Tales from the Crypt

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HBO (ended 1996)
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Show Summary

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Based on the legendary and gruesome 1950's EC Comics from publisher, William M. Gaines, this horror anthology featured stories of murder, greed, lust, gore and the supernatural, with touches of humor sprinkled throughout, usually with a twist ending of sorts. Some of Hollywood's biggest names including Demi Moore, Tom Hanks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Whoopi Goldberg and Michael J. Fox were featured, either in front or behind the camera. Hosting duties fell to everyone's favorite decaying corpse, the Crypt Keeper.''The episodes were based on several comic books by Gaines, which were The Vault of Horror, The Haunt of Fear, Crime SuspenStories, Shock SuspenStories, and, of course, Tales from the Crypt, to name a few.''The success of this series spawned a Saturday morning cartoon series, Tales from the Cryptkeeper, a short-lived Saturday morning gameshow on CBS, Secrets of the Cryptkeeper's Haunted House, and lots of merchandise. A short-lived TV series based on the EC Comics' Weird Science series, entitled Perversions of Science, was also produced in 1997, following the same anthology format as Tales from the Crypt, with wraparound segments featuring a female android named Chrome. In addition, two feature films, Demon Knight (1995) and Bordello of Blood (1996), were also produced. In 2006, Ritual, a third film originally released overseas (without the Crypt Keeper wraparounds) in 2001, was finally released on DVD. Two other movies based on the EC Comics Tales From the Crypt and The Vault of Horror were released back in 1972 and 1973 respectively. They are not connected to this series in any way, other than the original source.''Since its cancellation, Tales from the Crypt had aired in syndication on HBO, Fox, the Sci-Fi Channel, AMC, DirectTV's Chiller Network, Zone Horror in the UK and in Canada on CBC and the Space Channel.moreless
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Episode Guide

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S 7 :  Ep 13 Aired 7/19/96
S 7 :  Ep 12 Aired 7/12/96
S 7 :  Ep 11 Aired 7/5/96
S 7 :  Ep 10 Aired 6/28/96
S 7 :  Ep 9 Aired 6/21/96

Tales from the Crypt News

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  • 10 of TV's Scariest Shows 72

    10 of TV's Scariest Shows

    By Louis Peitzman, Oct 27, 2010

    Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Carnivale, Dexter, Twin Peaks, Angel, The X-Files, The Twilight Zone, Supernatural, Tales from the Crypt, Buffy the Vampire Slayer " link="/the-twilight-zone/show/237/summary.html" target="_blank" loc="left"> I don't know about you, but I rarely jump when watching… more

  • The Best and Worst Comic Book-Based TV Shows 95

    The Best and Worst Comic Book-Based TV Shows

    By Leonard Pierce, Feb 18, 2010

    Human Target." link="/human-target/show/76613/summary.html" target="_blank" loc="left"> Fox's Human Target is only the latest, if not the greatest, TV show to spring from the pages of four-color comic books. While comics on television haven't touched the crossover success of films like Iron… more

Cast & Crew

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Fan Reviews (35)

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  • This show used to scare me to death!

    9.2
    "Superb"
    By LOSTismylife, Nov 20, 2011 Report Abuse
    Tales From the Crypt was very original. It was very twisted and creepy! I don't know how many hours of sleep this show caused me to lose! The Crypt Keeper was so scary! Freaky! The episodes were really scary too! The writers had some extremely twisted minds. But I have to admit they were original. One of my favorite episodes is where guy trades places with a cat. And he gets nine lives and starts doing all kinds of fatal stunts. And while doing his final stunt (being burried alive) he thinks he still has one life left. But it turns out that he miscounted and that he's using up his last life. The episode is better than I made it out to be. Anyways, I was just summarizing the episode to prove how original the series was. Truly a classic. Tales From the Crypt will continue to scare me throughout the rest of my life.moreless

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  • The reason i lost so many hours of sleep as a kid

    7.7
    "Good"
    By Nellyson, Nov 20, 2011 Report Abuse
    I loved this show when I was a little kid. I would stay up really late on weekends and catch this show watching it alone in the dark in my room. It would scare the heck out of me and then I would shut the tv off and lay in bed wondering why I would want to do this to myself every weekend. The show wasn't really that scary unless of course your really young, but the stories always seemed to be able to creepy me out. This is a throwback that really reminds me of being a young kid. The crypt would come out and talk about the story that was about to unfold and I knew I would be in for another long sleepless night.moreless

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    1 0

  • I loved this show

    10
    "Perfect"
    By NathanRoth, Jun 09, 2011 Report Abuse
    This show scared the crap out of me when i was a kid with its horrifying stories and twists.the crypt keeper used to make me laugh with his clever puns dismemberment.some of the stories ended with a weird twist.sometimes they didn't end scary either but they had good plots that made them really horrifying. The only thing that is sad is that the show had to end on a bad note this show should have lasted for ten seasons with more scary stories.this show was so great they made three movies after the show was canceled i would love to see another show like this.moreless

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    3 1

  • This is, and always will be, one of my absolute favorite TV shows of all time. Tales from the Crypt is a show like no other.

    10
    "Perfect"
    By Spongemario, Jun 09, 2011 Report Abuse
    This show was a great one. It either mixed horror and humor, gore and drama, or anything with the mix of science-fiction, horror, humor, gory, unusual, etc. With mainly different actors and directors for each episode, minus the Crypt Keeper himself of course, this show was almost never the same, in a good way. There was no central plot, just something great to watch. Some episodes can leave you on the edge of your seat, others just make you try to think what just happened. Either way, this is a great show. Even though it's been virtually off the air for nine years, even though it started a couple years before I was born, I still love this show. I'm glad we're getting a DVD release of the first season, and hopefully DVD releases of the others.
    But looking at *some* of today's shows, I wouldn't want any new episodes. I could watch all the classic episodes and never get bored of them.
    Now on to the Crypt Keeper. This guy is just hilarious! John Kassir has the perfect voice for the perfect horror show host.
    I would recommend Tales from the Crypt to any TV fan.moreless

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    2 0

  • It has horror and gore an is funny at the same time. Who doesn't love that!!!

    10
    "Perfect"
    By aleidis, Feb 14, 2011 Report Abuse
    Tales from the crypt are stories told by the cryptkeeper. The stories are horror stories with some gore and are also very funny. You have to love the oneliners from the cryptkeeper. There are also a numbre of movies from tales from the crypt like bordello of blood. there are a lot of episodes with famouse actors like whoopi goldberg, billy zane, ... The tales are based on some gruesome comics from the 50's.
    The first episode was aired on the 10th jone of 1989.
    The show was nominated for 7 Emmy's. the shows are about one hour each and are very fun the watch.moreless

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    1 0
 

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