Now Showing: Tales from the Crypt

 

Tales from the Crypt

Genre: Horror

Directors: Michael Dougherty (Fangs of Fate), Bryan Bertino (The Last Supper), Ti West (Drawn to Death), Til Death Do Us Part (Andy Muschietti)
Writer: Joshua Collins
Based on the television series and EC Comics property

Cast: RJ Cyler, Diedrich Bader, Dan Fogler, Sam Worthington, Katheryn Winnick, Logan Miller, Kathryn Newton, Ryder Allen, Christopher Meloni, Anna Akana, Emilia Clarke, Christoph Waltz, Asher Angel, John Kassir (voice)

Plot: Before the film starts, we get a great callback to the shows opening, as the credits roll, we get a tour of the iconic creepy castle of the Crypt Keeper.

The camera pans into a dimly lit alley, where the unmistakable sound of growls and jeers echoes. Our host, The Crypt Keeper (voiced by John Kassir), steps into view, holding a dog leash, which is attached to a dog-skeleton. Crypt Keeper says "Now play dead, Spot!" when the dog doesn't move, Keeper says, "Good boy!"

"Welcome, boils and ghouls, to tonight’s tail-wagging tale of terror. It's a story about loyalty, betrayal, and a beastly bite of karma. I call it... 'Fangs of Fate.'"

*FANGS OF FATE*

Marcus "Mad Dog" Malone (RJ Cyler) is a seasoned hustler in the grimy underworld of illegal dog fighting. His prized pit bulls had dominated the ring for years, but lately, his luck had turned sour. Too many losses. Too many bruised egos. He needed an ace in the hole.

That’s when he heard whispers about a black-market auction. Word was they had something special—something that could turn the tide.

The auction was held in an abandoned warehouse, its air thick with desperation and greed. Under flickering fluorescent lights, Marcus spotted it—a dog unlike any he’d ever seen.

The beast was massive, with jet-black fur that shimmered like oil and eyes that burned an eerie shade of amber. When it growled, the room seemed to tremble.

“What’s the breed?” Marcus asked the auctioneer (Diedrich Bader), a wiry man with a permanent sneer.

“Exotic,” the man replied, grinning. “It’s got a killer instinct like nothing else. Yours for $10,000.”

Marcus didn’t hesitate. He shelled out the cash and named the beast "Lucifer."

Lucifer would live up to his name. In the ring, he was unstoppable. No dog could match his speed, his ferocity. The winnings poured in, and Marcus reveled in his newfound dominance.

But then came the fight against a dog called "Goliath." Goliath was eerily similar to Lucifer—black fur, glowing eyes, and a savage growl that shook the cage.

The battle was brutal. Teeth gnashed, blood sprayed, and the crowd roared. For the first time, Lucifer faltered. Goliath lunged with a feral howl, pinning Lucifer to the ground. When the dust settled, Lucifer lay defeated.

Furious, Marcus dragged Lucifer back to his van.

“You worthless mutt!” he screamed, kicking the dog. Lucifer snarled but didn’t fight back. His glowing eyes dimmed, and he slinked into the shadows of the van.

That night, Marcus chained Lucifer in the basement, muttering curses as he went to bed.

Around midnight, Marcus was jolted awake by a chilling sound. A Full Moon peering through Marcus' bedroom window as a low, guttural howl echoes through the house.

“Stupid dog,” he muttered, grabbing a bat.

As he descended the creaking basement stairs, the growling grew louder, deeper. At the bottom, he stopped cold. Marcus attempts to holler at the dog to 'shut up or I'm selling you to the Chinese restaurant down the block'

Lucifer was no longer chained. Marcus prepares for a fight, holding his bat up as a defense weapon. Lucifer stood on both legs, bigger than ever before. Growling, snarling, setting his sights on Marcus.

“Wha—what the hell are you?” Marcus stammered.

The creature lunged. Marcus attempted to swing the bat, but it only broke across Lucifer's face. Marcus screamed as claws ripped into his flesh. Teeth sank into his shoulder, and a searing pain shot through his body.

Marcus wakes up, and realizes he's somehow still alive, but his body felt wrong. His muscles bulged unnaturally, his senses were razor-sharp, and his skin prickled with an insatiable itch.

In a mirror, he saw the truth. His face was no longer human, but a werewolf: Fangs, Fur, glowing eyes.

Lucifer sat in the corner, now back to his dog form, watching with a knowing gaze.

The black market auction was buzzing the following night. In the center of the room stood a new cage: Marcus.

The auctioneer grinned at the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight’s special item—an exotic breed guaranteed to dominate the ring. Bidding starts at $20,000!”

Lucifer sat nearby, tail wagging as his amber eyes gleamed with amusement, as bidders shout out their numbers.

