A walk through the friendly neighborhood Best Buy, Borders, etc. just isn’t what it used to be. Used to be I could walk down the aisles and be reasonably familiar with what I saw. Not so much anymore: the shelves are now crowded with plenty of titles I’ve never heard of, and few sections are worse offenders than those damn “TV on DVD” ones. God help me if I venture here, hoping to find some sort of Mystery Science Theater box-set or the newest season of The Simpsons. I’ll almost instantaneously be bewildered by things I’d either completely forgotten about or never heard of. Greg the Bunny? Son of the Beach? It appears we’re just a My Mother the Car First Season Collector’s Edition away from total pandemonium.

Well, in the interest of combating this tidal wave of unwanted product, Warner Home Video has gathered the courage to start releasing a television program that, not only have I actually heard of, but that I enjoy, too! That’s right, boils and ghouls. Our old pal the Crypt Keeper has finally dragged his festering old bones into the digital medium, and that, in my opinion, is quite a good thing. So light a fire, draw the curtains and come with me as I examine this spine-tingling two-disk set which contains all six Season One episodes...

“The Man Who Was Death”—An executioner is quite disheartened to find himself out of a job when the death penalty is abolished. Being a proactive individual, he decides to take matters into his own hands and continue ridding the world of its riff-raff via a good dose of electricity. Once capital punishment is reinstated, however, he may find himself getting a taste of his own medicine.

“And All Through the House”—When a philandering wife murders her husband on Christmas Eve, she forgets about Santa’s warning to the “naughty.” Unluckily for her, he hasn’t; and he’s showing up this evening to teach this bad girl a lesson.

“Dig That Cat...He’s Real Gone”—When a bum undergoes a surgical operation to receive a cat’s nine lives, he becomes a sideshow sensation with his dying act. But can he keep track of how many times he’s died? After all, his lives are still limited...

“Only Sin Deep”—A prostitute fed up with her dead-end career choice decides to pawn her beauty in order to get the money necessary to live the high life and snag herself a wealthy beau. As her features begin to wither, however, she begins to fear she may have made a mistake.

“Lover Come Hack to Me”—Rich, demure little Peggy (Amanda Plummer) seems like the easiest of targets for her greedy, conniving fiancé. However, his murderous plans for their honeymoon might be ruined by a family secret she forgot to tell him...

“Collection Completed”—After being forced into retirement, Jonas finds himself a little disturbed by his wife’s menagerie of pets, all of which have a habit of getting in his way. To relieve his stress, he decides to take up taxidermy to rid the house of some of its unwanted guests; however, he’s about to find out the hard way that you can only push sweet little old cat-lovers so far.

Anyone with even a passing interest in this series should not be surprised how easily these tales of terror lend themselves to a “_____; however ______” synopsis construction. This is because most every tale told by the Crypt Keeper is, in essence, a little morality play in which a mean character gets his just desserts via an ironic twist of fate. In a way, this is a bit of a curse, as it renders a lot of the stories rather predictable: hooker sells her beauty to be rich, so what do you think is gonna happen? She’ll probably find out she kinda liked it. Same with the taxidermist, the executioner, etc., etc. Still, as those irritating shirts from team-building conferences that people are always wearing remind us, “it’s not the journey, it’s the destination.” Their stories are all well told and, while always having some faults, nevertheless make for an entertaining watch. Just as you could probably hear the “couple on lover’s lane vs. guy with hook-for-hand” story a thousand time as long as it’s told well, most of these stories nevertheless are a lot of fun even if you can tell where they are going.

That’s not to say, of course, that surprises aren’t welcome. For this reason, “And All Through the House” is definitely the best episode, as the maniac in a Santa suit is capable of delivering shocks and surprises in a way that lost beauty and an unkillable man just can’t. This episode also makes the best use of irony and twists, too, not using them for just the obvious (i.e. murderess gets her comeuppance) but to heighten the tension of the situation, too. Probably the best example of this is how the woman’s murder of her husband ends up putting her in jeopardy, for she first meets “Santa” outside as she’s trying to dispose of the body. Santa, of course, forces her to run inside lest she be axed; but the husband with a bag over his head outside definitely doesn’t fit Santa’s MO. This means the woman can’t call for help until she disposes of it, which essentially leaves her trapped in a house full of working phones that she just can’t use. Now there’s a cruel twist of fate!

