10 Best Episodes of Tales from the Crypt

Christopher Reeve and Lance Henriksen in Tales from the CryptRunning for seven seasons, Tales from the Crypt was a solid hit for HBO in its pre-The Sopranos era. But like with any anthology horror show, the quality of episodes could vary greatly. Even still, throughout the first few seasons at least, the good outweighed the bad.

So much so, in fact, that it’s genuinely difficult to narrow down just what the ten best episodes of Tales from the Crypt are. There were quite a few solid episodes that didn’t make the cut. Most of them came from Season 3, e.



g., the jealous lumberjack episode “Split Second”, the Jon Lovitz-led stage acting frightfest “Top Billing”, and the criminal on the run tale “Carrion Death”. Season 5’s mummified “Creep Course” was also a close call.

Season 3’s war story “Yellow”—featuring a heartbreaking performance by Kirk Douglas and widely regarded as one of the series’ best episodes —was not included as it was primarily intended to be one of a three-story pilot for another EC Comics adaptation: Two-Fisted Tales. It’s a great half-hour of television, but it’s not quite Tales from the Crypt. Even if it is a thousand times better than the other segments of the pilot: the Brad Pitt-fronted “King of the Road” and the Western piece “Showdown” (both of which were also repurposed as Crypt episodes).

“And All Through the House” (Season 1, Episode 2)Like the HBO series, the 1972 British film Tales from the Crypt was based on the classic ’50s EC Comics series. And like in the HBO show, there was a segment titled “And All Through the House” (starring Joan Collins in the film).If there’s an episode of the show that is a direct remake of one of the film’s segments, it’s undoubtedly this one, and it takes something that already worked and perfects it.

“And All Through the House” was just the second episode of the series, and with note-perfect performances from Larry Drake as a murderous Santa and Lethal Weapon‘s Mary Ellen Trainor as the woman he’s terrorizing (who herself has just murdered her husband), it’s the highlight of the show’s debut year.“Cutting Cards” (Season 2, Episode 3)Many great films and TV episodes are based on a fairly simple concept: escalation. And when it comes to Tales from the Crypt, there’s really no better example of its mastery of escalation than the Lance Henriksen (Aliens) and Kevin Tighe (Road House) fronted Season 2 episode “Cutting Cards.

”The two play a pair of compulsive gamblers who hate each other as much as they love games of chance. One of them strikes a deal with the other, that this current game of cards will be their last, and the one who loses leaves town and never comes back. But things get more intense when they move onto Russian Roulette and ultimately end up betting not with cash, but their own body parts.

“Television Terror” (Season 2, Episode 16)If there’s a scariest episode of Tales from the Crypt, it’s Season 2’s “Television Terror.” The late Morton Downey Jr. (no relation to Robert) essentially plays himself: the talk show host of knowingly trashy TV.

His Horton Rivers is investigating what has been deemed by many to be a haunted house, where a caretaker had a habit of murdering the elderly patients of whom she was in charge.Of course, Rivers thinks it’s two things: the first is that it’s all nonsense, the second is that it will be a ratings extravaganza. By episode’s end, he’ll discover the latter of those two things is very true, but he won’t be hanging around the mortal coil long enough to enjoy it.

“Abra Cadaver” (Season 3, Episode 4)In Season 3’s “Abra Cadaver,” Beau Bridges turns in a performance as Martin Fairbanks that is one part sympathetic and one part psychotic. Scandal‘s Tony Goldwyn plays his younger brother, Carl, who years ago played a prank on Martin that cost him his budding career as a top-tier surgeon.Carl has since succeeded on the path that he cost Martin, and the latter is preparing to get his revenge.

Martin has crafted a serum that makes the patient (or victim) retain consciousness, but with a body that is fully immobile. They’re basically dead, but aware of all that is transpiring around them, which isn’t so great for Carl, considering Martin has a bunch of sharp surgery tools at his disposal.“What’s Cookin’?” (Season 4, Episode 6)The top-rated episode on IMDb for good reason, it doesn’t really get much more macabrely delicious than Season 4’s “What’s Cookin’?” This episode alone is enough reason to be sad it’s become almost impossible for people to discover Tales from the Crypt (it is not available to stream, even on Max, due to rights issues).

The late Christopher Reeve and Jaws 3‘s Bess Armstrong charmingly play Fred and Erma, proprietors of a restaurant that only serves squid. Needless to say, business is..