"Looks like Marcus bit off more than he could chew. Now he’s the one on a short leash. Careful what you bargain for, my friends, or you might find yourself in the doghouse... permanently!"

Crypt Keeper laughs, and introduces the next segment:

"The next course on the menu this evening, is a deliciously twisted tale of betrayal, revenge and a killer appetite for Justice. Bon appétit, my frightful foodies. I call this little slice of terror: The Last Supper."

*THE LAST SUPPER*

A beat-up pickup truck is driven by drifter, known as George (Dan Fogler), while George seems to carry himself well, he does seem to be haunted by the idea that someone is watching him. He once stalked and killed a college girl, Amanda, who turned down his advances. He killed her, slept with her corpse and left her in the woods, never being caught.

The truck starts to break down in a rural area. While most houses are few and far apart on this road, he goes door to door looking for help, but is finally answered by home owners: Frank (Sam Worthington) and Ginger (Katheryn Winnick).

While Frank and Ginger are welcoming to George's presence, there does seem to be something off about them. George notices they do have Christian imagery around their house, so he does try to relax. Frank hones in on a ring George is wearing and gets suspicious, but keeps quiet.

George settles onto a chair in the living room, Ginger offers him some "Stuffed Eggs," implying as Christians, they can't call them Deviled Eggs. On the TV, George notices a news report about how. Amanda's killer is still at large. George changes the channels and Frank brings up the ring, complimenting it, and George saying "man when you're a drifter like me, you can find the most bizarre things out there in the world." When George asks to see it, he notices the engraving on the ring was a message to Amanda from him. George tries to cover, saying the ring was for his own daughter, but she didn't want it. Frank says 'but you said you found this' and George dismisses Frank's suspicion, saying 'Yeah, I found it buried in the dirt at my daughter's house.'

George excuses himself to the bathroom and walks out to the front porch. He makes a phone call to an unknown person, saying he’s safe and a god-fearing couple are putting him up for the night. He tells them too bad he can’t risk leaving witnesses alive. “I’ll just feed them some BS about going to heaven, some stupid crap like that they’ll like.” With their backs turned to him, he points a ‘finger gun’ at them and mimes shooting them.

Frank meets Ginger in the kitchen and shows her the ring, Ginger wants to break down and cry, but Frank tells her they can't let him know that they know...or let him leave. Ginger agrees, "just like the rest of them"

The dinner feels tense and awkward, but the couple do their best to host George as they both play cat-and-mouse not giving away too much, but also curious about each other. Frank makes a confession, something silly he thinks God would easily forgive him for. He asks George if he has anything he’d like to confess. George declines. Ginger leads the table to prayer, mentioning their daughter not by name, but praying for her. The details get George’s attention, but he brushes it off.

George is ready for bed, but Ginger seduces him. Frank stands in the doorway watching, George notices and is about to say something, but Frank smiles, nods and walks away. With that approving nod, George relaxes and sleeps with Ginger. While they have sex, Frank is setting up a kill-room in the barn.

The next morning, George walks into the living room and sees framed pictures of Amanda on the walls and the tables. A home movie is playing on the TV, showing Amanda and her parents on a vacation. Just as George realizes what he walked into, Frank sneaks up and subdues him with Chloroform.

When George wakes up, he's strapped down in the barn. Ginger and Frank stare at him in the barn. "You like our museum? It's not the Lourve, but it is something, ain't it?" Frank asks. George looks around and sees mangled bodies hanging from the rafters of the barn. Ginger points at a few of the bodies, identifying their names and their crimes. Frank says they fill the cracks the law leaves behind.

Frank asks if Ginger wants to do the honors, offering her a chainsaw. Ginger cranks it up, "Where should I start?" She points the saw blade at different parts of George's body. "Eeny...meeny..miny..." she points it at George's crotch, "Moe"

"That's gonna be a real good juicy cut baby," Frank says.

George screams as Ginger begins the cut.

In the final scene, Frank and Ginger are enjoying a cooked meal of George's flesh. "What should we do with the rest of him?" Ginger asks. "Feed him to the pigs," Frank says.

We see the Crypt Keeper putting a dead person's head in the microwave. "Now wasn't that simply a dish to die for? I guess you could say George got his just desserts. You know what they always say, kiddies. Revenge is a dish best served George."

Crypt Keeper laughs. "That's not all, kiddies, we're about halfway through. If you're still alive that is."

"While you've been enjoying the last stories, I've been painting my masterpiece," he shows the audience a self-portrait. "This reminds me of our next devilish doodle. A tale of passion, ambition and a few sketchy decisions. A starving artist who should have left well enough alone, but he penciled himself into a corner. I call this chilling creation: Drawn to Death."

