for our odious lead who, after coming face to face with the crazed features of Ada Ritter herself, finds him chainsawed to oblivion and hung outside an upper floor window for his stunned crew to see. It’s that final, grim irony that his own producers hang him out to dry in order to secure the very ratings Horton was eager to cultivate, but even though Television Terror is markedly simpler than your average episode, the fact that it’s incredibly smart means that it’s far better than installments with twice the plot.
Expertly delivered, Television Terror is one of those rare Crypt offerings that’s only flaw is that you wish it was actually longer. Superb stunt casting and a no-nonsense attitude manages to deliver all the wry humour, gore, chills and chaos the best of the show has to offer and it’s a shame that some of the satisfying punch it wields diminishes if you aren’t fully award of the living in-joke, Morton’s presence provides. Don’t touch that dial, viewers…
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