TALES FROM THE CRYPT: THE COMPLETE SEVENTH SEASON

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This box set collects the 13 episodes that make up the seventh – and final – season of this deliberately campy HBO horror anthology series broadcast in 1996.

The stories are taken from old 1950s era E.C. Comics titles such as Tales from the Crypt, Haunt of Fear and Vault of Horror. The over-the-top gore and sex are quite modern though (and very HBO!), but without it one can still see why these particular comics inspired such a moral backlash back then. However, as we’ve stated elsewhere on this Web site, the Tales from the Crypt universe is a rather moral one, one in which people are usually punished for their transgressions no matter how minor they might be.

In one episode a crime mystery writer comes to a sticky end for being impatient with her dotty housekeeper. Her murderous husband also gets his just desserts. In another episode a cocky Daniel Craig is punished for his hubris when he becomes involved in the advertising industry (if only that weren’t always the case!). In one episode a WWII German POW suffers the same ignominious fate as his fellow POWs he has ratted out to their captors. And so on.

Unfortunately by this time all the good comics have already been adapted to the small screen and the batch that made it to this final season aren’t that good. Too intent on having their prerequisite amount of twists, the plotting discards all plot and character logic and lapses into self-parody: these episodes are what writers who have used up all their good ideas think Tales of the Crypt episodes should be like. Watching them is like watching some fevered dream as real life logic and rules no longer seem to apply to onscreen events and nothing makes any sense.

Completists would want to check out Season 7, but horror newbies are probably better off checking out the earlier season box sets. Come to think of it, if you hate bad puns then you’d also be advised to steer clear of Tales of the Crypt.