Tales from the Crypt Season 2 Part 2

Shoot, this disc got lost in the mail and it took forever for a replacement to get here. Time for more ghoulish tales of bloody revenge!

Episode 7: The Sacrifice
An insurance salesman kills one of his clients so he can have the guys wife. Unfortunately his boss, who used to be romantically involved with the girl, saw everything, and has pictures to prove it. Of course not everything is as it seems...
This is one of those episodes where they decided to see just how much the show could get away with, right off the bat The Cryptkeeper makes a bestiality joke! This episode is all about sex, sex, and dirty words, it even has a porno jazz score!
Not a big fan of this one, the bad people don't really get what they deserve in the end, which is kind of odd for this show, and its all a bit too sleazy to be much fun. I give it a D.
Favorite line: "LA is the pussy, money, and bullshit capital of the world!" Sadly, thats probably true.

Episode 8: For Cryin' Out Loud
A rock promoter decides to run away with a bunch of money he scammed from a benefit concert. He's got a few problems though, his banker knows what he did and wants a cut and theres an annoying voice in his head won't shut up!
This being a rock episode there had to be a musical guest star and it turns out to be the grandfather of punk, Iggy Pop! There's also rock and roll comedian Sam Kinison as the voice of the promoter's conscience and Katy Sagal as the banker. Here's something interesting: Kinison was originally supposed to play Al Bundy on Married with Children and actually guest starred on the show in a later season. Katy Sagal of course, played Al's wife Peg for the shows whole run. Eh, eh? Oh well, I guess I'm the only one that cares about stuff like that.
Great episode! I think I'd give it a B though, but it gets an A for Iggy slithering around on stage.

Episode 9: Four-Sided Triangle
We now move from a dirty rock club to a dirty farm where Patricia Arquette plays a runaway being held captive by a retarded farmer and his abusive bitch wife. One day the farmers (rejected) advances on the girl go to far and to shut her up so his wife doesn't find out what he's been up to, he hits the girl on the head with a bottle. She lives but is a bit light in the head and claims to love a scarecrow in the cornfield, one that wears a creepy clown mask. Then she starts visiting the thing in the middle of the night...
This is another really good episode, theres something about a dirty old farm out in the middle of nowhere that always seems to make for a great horror set piece. (See also The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). You can see the end coming pretty easily but its still pretty sweet. ("it's not real see, its made of straw!" Stab stab. "See, just straw!" Stab stab.)
Again, I'd give this one a B but it gets an A because I'm a guy and Arquette is really really hot. And Braless. ;)
Favorite line: "You know what I'd do if I caught you cheatin' on me? I'd do you like when you make a bull into a steer."

Episode 10: The Ventriloquist's Dummy
A boy's hero is a ventriloquist (Don Rickles!) and the night he gets an autograph after a show something bad happens and the club burns down. Rickles survives but his career is in ruins after his puppet hand is burned beyond usability (No putting his hand inside the puppet head anymore!). Cut forward several years and the boy, now grown up to be Bobcat Goldthwait!, goes to see his idol and get him to come to see his first ventrilo act. Of course its a horror story with a puppet so you know somethings up. I didn't really expect...what happened to happen though but it was pretty cool. I'm going to stick my neck out here and defend Goldthwait. I think he's a much better actor than he gets credit for and Shakes the Clown really wasn't that bad, just off-putingly odd. He's a bit over his head here though but Rickles sure looks like he's having fun. He doesn't call his dummy a hockey puck, that disappointed me a bit. A very strange over the top episode but not bad, I give it a B.

Episode 11: Judy, You're Not Yourself Today
Sigh, after a slew of good episodes there just had to be a crappy one. A moronic gun nut's wife is visited by a witch (the marble rye lady from Seinfeld) who tricks her into trading bodies. Carol Kane plays the wife and is very cute as always, but seems to always be trying to fake a British accent and it doesn't work. The guy who plays the husband seems to be trying to imitate Jim Carrey or Bruce Campbell but isn't very good at either. Bruce would have been awesome in this one, but since he's not here I give this forgettable episode a D.

Episode 12: Fitting Punishment
A boy's parents die in a car wreck and his only living relative is his mean undertaker uncle. He goes to live with the guy who puts him to work and we slowly learn that his methods of saving money are...well...not quite what the mortician's handbook recommends. The cheap bastard doesn't even use embalming fluid, he fills the corpses with water! The boy ends up costing him too much to keep, but theres an extra coffin he can put to good use...
I love the idea of a cheap undertaker getting what he deserves, and the uncle in this story is so mean that the end is very satisfying. I guess the guy never read Lovecraft, cutting the legs off of corpses to save money is a very bad idea! With Moses Gunn as an evil version of Fred Sanford this gets an A. One of the best of Season 2!

Actual disc review:
This time they didn't even bother to put the show's intro on the disc, what do they have against it? The menu's are the same as the first disc and the only extra is a short promotional piece for a Tales from the Crypt radio show that aired live in 2000. There's really no point to watching this unless you're a huge Tim Curry fan, and I'm not, unless he's wearing stockings and heels and inviting Susan Sarandon up to the lab, thus this was pointless to me. If there's a way to actually hear the show, the new stiffer cryptkeeper puppet sure didn't say. More extras on disc three though, hopefully they'll be decent.

I've got the last disc of season two lined up and hope to get to it sometime this week. Thanks to my 5 readers for their support!