Tales From the Crypt: Season 1 (1989)

Based off the spirit and essence of the EC comics '50s horror line, Tales From the Crypt season 1 is a scant six episodes, introducing us to the cadaverous storyteller the Crypt Keeper and his tales of the macabre. Each episode delivers the frights and gore peppered with the tongue-in-cheek dark humor which made the originals so fun to read. While not an extravagant season, it excels in casting fine character actors like William Sadler, Larry Drake, and M. Emmet Walsh to play the outsiders, wackos, and kooks which inhabit the show.

High points include "Only Sin Deep" where a struggling hooker pawns her beauty to the wrong man and in "The Man Who Was Death" a former executioner gives criminals a shocking end. The low point being the episode "Lover Come Hack to Me", a bloody and almost pointless affair of keeping one's love pure.

While abbreviated, the first season sets the ghoulish mood and humorous tone for future stories of the weird, the gruesome, and the ghastly.

An included special feature, the mini-documentary Tales From the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television compliments the set well with an in-depth look at the rise and fall of EC Comics publisher William Gaines and his horror/crime series. Comic book and entertainment insiders discuss the true story behind the success, downfall, and everlasting allure which the Tales From the Crypt comics created.

Buyer's Guide:
Available on a 2-disc DVD set

3 sinners get their pun-uppance out of 5