I already reviewed the first season some time back, so here's the Second Season. Obviously I'm not into a introduction here, since we all know the story on Tales from the Crypt, and I'm too bored to come up with interesting crap to mention.


Episode #1: Dead Right
Starring Demi Moore and Jeffrey Tambor. Moore plays a gold-digging hussie who, with the help of a psychic, finds out that she'll meet an obese man who will inherit a lot of money, then die suddenly. Enter Tambor, in heavy makeup and a fat-suit, looking as repulsive as possible, compared to Moore's usual hot-ness. She marries the fat bastard, but it's one of those twist endings: Moore wins $1,000,000 by being the millionth customer at some restaurant. When she tries to leave the guy, he guys psycho on her, stabbing her to death. Seconds later, we see him being electrocuted, after apparently having the largest meal ever for a man on Death Row.
Rating: 8/10 - A bit on the cheesy side, more than usual that is, but it's not entirely stupid, and the plot is pretty good.


Episode #2: The Switch
Directed by Arnold Schwartzenegger (oh boy...), starring William Hickey (a.k.a Uncle Lewis from Christmas Vacation), Kelly Preston, and some other guy. Hickey is a rich old bastard in love with a woman young enough to be his grand-daughter. Through bizarre (and ludicrously expensive) surgeries, Hickey's character trades bodies with one of a younger and more physicially attractive man. However, this leaves the old... er, newly young man broke, and then to really kick him while he's down, hus hussie only wanted him for his money, and is now married to the younger man, now with the older body (and all of the money). Even more kicks as they also employ his former butler, who quit because of the lack of funds.
Rating: 5/10 - Really lame story here. Hickey as an annoying old bastard is funny. Him in love and being sweet isn't. I guess the second I mentioned Schwartzenegger should've been a tip off or something.


Episode #3: Cutting Cards
Starring Kevin Tighe and Lance Henriksen. Don't recognize either of them, but that's not important. The story is about two high-stake gamblers/rivals, who will do anything to beat the other. This includes a game of Russian Roulette (with a loaded pistol), and when that doesn't work, a game of chop poker. The winner of each hand gets to chop off part of the other mans body. A delightfully twisted episode with sick humor, and with a goofy ending... both men, missing their arms and legs, playing checkers... and passing the gum.
Rating: 9/10 - A fun episode all around. They are the only two characters worth noting in the entire episode, and at least one is in every scene. One of those dark horse favorites of mine from Season 2.


Episode #4: 'Til Death
Starring D.W. Moffett and Pamela Glen. Taking place in what appears to be Africa, some scummy businessman/real estate dealer needs money, but the only woman who has enough is a snobby british bitch who wants nothing to do with him. So with the help of a local Voodoo Woman, he slips the rich woman a potion that will make her love him. However, he gives her too much, and she dies. Then the twist comes... she digs her way out from her grave, and continues worshiping and following the man around, even as a skeleton! He tries killing himself, but the voodoo woman brings him back to life, to make him suffer more, for screwing her over. The closing shot is the skeleton wife trying to french kiss the poor guy.
Rating: 7/10 - I didn't really care for this one, but the last 4-5 minutes is pretty funny stuff.


Episode #5: Three's a Crowd
Starring Gavan O'Herlihy, Ruth DeSosa, and Paul Lieber. A down-on-his-luck man who apparently hits the bottle a lot becomes paranoid that his wife is cheating with an old, rich, friend, who probably isn't impotent either. When they go away for their Anniversary, it becomes worse, as the two sneak around, drawing the husbands suspicions even more, until he throws a temper tantrum. The man finally snaps, killing his friend with a cross-bow, and pinning him up on the wall like a trophy, a site his wife sees upon entering the cabin. After the man screams enough obsenities to make George Carlin blush, he attacks his wife, and strangles her to death. He brings her back to another cabin... and there's a bunch of people there for their party, with a banner congradulating him for being a father. Now that's a REAL kick in the nuts. The guy cries all episode about how he wish he could give her a child, and then he kills her, without knowing she was pregnant, and was keeping it a surprise until their anniversary.
Rating: 9/10 - Outside of the goofy "pin up victim against the wall" cliche in horror, a very good and down-to-earth episode that barely stretches past being believable.