As for the other stories, they are all appropriately ironic, but never quite as clever as the stand-out second tale; and in occasional instances they are hobbled by some mishandling. “Lover Come Hack to Me,” for instance, starts out with promise and maintains a creepy, gothic mood throughout; however, it drops the ball in the end by leaving things a little less clear than they need to be. “Collection Completed” gets just a touch too comic at times, while “Man Who Was Death” and “Only Sin Deep” could have used a little more humor, perhaps, as they’re the most predictable. “Dig that Cat...” is probably the weakest entry, as it’s just too baroque during its carnival scenes to be scary, particularly since the horror of the story all comes in the twist ending (though it is, admittedly, one of the less-expected ones), while the rest of the tale is pretty light in tone. “And All Through the House” also isn’t free from problems, the most grievous being an instance in which the wife knocks Santa out with the handle of an axe and then doesn’t simply go outside and just bury it in his chest and end the whole ordeal right there. I mean, it’s not like she has trouble killing, right?

Nevertheless, despite their faults, there’s something that I find enjoyable about all of these stories; and I would nevertheless heartily recommend that you give the set a try. Even at their most telegraphed, they’re still pretty fun; and at their best, they’re more than capable of delivering a few good shocks and chills.

As for Warner Brother’s presentation, things are about as good as could be expected. All of these episodes are presented full-frame (their original aspect ratio, since they hail from the days before fancy widescreen TVs) and, though bearing a few signs of age (occasional dirt, specks, etc.), nevertheless generally look good. These episodes are also presented uncut, which took me a little by surprise, as I had forgotten this was originally an HBO program. It was quite a shock watching “Man Who Was Death” and seeing it full of swearing and topless strippers (until I remembered the HBO thing). One minor gripe might be found in the fact that the episodes have been excised of the show’s opening—admittedly a good mood-setter—, which only plays as a lead-in to the disk’s menu. Still, this is a relatively minor complaint, and it’s nice just to have this show on DVD at all.

As for the set itself, it consists of two disks, the first housing all six first season episodes and the second containing most of the package’s extras. Both disks are housed in one of those folding (I believe they are called “digipak”) cases, which then slips into the outer box which has a very nice, textured picture of the Crypt Keeper on the front. The inside of the digipak contains synopses of the episodes and selected pictures, including one of the psychotic Santa knocking on a door that scared the living shit out of me as a kid when it was on the cover of Fangoria.

As for actual DVD bonuses, they are a bit of a mixed bag. Disk one contains a short Introduction by the Crypt Keeper which is mostly fluff. He speaks from a hospital bed, covered in bandages and recovering from a botox treatment, and basically just welcomes fans to the DVD with a slew of worse-than-usual puns.

Disk Two, which consists solely of bonus features, is better. The Crypt Keeper’s History of Season One is a five-minute piece in which the Crypt Keeper basically just synopsizes all the episodes in the set, which meant it proved kind of redundant and pointless. Much better, however, was “Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television,” a neat little 50-minute documentary that was reviewed earlier on this very website. In a rather short time-span, this piece covers the origins of “Tales,” the philosophy behind its stories, its being blamed for causing juvenile delinquency by Senator C. Estes Kefauver, its effect on many of today’s leading horror writers and directors, its spawning a TV series, and much more. Fast-paced and entertaining, this documentary provides an excellent addition to this set, and my only gripe about it is that the DVD doesn’t give it any chapter stops. (Same with the episodes.)

So, all in all, you owe it to yourself to check out this series if you haven’t already or to visit it again if you have. While occasionally a little predictable or slightly mishandled tonally, these “Tales” are nevertheless, on the whole, well-told and entertaining; and the included documentary is a fine addition to this package. Head out and pick it up. You’ll have a ghoul time!