Woah. It really does seem that the quality found in the dying episodes of season 5 are really drying up fast. We began the run with episodes that not only contained deliriously wild stories and supremely fucked-up characters (“People Who Live In Brass Hearses” is a prime example), but also found innovative ways to put those twisted tales on screen, with Tim Curry playing an entire, inbred family in “Death Of Some Salesmen” immediately springing to mind. However, those halcyon days seems to have passed, and in the mad rush to get to the end of the season, the Crypt Keeper’s tales are not only getting less fun, but are actually getting told pretty badly if I’m being honest.
Further proof that the season is burning out prematurely comes with “Half-Way Horrible”, a confusing and convoluted story that sees some big city businessmen dicking around with voodoo in order to create a cash hoovering wonder drug. But not only is the offering not up to snuff, it also does us the further indignity of putting the magnificent Clancy Brown in a duff episode…
Roger Lassen is the typically unscrupulous president of a chemical company who is on the verge of getting his new preservative, Xenthion-B, past the FDA and into the hands of the public. To do so would mean a phenomenal amount of money for Roger as he’s risked an incredible amount to get the long-lasting, game changing compound made, but it seems that after a string of murders occur that’s seemingly connected to the drug’s creation, Xenthion-B’s release may be stalled. However, a quick glimpse into the past reveals that there’s probably a good reason that these killings are happening as we find that the origins of Xenthion-B lay in an illegal business trip to Brazil that occured six years ago which saw Lassen conspire with a native tribe and participate in human sacrifice in order to get hold of the poison that his chemical is derived from.
The murders have thus far claimed two of the other men that went on that excursion of the damned, and a detective investigating the killings seems to think that Lassen is next due to the ominous message of “I have not forgotten or forgiven” that’s been left at the various crime scenes. However, the truth proves to be stranger than fiction as there’s even more about that trip to Brazil that needs to be revealed, and it turns out that the trade that had to be made for the relevant herbs was for Lassen to sacrifice his best friend and have him zombified. But when that bloated, rotting friend returns, he carries a message that carries even worse news – it’s Lassen’s own evil half that’s been doing the killings, and the only way to save himself is to purge that part of himself once and for all. Enlisting a witch doctor to cure his evil malady before he kills again, Lassen’s about to discover that the cure is just as devestating as the disease – but with Xenthion-B at hand, he can still preserve that parts that are left.
I think the biggest takeaway from “Half-Way Horrible” is that Tales From The Crypt really does need to stop using Voodoo, or any other random native magic, as a plot point because it rarely ever results in a great episode. I’m not even saying it to bring up issues of any cultural insensitivity, it’s just literally a proven fact that the vast majority of voodoo-themed entries just don’t turn out particularly well and this is certainly one example that certainly fits. Written and directed by Gregory Widen, the man who wrote the original Highlander (thus explaining the presence of Clancy) and who helmed the underseen, Christopher Walken-as-a-killer-angel-film, The Prophecy, the episode is nothing more than a convoluted mess that proves to be confusing and deeply unsatisfying with every poorly delivered twist. In fact, this may be one of the worst plotted Tales in its long history and even now, I’m still not entirely sure what’s supposed to have happened and why.
From what I can discern, Clancy Brown’s tyrannical CEO sacrificed his best friend during that fateful trip to Brazil in order to get his mitts on the natural herbs that eventually goes to make up Xenthion-B. However, while we’re supposed to think that it’s his zombified buddy who has been murdering the rest of the group in revenge, the episode ultimately reveals that it’s Lassen’s evil half that is the killer. But, wait… if the guy was willing to force his best friend to drink a voodoo potion and be buried alive, we’ve already established that he’s already pretty fucking evil, haven’t we?
The episode goes on to claim that Lassen hasn’t actually snapped, but suggests that he’s been cursed to go out and kill his past co-conspirators without realising it thanks to magic employed by his zombified friend – but this is hardly much of a twist because Brown plays the guy as a menacing lunatic from the get-go, whom you’d believe would happily cave in his lawyer’s head two minutes after meeting him. From here, we get a cameoing Cheech Marin show up as a witch doctor to purge Lassen’s evil half, with the result leaving half the CEO’s body a mangled, seeping ruin. But even this doesn’t make any real sense, and as Lassen goes to inject himself with Xenthion-B for reasons not explained (Suicide? Eternal life?), the ending feels less like it’s willfully ambiguous and more like it’s just stupid.
To be fair, just judging by the cast alone, “Half-Way Horrible” should have been a fucking slam dunk. Clancy Brown’s monstrous company man may be a somewhat unsubtle performance considering that his homicidal tendencies are supposed to be a surprise, but no one does imposing and threatening quite like the man who was the Kurgan. Elsewhere we find the cast also contains Martin (The Karate Kid) Kove, Costas (Saw IV) Mandylor, Charles Martin (The Untouchables) Smith and the aformentioned Marin (From Dust Till Dawn), but not even the talents of these accumulated character actors are enough to stop the accelerated decay of season 5.
Muddled, confusing and dull, I’m guessing that those responsible thought that heaping trope after trope onto the plot would somehow create some sort of mega-twist, and maybe if the episode had longer than 26 minutes to tell it, “Half-Way Horrible” might have been half-way watchable. But the influx of voodoo curses, zombies, whodunit tropes and unsubtle jabs at big business just results in a jumbled mess that no amount of decapitations, or enraged outbursts by Brown can fix.
With only a single episode to go, the fifth season of Tales From The Crypt puts in its bid in to deliver a late contender for series-worst. If Clancy Brown and his contemporaries can’t manage to elevate the material with the aid of iffy voodoo magic, then I guess nobody can. Full-blown horrible.
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