Episode #6: The Thing from the Grave
Starring Teri Hatcher, Kyle Secor, and Miguel Ferrer. The episode starts out with a jealous boyfriend shooting another man to death. The man in question is a photographer, who was having an affair with the man's fiance. Told in flashback version, finding out the jealous dude is REALLY jealous (and violent), and the photographer/good guy is portrayed as a knight in shining armor type manner. Hatcher doesn't add much, other than making men horny. Halfway through, the photographer gives her a necklace, claiming he'll protect her, no matter what. And if you don't know what happens, you can go to someplace not very nice. The guy comes back from the dead, and buries the boyfriend alive, who was about to do away with the chick.
Rating: 6/10 - Another "not a favorite of mine" episodes, mainly because it's just too sappy. Killing isn't the answer, but the photographer had it coming.


Episode #7: The Sacrifice
Starring Kevin Kilner, Kim Delaney, and Michael Ironside. Excuse me for slacking, because it's another episode I really didn't like. The usual "gold digging bitch wants to off her rich husband" episode. Blah-blah-blah, stuff happens, the guy dies, then she betrays the guy who helped her do the man in. Next. I won't rate it, since I really didn't pay attention to this one.


Episode #8: For Cryin' Out Loud
Starring Lee Arenberg, Katey Sagal, and Iggy Pop. A greedy concert promoter attempts to steal a million dollars from a save the rain forest type of charity, but something stops him... his annoying concience, which doesn't shut the fuck up. Add on top of that a banker he has to kill (Sagal) since she wants part of the money or will spill the beans, and a nosey cop, and the guy just can't be left in peace. After attempting to commit more murder on his own brain, the man is tricked into confessing his crimes, although the only reason everyone was staring at him to begin with was he had a Q-tip jammed into his ear. Nice blood squirt when he pulls it out, too. The man more than welcomes the electric chair, just so he can put his concience out of it's misery.
Rating: 8/10 - Another fun episode. Arenberg is hilarious in the "goofy guy trying to cover something up role", and he's basically 98% of the episode.


Episode #9: Four-Sided Triangle
Starring Patricia Arquette, Chelcie Ross, and Susan J. Blommaert. A young woman is kept on a farm to pretty much be a slave to an old couple, consisting of a horny slack-jawed yokel and his crazy, gimpy wife. After she refuses the advances of Cletus, he smashes a bottle over her head, knocking her unconcious. When she comes to, she stumbles into the corn field (or whatever), and passes out in front of a Scarecrow, wearing a clown mask. Apparently she thinks he's alive, and wants it to make love to her. Cletus, fed up with Brandene not putting out, comes up with a plan to get in her pants... but the old woman, tired of the young girls crazy stories, tries to show her the Scarecrow isn't really, by stabbing it several times with a pitch-fork... except it turned out to ber her husband under a mask pretending to be. While she continues cussing him out, the young girl impales the old hag with the pitch fork, apparently doing this as a set up all along. Good for her, says I.
Rating: 7/10 - Sounds like a great episode, but it isn't. The acting is beyond corny, even for a TFTC episode, and the gore only lasts about 3 seconds. However, I boosted the rating a point for the 30 seconds of nothing but Arquette bending over, showing her cleavage, and having her nipples poking her top. No wonder the old fart wanted some of that. She was coming on to him! [continues rambling a bit stolen from George Carlin]


Episode #10: The Ventriloquist's Dummy
Starring Don Rickles and Bobcat Goldthwait. An aging ventriloquist (Rickles) has to retire from his performances thanks to an injury to his hand, the one he used to operate his dummy. Goldhwait plays a dorky guy obsessed with being a ventriloquist ever since he saw the old man's last performance. Too bad he sucks at it. After Goldhwait finds out about the man's "problems" (lots of fires and dead women), the old man tells him the truth... his dummy wasn't a dummy. He had a derformed hand, which was supposed to be a twin brother, but never developed properly. O-Kay. We find out the hand does all the talking, thus creating a new meaning for talk to the hand, and attempts to kill the young man. After putting a cleaver to the little demon from hell, he manages to stay alive, and taking a bite out of Rickle's throat. GROSS! Goldhwait attempts to put him through the meat grinder, but the hand talks him out of it, and sets up a deal to be his dummy... however, he changes the plan, and eventually morphs onto the young mans hand permanently. That's a bitch.
Rating: 8/10 - Good episode, if a bit "out there" in terms of a payoff, but it's TFTC, so you should be expecting a lot of them in this show. Hell, if they don't happen, you probably wonder "where's the twist ending?!"


