We’re not even halfway through the second season of Tales From The Crypt and it’s getting pretty damn clear that a division is beginning to form. On one side we have the episodes that swing for the fences and deliver undead creatures, severed fingers, killer Santas, skewed predictions of the future that nd up going disastrously wrong and various other things that fit in perfectly with a shoe that hosted by a living corpse. On the other hand, we have the stories that forsake any and all supernatural chicanery completely and focuses entirely on the type of two-faced shit that greed makes people do. The reason for this is that while Tales From The Crypt adapts stories from it’s EC Comics namesake (alongside The Vault Of Horror and The Haunt Of Fear), it also cherry picked plots from Crime SuspenStories, Shock SuspenStories and Two-Fisted Tales that tended to focus on more earth bound, ground stories with endings laced with irony.
But as the season started to deliver ever more crazed plots, it tended to leave the more straighter, noir-based tales in a bit of a muddle, which “The Sacrifice” manages to be the perfect example of.
Wealthy businessman Sebastian Fielding is the type of blunt, obnoxious guy who’d happily describe Los Angeles as the money, pussy and Bullshit capital of the world as he goes about his business of squeezing yet more money for himself out of every venture he turns his attention to. In fact, he’s currently in the midst of switch his life insurance over to the firm owned by his friend Jerry Jasper and in order to guarantee that the deal is sealed, hotshot salesman James Reed is sent over to butter Fielding up. However, Reed emerges from the meeting with something of a good news, bad news scenario – while the greedy Fielding could help but flex his financial muscles and screw James out of a hefty chunk of his commission, James also meets Fielding’s sultry wife, Gloria and before you know it sparks fly.
Of course, when sparks fly between people on this show, a premeditated murder is soon to follow as as James and Gloria’s romance grows, they cook up a plan to off her boorish hubby and claim his fortune. However, cold-blooded murder isn’t quite that simple and after tipping Fielding off of his balcony (don’t worry, the sidewalk breaks his fall), both James and Gloria discover that the slimy Jerry Jasper not only witnessed the whole thing, but even managed to get some good, glossy photos of the nefarious deed. Worse yet, while James’ boss is blackmailing them, he doesn’t want money – instead he wants Gloria whom he’s listed after for years and months later, the pair can barely stand the sexual depravity that Jerry is making her endure. At the end of his tether, James can only see one way to free his love from her perverted predicament and it involves making the ultimate sacrifice – but it turns out this was the plan all along…
It’s easy to forget that, at this point in its existence, Tales From The Crypt is still a relatively new show that’s in the midst of figuring out what it is and what it wants to be. As it stands, The Sacrifice appears not even halfway through the second season, but it’s already becoming apparent that the powers that be are probably using the more “normal” episodes to both buffer the more crazy ones and possibly keep the effects budget in a more manageable arena, because once again we get an episode that’s perfectly fine on a technical level, but unavoidably ends up being something of a drag seeing as the last episode brought us finger chopping vengence zombies and the sight of 90s Terri Hatcher in minimal clothes.
As a more noir themed episode, The Sacrifice feels like it has far more common with movies like Double Indemnity than your standard horror fare as we get the classic plotline of an insurance salesman and a miserable wife falling in love and cooking up a plan to bump off her obscenely loaded husband. As these sorts of things go, it’s a perfectly reasonable serving of lust and betrayal that adds an extra veneer of 90s sleaze when the story takes a left turn, but it’s fast becoming obvious that the Crypt Keeper’s straighter stories end up being noticable low points when sandwiched between their more lurid and far-out peers. But while filmmakers such as Walter Hill have given such potentially low energy installments as “The Man Who Was Death” and “Cutting Cards” a boost of gonzo mania that’s turned them into season highlights, Richard Alan Greenberg is content to homage the likes of Billy Wilder and various noir greats without adding any noticable pizazz of his own. It’s a strange choice because Greenberg – a former visual effects artist – was also responsible for directing crazed kids film, Little Monsters, so it’s not like he’s not used to exaggerating things a little, but as straight laced as The Sacrifice is, at least it’s thoroughly a nicely down-beat affair.
The majority of the episode goes exactly as you’d expect. Kevin Kilner brings the charm as the salesman, Don Hood is suitably loud as the doomed Fielding and Kim (NYPD Blue) Delaney is the scheming wife and we go through the usual noir motions as the millionaire is unceremoniously dumped over his balcony for financial gain. Curiously, however, the exact moment the episode starts playing with the formula, it slightly goes of the rails as it shifts it’s tone in order to set up the appropriate twists. Usually the arrival of Michael Ironside to anything makes it infinitely better, but while he’s on top creep form as a man who uses his leverage to unleash his sordid, sexual appetites on the woman he’s apparently lusted after for years. However, I can’t help but feel he’s a bit wasted here, especially when other character actors such as Lance Henriksen, William Sadler, Jeffrey Tambor and Joe Pantoliano have been given carte blanche to go hell for leather in stories that are deranged enough to let them strut their stuff. However, one thing that does help The Sacrifice rise above its issues is the ending, which while strangely quiet and downplayed for a Crypt episode, it’s impressively cold blooded. Figuring out the only way he can save his lady love from the acts of sexual degradation while keeping her out of jail for being an accessory to murder, James overdoses on pills while leaving a suicide note that confesses to everything while maintaining her innocence. However, the kicker is that the whole thing was a massive double cross, Gloria and Jerry have been in cahoots all along and James’ suicide means they’ve got Fielding’s fortune without ever having to kill the man themselves. You don’t see it coming and it’s pretty novel to see Michael Ironside get the girl, but while it’s a solid twist, it’s also lacking that big finish that’s becoming expected from the show.
Another low-key episode provides bare minimum thrills and you have to wonder if the producers back in 1990 were catching on that when it comes to Tales From The Crypt, the gore is most definitely the merrier. But the real lesson here is a reassertion that if your Crypt Keeper segments prove to be more entertaining than your episode, you’ve kind of messed up.
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