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Crypt’ remains horror classic

Tales from the Crypt enjoyed a 93-episode, seven-season run on HBO, spawning merchandising, spin-offs, Emmy Awards, movies and the spread its brand of horror anthology on mainstream pop culture.

The episodes were adapted from the controversial William Gaines’ EC Comics of the 1950s. The Crypt Keeper and his tales were resurrected by Hollywood’s Richard Donner, David Giler, Walter Hill, Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis. Throughout the show’s tenure some of the industry’s top stars appeared in front of the camera and behind it, including Demi Moore, Steve Buscemi, Kirk Douglas, Brad Pitt, Whoopi Goldberg, Joe Pesci, Tobe Hooper and Michael J. Fox.

Tales from the Crypt: The Complete Sixth Season was released on DVD in July 2007 and was a season that showed the series’ consistency in creepiness. "Let the Punishment Fit the Crime" starts off the DVD and the season with a tale about a haunted courtroom and an ambulance-chasing lawyer, played by Catherine O’Hara, getting her own "life sentence." The next episode, "Only Skin Deep" is an eerie, yet sexy story about a man who picks up a mysterious woman at a costume party. The man soon finds out her mask is not a mask, but her face, and he suffers the same fate as the men before him.

"Whirlpool" and "Operation Friendship" are less horror, more humor-filled episodes. "Revenge is the Nuts" is a typical TFTC revenge story, about patients at a home for the blind fighting back against the home’s owner. "The Assassin" is one of the best non-horror episodes from the sixth season, which stars Corey Feldman as an operative trying to track down an ex-assassin for the CIA who is now a homemaker.

The supernatural themes pick back up with "Staired in Horror," which is about a stairway that serves as a devious fountain of youth. "Surprise Party" is about a son inheriting a house after murdering his own father. Little does the man know that the people who were burned to death years ago by his father continue to haunt the house.

The Larry Wilson-directed, "Doctor of Horror" is one of the best ‘Crypts. Hank Azaria, Ben Stein and Travis Tritt star in the episode about a mad scientist (Dr. Orloff) and his experiments on corpses in order to steal the body’s soul. Once security guard Charlie’s morals become troublesome he is decapitated and tossed into a well. Dr. Orloff soon discovers when you take away the person’s soul the good is gone too. Charlie returns from the dead as an angry corpse who turns the table on Dr. Orloff.

Alaska is without daylight in "Comes the Dawn," making poachers the prey for a horde of female vampires. Through the use of technology, Alfred Hitchcock and Humphrey Bogart appear in the season finale, "You, Murderer." The episode is shot through the perspective of a dead man and features all-star cast John Lithgow, Sherilyn Finn and Isabella Rossellini.

Nostalgia and the macabre are calling right around time for Halloween. Tales from the Crypt: The Complete Sixth Season makes a nice addition to any fright fan’s collection.

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