Episode #11: Judy, You're Not Yourself Today
Starring Carol Kane and Brian Kerwin. Kerwin plays the husband obsessed with guns, and Kane his do-good wife who doesn't suspect anything. When an old door-to-door sales woman shows up, she manages to trick the wife into switching bodies, through the form of matching necklaces. When the husband returns, he locks away his "wife" and hunts for the young woman who is now possessed by the witch. He tricks her into switching bodies, but now they have to deal with the withc locked in the closet. They kill her, and bury her in the basement, but now they're having nightmares. When the wife's curiosity does another body switch, a gun comes into play, and the witch is shot... but she doesn't die until after doing one last switch, now leaving the wife for dead.
Rating: 7.5/10 - The streak continues of good/tolerable episodes. Body snatching is an old cliche in horror, but at least it wasn't the pod people this time.


Episode #12: Fitting Punishment
Starring Moses Gunn and Jon Clair. I guess it's a law for Undertaker's and Morticians to be evil bastards in this show. An old mortician has to take care of a young nephew, the son of a sister the old man hated. Naturally, he treats the nephew like shit, and smacks him around at every opprotunity. When the old man accuses the nephew of buying the wrong coffin, he smacks him around with a crowbar to the point he nearly cripples the boy. When expenses become too much (well, for him at least. He's a cheap old fuck), he knocks the boy down a flight of stairs, killing him in the process. Since the boy is too tall for one of his cheap Taiwan coffins, he saws of the boys feet before curying him. Naturally, the boy's ghost haunts the old man, who suffers the same fate of falling down the stairs, before meeting his end. TAKE THAT YOU OLD FUCK! FUCK YOU!
Rating: 9/10 - Great episode, and very light on comedy. Much too serious if you think about it, thus why it doesn't get a perfect score. TFTC needs dark humor, and this had none.


Episode #13: Korman's Kalamity
Starring Harry Anderson (a.k.a Judge Harry Stone from Night Court), Cynthia Gibb, and Colleen Camp. A writer for Tales from the Crypt comics (Anderson), married to a beast of a wife (Camp), takes experimental medicine to make him capable of fertilizing, but instead, it helps bring to life creatures he has drawn. After he falls in love with a young female cop (Gibb), his wife threatens to kill him. However, he has drawn a very unflattering picture of her, which brings to life an ugly monster that attacks her. The man leaves the scene to let things happen, and apparently lives happily ever after with the woman that isn't a bitch.
Rating: 8/10 - Yet another fun episode. Goofy at times with the "creatures come to life", but it's all harmless fun, as long as the acting isn't terrible and there's some funny shit.


Episode #14: Lower Berth
Starring Jeff Yagher and Stefan Gierasch. Let's take a look back at a Circus from the early 20th century, including a freak show gallery. The main attraction: a man with two faces... LITERALLY! The owner is on hot water with the owner though, so he cuts a deal with a mysterious man to showcase a 400 year old Mummy as the new attraction. The Mummy is stolen property of course, but the bigger surprise is a curse it holds. If anyone dare steal a priceless necklace from the Mummy, he would be castrated. So why doesn't a woman steal it? Of course, the old circus handler steals it, and the 2-faced man, who fell in love with the Mummy, cuts his nuts off. He steals the Mummy, and a year later, we find out they had a baby... The Crypt Keeper! Ew, that son of a dead Mummy is one ugly fucker!
Rating: 6/10 - That ends the streak. Not a terrible episode, but it lacks the charm of most of the great ones, and the story moves along poorly.


