Regular readers of my takes from the crypt may be familiar with the fact that I tend to sway more towards the overtly horror themed episodes than I do towards the ones that are more of the thriller genre. While I understand the EC publications it regularly adapts also often focused on more down to earth, conventional crime stories, I just figure that a show called Tales From The Crypt that’s hosted by a living corpse does its best work when playing with the more outlandish twists of the comic.
However, with “Seance”, someone seems to want to finally draw a direct connection between the two. Yes, director Gary Fleder (who went on to direct Thing To Do In Denver When You’re Dead – a personal favorite of mine) seems determined to evoke classic Noir with hard-bitten con artists and cold-blooded dames, but who’s to say that a crime episode can’t suddenly veer into the realms of supernatural vengeance – even if it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense…
I guess everybody has to make a living, but even Benjamin Polosky is starting to think that he and his partner are going too far. You see, Benjamin is a con man, but while he’d be the first to admit that he’s done some pretty shady shit in his life, the alliance he’s forged with the ruthless Alison Peters makes even him think twice. As they prepare for an especially callous con, he ruminates over the events that have led to staging an elaborate ruse to make a blind woman think she’s communing with her recently deceased husband.
Walking matters back a bit, we find Alison and Benjamin targeting rich tycoon, Presco Chalmers, with a complex scam that sees Peters attempt to pass as the fat cat’s long lost cousin and get him to sign money over to Polosky’s fake laywer guise, thanks to some technical jiggery pokery and the fact that Alison is more than willing to bed her “cousin”. However, after a quirk of fate gives the game away, Chalmers catches on to their extravagant scheme and attempts to storm out of the office. Sneering at Alison as she tries to persuade him to stay with a loaded gun, Chalmers neglects to notice that the elevator he’s stepping into hasn’t actually arrived yet and instead he plummets down the empty lift shaft.
Luckily for Chalmers, the fall doesn’t kill him; but luckily for Alison and Benjamin, the descending elevator car does, and after their mark is messily squished, Alison locks her focus onto Chalmers’ blind, spiritual wife, Dorothy. Shifting the con up to the next level, Alison proposes that she poses as Dorothy’s usual medium and convinces her to bequeath the money to them by having Benjamin pose as the ghost of the dead husband – and hey Presco! However, veterans of this very show will already know that the harsh hand of karma hovers over everything, but neither Benjamin or Alison could possibly be able to predict that their seance would be interrupted by the very dead person they’re currently impersonating.
Maybe I’m missing the point and the adolescent horror fan within me is getting carried away, but if every crime-based episode suddenly ended with a random bout of supernatural bloodletting, I genuinely believe we wouldn’t have a bad episode. OK, maybe that’s going a bit far, but you have to agree that “Seance” puts forward a rather compelling argument. For the majority of the episode, director Gary Fleder is content to stick firmly to a period piece, L.A. noir flavour as he assails us with all the classic tropes. There’s an opening narration, a scruples-devoid femme fatale, a hard on his luck chump who’s chosen to grow a conscience at the worst possible time and a rich mark who makes things worse once he sniffs out the subterfuge. However, while preceedings continue pretty much how’d you’d expect as the attempts of our dishonest leads get ever more ambitious, a last minute veer into gruesome horror manages to snap us out of any over-familiarity the set-up may have stirred.
But before we address it, first, let us cast an eye over a pretty great cast. Anyone familiar with the work of Cathy Moriarty (and you should be considering she’s been in a wealth of things from Raging Bull to Casper) will know that the role of a merciless, noir-ish, huckster is perfect for her thanks to that husky voice and blonde locks, and she jumps in feet first, infusing Alison with an impressive lack of pathos. Matching her ruthlessness with the pained expression of a man who knows he’s now in too deep, is Ben (Chariots Of Fire) Cross, who nicely emulates the kind of downtrodden anti-heroes that were popular in all sorts of classic crime movies. As an extra treat, they’re both put under the withering gaze and commanding voice of John Vernon as the doomed Chalmers, who delivered his lines with one of the finest voices Hollywood has to offer thanks such roles in Dirty Harry and Killer Klowns From Outer Space.
However, while its obvious that the entire episode is deeply in love with the noir genre – even the Crypt Keeper gets in on the act with a passible Humphrey Bogart impersonation – it all actually turns out to be something of a genius misdirection. While the the episode draws you in ever further with Alison and Benjamin’s plot becoming ever more convoluted after Chalmers’ Loony Tunes style demise (the timing of the elevator gag is bang on), Fleder and the script by Harry Anderson who starred in season 2’s monsterific “Korman’s Kalamity”, is actually performing something of a scam of its own and how well it works will probably be determined by how you think Crypt episodes should end. At the zero hour, just as the fake seance is about to get into full swing, the episode ditches the noir and goes full horror when we realise that Benjamin has been slaughtered off-screen by the vengful spirit of a mangled Chalmers. With his severed head offered up within the suitcase of ill-gotten money that gotten everyone into this mess in the first place, Alison realises that a lifetime of heartless acts will result in an ironic demise as Chalmers rips her still beating organ from her chest as blood pumps everywhere.
If, like me, you tend to switch off a little whenever we get a non-horror entry, the ending of Seance proves to something of an entertaining slap in the face, but I could see how it could be divisive if you were more into the crime elements. In fact, an argument could be made that the abrupt horror ending – that isn’t teased, set-up, or foreshadowed in any way – is somewhat lazy and chooses a bloodbath in favour of something more in keeping with the story. However, I for one was pleasantly surprised that an above-average crime episode managed to con us fully and go full horror.
I’m guessing the jury may be split on this one, but Seance manages to beat the curse of the bland crime episode by firstly making it not particularly bland at all, and then nailing our unsuspecting asses with a chest-ripping, head removing finale, that hurls caution to the wind. It it a particularly clever ending to a rather complex story? Nope, but it sure is memorable and I’ll take a genuine surprise over a predictable twist any day when I’m visiting the Crypt.
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