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When a series has been going on for a particular length of time, you’d expect the sheen to come off at least a little bit. And yet, as Tales From The Crypt heads into its sixth season, we find that this cobwebby creep show is still firing on all cylinders. It certainly helps that one of the show’s more dependable leading lights (Russell Mulcahy) is at the helm, but what also helps truly sell a new episode to the masses is a lead turn where a recognisable (and possibly beloved) performer is allowed to go full scumbag and dominate proceedings until the cruel hand of ironic justice smites the ever loving shit out of them.
Well, that’s just what part one of the season premiere has done thanks to “Let The Punishment Fit The Crime” – a typically twisted telling that takes an odious, ambulance-chasing lawyer to task for her litigious ways. Obviously the question stands if Crypt can still keep up the quality in its sixth season – but for this episode at least, it’s just as strong as ever.
Geraldine Ferrett is one of those unscrupulous and shameless lawyers that’ll sue anyone if there’s a sizable payday in it for her, but it seems that her selfish nature has finally caught up with her after a seemingly minor traffic misdemeanor has landed her in the courthouse of Stueksville. Accused of having a predictably douchey personalised number plate on her car (“SUE EM” naturally) that is laid out illegally, she’s about to go before the judge when she meets her bedraggled public defender, Austin Haggard. Initially confused as to why a high powered lawyer such as herself would be saddled with such a weasely defence, Geri is about to discover that Stueksville isn’t like other towns.
While she’s warned that the judges that preside here are unfeasibly strict, Ferrett soon discovers that here, people get vastly over the top sentences after she’s sentenced to 10 lashes. Horrified, she tries to fight the barbaric sentencing with some of the finest lawyerese she can muster – but after managing to dodge the act of being whipped after it’s discovered that her number plate is, indeed, legit, the fact that she’s been handing her business cards out while in the court means she’s now in even hotter water.
Soon things get progressively weirder. She discovers that the three judges are three, identical men, each more stricter than the last and while she spends some time in the stocks, she is visited by visions of dead people negatively effected by her years of suing. Finally sentenced with capital punishment, it seems that Geri has chased her last ambulance – but when everything looks it’s bleakest, Haggard comes through with a save: public service. However public service means something different in Stueksville, and it seems that Geri’s public defender has something of an ulterior motive at play.
Having already helmed “Split Second” from season 3 and “People Who Live In Brass Hearses” from season 5, the director who once gave us Highlander really has made his way to the top of the heap of Crypt contributers who very rarely miss. When it comes to handling the gore, the twists, or just being able to balance the deranged comedy, Russell Mulcahy has managed to bring himself equal to the likes of Richard Donner and Walter Hill by offering up an unbroken run that – thanks to the opening episode of season 6 – now runs 3 for 3. Yep, the quicker among you have probably realised by now that “Let The Punishment Fit The Crime” is something of a winner and it’s thanks to its director, that endearingly strange premise, and the fact that it allows the late, great Catherine O’Hara to aggressively chew some scenery like a starving locust.
While I do like the more traditional stories we tend to get from the dusty books of the Crypt Keeper, I’m always excited whenever we get away from the norm of greedy wives and plotting husbands to get to something a bit further afield. So imagine my delight when “Let The Punishment Fit The Crime” offered up a small town court house that seems to operate outside of the rules of our universe. While we have the likes of O’Hara, Peter MacNicol and Joseph Maher falling over each other to ramp up the camp, Mulcahy seems content to let them have at it while he devises rules for this rubber reality. The secret sause proves to be the detail the director puts into the episode that repeatedly hints that something ain’t right and creates an unnerving atmosphere that Geri Ferrett is painfully slow to catch up on. Be it the cadre of weird cases that sit around waiting for their trial like a losers convention of the damned, or a neat moment where Geri stares at a photo of a public hanging, only to notice a suspiciously modern car at the right of the frame. Mulcahy dials it up once the penny drops, making the set design progressively more lopsided and nightmarish the deeper in shit Ferrett finds herself. Not only is she targeted by that trio of identical judges who each get less immune to her lawyer bullshit, but she’s also confronted with the twisted, living corpses of those who have suffered thanks to a lifetime of her greed.
No stranger to fucked-up, absurd surroundings thanks to her role in Beetlejuice, O’Hara puts the pedal to the metal when delivering her odious, rapacious ambulance chaser and she instantly knows how to walk the line between portraying an asshole in such a way that you love to hate them, but their eventual downfall still ends up being music to your ears.
We get a full preview of her fate through Peter MacNicol’s nerdy public defender, who turns out not to be all that he seems. All the way through, the nebbish dweeb pushes hard for Ferrett to get a public service sentence (surely better than 100 lashes, right?), but the big twist is that he’s trying to get himself replaced. With Geri locked into his previous curse, Haggard is finally free to be put out of his misery via electric chair, while the hapless Ferrett has to take his place for an undetermined period of time – possibly eternity – while dressed like a putz.
Wickedly funny, nicely original and frequently nasty (the dude with a sliced off nose is something of an ambitious visual effect for television in 1994), “Let The Punishment Fit The Crime” is top notch crypt keeping at the highest level and a magnificent way to kick off the season thanks to the fact that the story feels completely fresh compared to some of the more predictable installments. Its actors are allow to cut loose in a way that serves the material and Mulcahy even takes the opportunity to throw in random, but memorable gore here and there such as some cool, managled zombies. If the crime is being awesome, “Let The Punishment Fit The Crime” is guilty as charged.
Season 6 gets off to a rambunctious start that gives Russell Mulcahy his third winner in a row. But thanks to partners in crime – such as an unleashed Catherine O’Hara and Peter MacNicol in a genuinely disturbing toupee – the sentencing of this episode was never really in doubt. No objections here.
Where to watch Tales From The Crypt – Season 6, Episode 1: Let The Punishment Fit The Crime: