Creepy-ass puppets. It’s a notion that’s been woven into Tales From The Crypt from the very beginning – because what is the Crypt Keeper himself but a verbose, expressive puppet that intros and outros every episode with awful puns and a shrieking cackle. But in addition to our animatronic host, the series has oddly failed to furnish us with numerous episodes concerning puppets being creepy as fuck. In fact, the sole offering to explore the notion of a deadly doll so far has been Richard Donner’s magnificently fucked up “The Ventriloquist’s Dummy”, which put a truly memorable spin on the haunted dummy trope.
Well, it looks like the show is finally playing catch up as season 4 has decided to furnish us with “Strung Along”, the tale of an aging puppeteer who discovers to his dismay that he’s the one having his strings pulled. And who better to deliver us a story centred around puppets than the man who created the Crypt Keeper himself (and various other cinematic marvels), in the first place: Kevin Yagher.
Back in the 50s, master puppeteer Joseph Renfield was the darling of excited children everywhere thanks to a TV show featuring the beloved characters of Koko the Clown and Cowboy Clyde. However, these days, age has caught up with him and even though he has a young and vibrant wife in the form of Ellen, he’s become something of a shut-in, mourning his golden age and nursing a weak heart. But while he’s taken up the weird habit of lamenting at his Koko marionette and then answering in the puppet’s voice, Joseph seems to get a new lease at life when he’s ask to perform for a tribute show dedicated to the golden age of television.
Ellen, who has been struggling to keep friends due to Joseph’s brooding streak is worried that performing again will put undue strain on his ticker, but after applying for an assistant, young animatronic puppeteer David signs on and starts to learn how the art used to be done back in the glory days.
However, while it looks like Joseph’s comeback is all but assured, he starts to get worried that his wife is having an affair – but while David volunteers to check it out, poor Joseph has no clue he’s actually being fooled. You see, the person that Ellen is sleeping with from her acting class is David and the two are in cahoots to nab Joseph’s fortune by scaring him to death – an act they achieve by rigging up an animatronic Koko to look like it’s come alive and stabbed the duplicitous wife to death.
But after Joseph has croaked and Ellen goes to clean off the fake blood and call an ambulance, it seems that Joseph’s connection with his puppet can’t be broken – even in death. As the backstabbing lovers crow about pulling off a perfect murder, it’s time for Koko, to go loco…
Even discounting Kevin Yagher’s extensive special effects background (aside from creating the Crypt Keeper, he created Chucky, gave Freddy Krueger an updated look in the first couple of sequels and removed Nic Cage’s mug in Face/Off), he’s been a major part of the Crypt since it’s inception. Not only did he direct the lion’s share of CK’s bookends, but he’s also responsible for helming “Lower Birth”, the season 2 episode that actually detailed our host’s grisly origins. But with “Strung Along”, we find that yet another frequent contributor serving up the final episode of the show that they ever helm. But while the episode may not be anywhere near as weird as Yagher’s first effort – virtually impossible considering it contained a love affair between a circus freak with two-faces and a 4000 year-old Egyptian mummy – it still manages to tell a classic story of deceit that ends with a particularly memorable final shot.
The main bulk is another one of those episodes that details a complex murder plot that gradually unravels itself to us (and Joseph) as it goes and bows out with a literal last-second blast of supernatural to ensure that just desserts are enthusiastically served. But unlike a lot of Crypts, Yagher gives us a little extra beyond the usual story beats and explosions of gore when it comes to the mental state of Joseph Renfield. When we meet him, Donald O’Connor’s tragic sad sack may be in his golden years, but he’s also wracked with depression as his declining health has him yearning for a time when the world held him with more value. Rewatching his old black and white kids shows on repeat is sad enough, but the fact that he’s taken to engaging in conversions with his Koko doll, where he voices his insecurities in the clown’s tones is more than a little unnerving. But to add a little extra heartbreak is the fact that it seems that both Joseph and Ellen may have been actually happy at one point and it’s been the grind of Joseph’s state of mind that’s driven his young spouse into murderous bitterness. After all, while there’s a good chance she did marry Joseph for his money (this is Tales From The Crypt, after all), but a throwaway line from Patricia Charbonneau suggests that her husband’s demeanor has gradually left her lonely and friendless.
OK, that doesn’t justify murder, but it does bring Gremlins’ Zach Galligan into the mix as eager protege, David. You can tell that the mixture of classic puppeteer and modern animatronics whizz is obviously a highly personal subject for Yagher considering his unfeasibly awesome day job, and having two characters embody both new and old versions of the artwork is a pretty cool touch. Of course, the fact that David is part of a murder plot and uses his knowledge of animatronics to stage a nightmare scenario where a seemingly alive Koko is repeatedly plunging a kitchen knife into Ellen, makes you amusingly wonder what Yagher really thinks of his own profession. Inevitably, this causes Joseph’s weak heart to miss more than a couple of beats and as both Ellen and David crow over the old puppeteer’s failing body, neither have a clue of the violent end that awaits them. As they prepare for the cops to arrive, David has his throat slashed by what seems to be a living Koko and soon a similar fate befalls Ellen, but when the police arrive, both have been strung up like marionettes themselves and the now-lifeless clown puppet suddenly seems to have the face of his creator. Does this mean that Joseph’s vengeful spirit has possessed Koko to claim instant revenge? Has the injustice caused the clown to suddenly animate in order to score some much needed karma? To be honest, Tales From The Crypt has never been particularly bothered by answering many of those kinds of questions, but it’s nice that one of these abrupt finishes come with enough little touches to allow you to come up with a couple of solid theories.
With solid theories comes a solid episode that – thanks to the director’s own background in puppets – creates some rather interesting parallels. However, when it comes to final shots, the sight of Koko grinning away with Joseph’s face is enough to make up for the fact that Tales From The Crypt really has been sleeping on the whole creepy puppet thing.
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