‘Tales From the Crypt’ Revival to Fail If Rumors Are True
By Jeremy Dick
Yesterday, we reported on the return of the television series Tales From the Crypt. As my love for the series is well documented, having previously expressed my desires for the show to come back, I couldn’t have been more excited. Granted, I didn’t know exactly how this new version of the show was going to play out, and while I expected for it to at least have the typical adult elements toned down— such as the nudity and graphic violence— I was sure it could still work.
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Those hopes have now gone out the window, crashing several stories down into a pile of crushed dreams on the sidewalk. An exclusive report from Bloody Disgusting has shed some additional light onto the upcoming Tales From the Crypt reboot, and while there are a lot of new tidbits of information, none of them are good. For starters, the Crypt Keeper won’t be included. When I read that, my heart was crushed so badly that you’d think it was steamrolled. Apparently this has more to do with HBO owning the rights to voice actor John Kassir’s version of the pun-cracking zombie, but I don’t see why they couldn’t have worked out a deal (Kassir also took to Twitter to voice his own disappointment).
The new plan was to have a version of the Crypt Keeper that looks more as he did in the original comic series. In those books, he was a white-haired old man in a robe that carried a cane. It’s not exactly a fresh or interesting look for a TV horror series, which is likely why HBO spiced it up with the undead puppet for their TV adaptation. Why would you want to go back to the boring old man? That’s only going to make us miss the real Crypt Keeper even more. I’ll be flipping the coffee table in front of me before he even gets to the story.
Additional details in Bloody Disgusting’s report have suggested that each season of the show will focus on just one storyline, ala American Horror Story. That also seems to defeat the purpose of doing a horror anthology show, as the appeal of Tales From the Crypt has always been about its unique short horror stories. The premiere season was also rumored to be about voodoo in New Orleans and will be scripted by the team behind Hemlock Grove, neither of which is good news.
If these rumors are true, then it’s clear that whoever gave the green light knows absolutely nothing about what it was that made Tales From the Crypt‘s original TV run so great. However, as the production of the TNT reboot of Tales From the Crypt is still in its infancy, that means that plans can still change. If you look elsewhere online and in social media, it’s easy to tell that I’m not the only one bothered by the possibility of no Crypt Keeper, as well as these other details on the format of the show. Hopefully, TNT is also noticing and taking note.
Next: Why 'Tales From the Cryptkeeper' Needs to Make a Comeback