During this trawl through the horrible history of HBO’s groundbreaking TV terror show, I’ve been fairly resistant to any episode that’s chosen to offer up a boarder and goofier tone for its episode. While a skewed and nasty sense of humour is vital for the majority of episodes to fly, I just can’t fucking stand the ones that go down a more theatrical, farcical route as invariably leads to an annoying result. So you could imagine my reaction when faced with an installment named “The Reluctant Vampire” as not only does the title scream goofiness, but thus far the show hasn’t had much luck dealing with classic monsters either.
So imagine my surprise when this silly, cartoonish, little episode turned out to not only be weirdly sweet, but thoroughly charming too as we get a tale that finally delivers a comedy episode that mercifully doesn’t suck…
Donald Longtooth is the rarest of creatures, a vampire that doesn’t have the stomach for killing. In order to maintain his miserable existence, he works as a nightwatchman at a blood bank, and drinks his fill once everyone else has gone home, however while this ensures that Longtooth doesn’t have to go stalking the streets at night, his appetite starts to threaten hid existence once his crappy boss, Mr Crosswhite, starts noticing some discrepancies.
Realising that his business is literally being tucked dry, the skinflint starts threatening his staff with layoffs, including that of the pretty secretary, Sally, who seemingly has her eye on the undercover vamp. However, infuriating Donald even more is the fact that the lecherous Crosswhite has his eye on Sally, and offers to save her job in order for some “special favours”. In an attempt to save everyone’s jobs and Sally’s honor, Longtooth heads out into the night and attempts to collect more blood from various criminals and save the bank despite his hatred for playing the predator.
Meanwhile, while the local cops are baffled at this wave of bloodless bodies, they are offered help by Rupert Van Helsing, an apparent kook who insists that the murder spree is being committed by a bloodthirsty creature of the night. While Van Helsing attempts to convince a baffled Detective Robinson that vampires are real, Longtooth’s efforts mean that the Blood Bank is once again thriving. However, it turns out that Crosswhite has been pulling some sort of scam and knows full well that his nocturnal employee is a blood embezzling monster. Lying about the state of the business, he was hoping that Longtooth would boost their blood reserves to save jobs, and now he wants the monster to keep leeching more blood for him. With a Van Helsing on his tail and an unscrupulous boss threatening him with water pistols full of holy water, what’s a reluctant vampire to do?
I think that the reason I embraced this comedic episode more than some of the others that Tales From The Crypt has attempted is that not only does it employ the humour into just more than having the actors give vastly overblown performances, but it manages to create some rather nifty world building which is fairly hard to do when you only have 28 minutes or so to do it in. As we work our way through the episode’s opening credits, we witness Malcolm McDowell’s self-loathing bloodsucker wake for another shift of work while complaining how much he doesn’t like Mondays. It’s cute shtick like this that makes Donald quite appealing and his various contradictions (a vampire dressed in the uniform of a night security guard) go even further towards endearing us to his plight. Director Elliot Silverstein – director of such films as Cat Ballou, A Man Called Horse and The Car – has a decent eye for detail, which does a lot of the heavy lifting and prevents the episode getting caught up in endless exposition.
This means that the cast gets to have fun in their outlandish roles while not getting bogged down too much in how silly a lot of this is. For a start, McDowell’s wig is objectively ridiculous, but the actor is obviously having such a blast, bemoaning his lot in life and trying to hide his exposed fangs whenever he gets horny in the presence of Sally. Similarly, Sandra Dickinson is reliably sweet as the object of Longtooth’s affections from afar. Elsewhere we have George Wendt as the shifty boss of the blood bank and while it may seem weird that Norm from Cheers would appear in such as show, remember that the man also showed up in such things as the original House and even played a series killer in a John Landis directed episode of Masters Of Horror.
Still, watching him lay out his nefarious plan while holding a vampire at bay with water pistols fits the absurdity of the story perfectly and if we look even further afield, things get even loopier when Michael Berryman’s Van Helsing shows up. It’s always fun whenever the man who played Pluto from The Hills Have Eyes show up, and seeing him looking weirdly like Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? with big-ass glasses magnifying his eyes just adds to the eccentricity even more. In fact, watching Die Hard and The Breakfast Club’s Paul Gleason on board to stare at him dumbfounded works even better at building that sense of campy absurdity so many other episodes stumbled with.
It also helps that the episode actually goes somewhere with its plot too, rather than just focusing on farcical office politics with a vampire. Having Donald slowly rediscover an enthusiasm for killing when it’s for a good cause proves to be genuinely fun and watching him “save” and old lady walking her dog from a mugger takes a nicely macabre bent as we watch him heimlich, bear hug and even jump on his victim to drain every last bit of plasma out of him. It’s also a nice touch to have Donald ask his victims the usual questions you’d ask someone before they donate blood, such as if they’ve taken drugs or had any dental work done in the last few days.
OK, so it falls apart a little during the dying moments at the episode hastily has to wrap things up neatly as way too many people literally leap out from behind things going “I already knew that you’re a vampire” in rapid succession. But then, The Reluctant Vampire is one of those rare episodes where you actually would like a simple happy ending – well, not for Crosswhite who is mistakenly staked by Van Helsing for his troubles – but considering that we actually have a comedy themed Crypt episode that hold together, I think we can forgive a slightly messy ending, right?
The Reluctant Vampire certainly isn’t shy about disproving the rule that “funny” installments of the Crypt aren’t worth dealing with, and thanks to a savvy cast and some solid direction, this case of fangs and feelings turns out to be a pleasant surprise. Let’s just hope anyone one else planning to go full camp heeds these lessons before things make like our protagonist and gets too long in those dentures.
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