.slow. But when they hire a drifter, Gaston (Judd Nelson), to clean the restaurant, he floats the idea of serving patrons steak, which he claims is an old family recipe.

But it’s not steak, it’s human meat, and before long Gaston might find himself on the menu.[RELATED: You’ve Never Seen One of the Best Comic Book Movies of All Time (And You Can Stream It Free)]“The New Arrival” (Season 4, Episode 7)“The New Arrival” is right up there with “Television Terror” as one of Tales from the Crypt‘s scariest. The late, great David Warner elevated everything he was in, and this episode is no different.

Warner is perfectly cast as ultra-arrogant radio psychologist Dr. Alan Goetz. He feels he can alter any troublesome child’s behavior for the better.

Unfortunately, he meets his match in Nora and Felicity. Nora (Zelda Rubenstein of Poltergeist fame) is a small woman who claims her daughter’s behavior has gotten worse and worse. Along with his producer and boss, Goetz goes to Nora’s home and, before long, begins to suspect that Felicity is just Nora in a mask and a different dress.

But he and his small team learn that’s not quite the case, and they’re never getting out of this house alive.“Death of Some Salesmen” (Season 5, Episode 1)Tales from the Crypt had a few tour-de-force performances. “Death of Some Salesman” alone has three.

And all three of them belong to (Emmy-nominated) Tim Curry.Ed Begley Jr. stars as Judd Campbell, a con artist posing as a salesman hocking burial plots.

When he meets Ma and Pa Brackett, he thinks he has two fish on his line. But they’re less interested in the burial plots and more interested in him. They enjoy killing salesmen, but Campbell sees an opportunity to delay his premature execution by marrying their grotesque daughter, Winona.

And, for a second there, it sure seems like he’s gotten the better of them. Or is it the other way around?“Forever Ambergris” (Season 5, Episode 3)Tales from the Crypt was always at its very best when it was about betrayal. “Forever Ambergris” is all about betrayal.

And, if “What’s Cookin’?” isn’t the best episode of the show, this Season 5 segment is.The Who’s Roger Daltrey stars as Dalton Scott, a past-his-prime wartime photographer. These days, Isaac Forte (Steve Buscemi) is all the rage.

He’s praised for having the eye that Scott seems to have lost. And, to rub salt in Scott’s wounds, Forte’s wife is absolutely gorgeous. Scott wants what Forte has, so he manipulates the younger man into taking shots in an area he secretly knows is contaminated by a horrid chemical.

Too bad for Scott that, before he died screaming, Forte sent word to his wife what Scott was up to, and now she has a gift for her new lover.“People Who Live in Brass Hearses” (Season 5, Episode 5)“People Who Live in Brass Hearses” coasts on two elements that were often an asset to Tales from the Crypt. The first was a believable and complex (oftentimes even abusive) dynamic between two characters.

The other is its showing just how funny it can be when devious people are also stone-cold morons.The late Bill Paxton and Child’s Play‘s Brad Dourif play, respectively, Billy and Virgil DeLuca. Billy has recently been released from prison.

He was turned in by his former boss, ice cream truck driver Earl Byrd, for stealing. Now, Billy and Virgil are planning to rob their current job: the ice cream factory from which Byrd purchases his inventory. Things go awry, so once again, Billy sets his eyes on stealing from Byrd.

But, once they get to Byrd’s house, Virgil blows the ice cream driver’s head off with a shotgun before the man can even reveal where his stash of cash is. They separate to find it for themselves, but Virgil goes missing and, much to Billy’s confusion, it’s because the assuredly dead Byrd killed him. Turns out Earl Byrd is just one half of a set of conjoined twins.

..so at least that helps explain how he could entertain kids with a talking puppet while drinking slushies.

This episode must feature the most darkly hilarious final scene in the show’s history.“Let the Punishment Fit the Crime” (Season 6, Episode 1)“Let the Punishment Fit the Crime” is peak Tales from the Crypt, even though the show was most certainly past its peak. The final two seasons of the show are undoubtedly weaker than those that came before, but at least Season 6 isn’t the disaster that the show-killing British final season proved to be.

In “Let the Punishment Fit the Crime,” the great Catherine O’Hara stars as a brash lawyer who is pulled over for having an improper license plate in Stueksville. It’s a very old-fashioned town, one that has resisted development at every turn. Assigned an ineffectual public defense attorney (Ghostbusters II‘s Peter MacNicol), she faces a trio of identically appearing judges, a ruthlessly insane definition of justice.

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