Episode #15: Mute Witness to Murder
Starring Richard Thomas, Patricia Clarkson, and Reed Birney. After viewing a man murdering his wife from a balcony, the young woman (Clarkson) falls into a sort of mental transe, disabling her ability to speak. Her husband (Birney) calls for a doctor (Thomas), and he happens to be the man she saw killing the wife. Once he deduces that she saw him, the doctor has her commited, and does everything he can to make sure she doesn't live long enough to come out of her condition. However, the doctor has a heart problem, and a sudden heart attack leaves him at the woman's feet, who had gained her ability to speak moments earlier. She doesn't call for help though, allowing the doctor to die. That's what he gets for killing her husband. The prick...
Rating: 7/10 - A bit better than the previous episode, but the quality has done a bit of a skid for the last couple. I guess not all of them can be winners, to quote Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa.


Episode #16: Television Terror
Starring Morton Downey Jr. Downey plays a loud mouth talk show host (what a stretch) named Horton Rivers. His show, in attempt to get big ratings, will feature him doing a tour of a boarded up old house, home to a dozen murders of elderly men from a psychotic old bitch. No one, not even a physic, has the balls to go in, other than a camera man named "Trip." Yeah, I so want someone like that with me. All the other minor characters do their best to make it seem like they don't like the guy for being a jerk, including the show executive, who he is sleeping with, but told off only moments before entering the house. Spooky shit happens, and ghosts appear... then Trip is killed off-camera, and hung from the ceiling. Horton turns around to find a gaggle of ghosts, but no one is rushing to his aid, thinking he's faking it, and the ratings are going through the roof. Things go from bad to worse, as he stumbles into a room with an old woman carrying a chainsaw. She slices him good, and while caught in some ropes, gets knocked out a window, and hung. ON LIVE TELEVISION! You can't get better ratings than that.
Rating: 10/10 - My favorite episode of the season, and damn if this one didn't scare the bejesus out of me when I was a kid. I couldn't sleep for a week, I was so scared after seeing this one. The final shot of the guy covered in blood and hung is just scary, especially since it was the edited for TV FOX Version!


Episode #17: My Brother's Keeper
Starring Timothy Stack and Jonathon Stark. A story about twins joined at the ass. Yeah, this one is going to be a serious episode. Twin #1 is evil and wants to have a major surgery, with only a 50% chance of surviving. The other is more conservative/good, and wants nothing to do with the risk. Enter a woman, who appears to be attracted to the good twin, and can stomach the bad one, who intentionally is being a pig to force his brother to go through with the surgery. The woman reveals though that the bad brother paid her off to do it, but she really did fall in love with him. Of course, the bad guy drives a butcher knife into her back, and since they can't execute him for being a siamese twin, he thinks he gets away with it. TWIST TIME! The good brother tries to overdose on medicine and alcohol, but before passing out, signs the contract to have the surger.y When they awake, the cops haul the bad brother to jail, while the good one enjoys being seperated.
Rating: 7/10 - Too whacky for me, but I've seen worse. I've run out of comments to make, so here's a filler sentence.


Episode #18: The Secret
Starring Larry Drake (a.k.a the evil Santa from "And All Through The House..." in Season 1) and Grace Zabriskie. What's a Tales from the Crypt season without Vampires and WereWolves? A young orphan is adopted by an eccentric couple, who work all day and keep the young boy locked up in his room all day, giving him all the sweet and fattening food he wants, and a butler who will serve him whatever he wants. The Butler grows fond of the boy, and tries to save him from his feat: being a feast for the Vampire couple. They take out the Butler, but when going for the boy, he turns into a Werewolf (full moon), and he eats both of them up, because Werewolves > Vampires. The boy returns to the orphanage, no doubt to use his newly realized secret to good use.
Rating: 7/10 - Another decent episode, but I guess I shouldn't have expected more for the season finale. Usually all the good episode sare wasted early or during a mid-season ratings attempt.


- There aren't much in terms of bonus features, consisting only of about 15 minutes of nonsense documentaries that don't add much from what we've already been told from the first season set documentary.


Final Thoughts: Although there's a few stinkers scattered around everywhere, not too bad for the first full season of the show. While there's not too many "awesome" episodes, most follow a proven formula of "evil fuck does away with the good guy, but karma strikes him in the ass harder than you could possibly imagine." My only complaint is the lack of Special Features. A 3-minute "Radio TFTC" Documentary and another 10 left over from the previous sets Documentary don't light the fire in me. Priced at $27, it's not a bad deal for a 3-disc set. Recommended for casual tv fans, Highly Recommended for Horror/Dark Humor people.