*Drawn to Death*

Derek Sanderson (Logan Miller) is at the end of his rope. Once a promising artist, he now scraped by on commission work, hawking uninspired sketches to uninterested passersby. His dreams of fame and fortune felt as faded as the paint peeling from the walls of his tiny apartment. He is a janitor at a huge corporation and gets treated like crap from employees and especially the CEO (Christopher Meloni). He gets rejected by his crush, a coworker named Darlene (Kathryn Newton).

One gray afternoon, while perusing a dusty flea market, Derek stumbled upon an ornate, leather-bound sketchbook. An Asian seller (Anna Akana) tells Derek about the sketchbook. Its cover was engraved with swirling, eldritch symbols that seemed to writhe under his fingertips. The vendor, a stooped old man with eyes like smoldering coals, grinned as he handed it over for a pittance.

"Careful what you create," the salesperson says, his voice like rustling paper. "Every masterpiece demands a price."

That night, he tested it out, sketching a simple apple. Moments after his pencil left the page, the fruit appeared on his desk, vivid and real. Stunned, Derek bites into it. Curiosity outweighs caution as Derek pushes forward. He sketched a wad of cash. A sinister grin is lays on his face.

Derek's descent into depravity begins the next day. A rival artist, whose gallery opening Derek had envied for years, became his first human subject. Derek drew a grotesque caricature of the man, slouched and lifeless. The following morning, the artist’s death was all over the news—an apparent stroke.

"Unfortunate," Derek said with a smirk, but deep down, he reveled in the power at his fingertips.

As weeks passed, Derek uses the sketchbook to climb the social ladder. Darlene finds herself madly in love after he sketched their romance, they have sex everywhere in the office, on the ride home and to the mansion he drew in place of his apartment. He drew his tyrannical boss throwing himself out of the window, and Derek promoted to CEO of the company overnight.

Derek is at a coffee shop. He draws himself as the "1000th customer" so he gets a free cup of coffee. On the TV is a press conference for The Governor. Derek overhears some female patrons saying "I would fuck whoever put a bullet in that asshole's head."

Derek quickly draws the Governor being shot at, and instantly on live TV, gunshots are heard, the Governor falls over and crowds scream.

Derek reveals to them that he called on the hit, they believe him when they see the drawing, and he has a threesome with the girls.

A few years later, Derek is bored. He's got everything he could ever ask for at his fingertips, money/fame/power. He's married to Darlene and has a son: Matthew. He is frustrated with his boredom and takes it out on Darlene and Matthew. He knows even if Darlene tries to leave, he would just draw her back to him.

When Matthew witnesses Derek beating on his mom and then on him, Matthew comes across Derek's sketchpad. As he looks through the pictures, he notices things Derek drew had come to life.

Matthew draws he and his mother escaping the house as it becomes engulfed in flames, leaving Derek to die in the blaze. Suddenly the house begins to catch fire. Derek finds Matthew holding the sketchbook, asks what he drew. Matthew tosses the sketchbook at Derek, he flips through it. Darlene and Matthew scramble to escape the house, as Derek scrambles to try to stop the fire, but it's too late: He catches fire and dies.

The sketchbook on the other hand, the only thing left unscathed.

We see the Crypt Keeper dressed in a wedding gown, "I guess you could say Derek's dreams of being a famous artist went up in flames," he says, followed by his signature laugh.

"And now for our final fright of the night kiddies tells the story of a young bride mourning the loss of her dear ATM. But don't worry, she's not just burying the past. She's digging herself into a nice deep hole. I call this tale: Till Death Do Us Part.

*Til Death Do Us Part*

Caroline (Emilia Clarke) is a serial gold digger who preys on wealthy men: and they turn up dead after a while, so she can steal their money. After just another funeral for the husband she had killed, she sits out on the big pool deck at her new mansion as the fellow landscaper/pool boy, Evan (Asher Angel), and very young man just trying to get through college, works on her yard.

She flirts and seduces Evan, after which she reveals to him what she does. Evan asks if she's ever afraid of being caught, and she assures him that nobody would ever suspect her. She says she plans on marrying her next victim, wealthy billionaire, Victor (Christoph Waltz), and will cut Evan in on the money.

Caroline meets Victor at a wealthy elite party, where she lays on the charm and successfully gets Victor to agree to marrying her immediately. Victor has some charm and charisma himself, even has his own kids who he talks to on the phone from time to time.

He may be an old man, but he's not too far gone. Victor is well liked among his community: charitable, helpful and respectful toward Caroline. Traits even Caroline didn't see in the few husband's she's had before. In a way, she pities him, but she knows what has to be done.

She tells Evan to give Victor a respectable death. Evan demands a higher percentage and after an argument, she agrees to a 50/50 cut. One evening before Caroline goes out, she puts her makeup on, telling her reflection that a 50/50 cut won’t be so bad when she flees town before the kid realizes his balls dropped.

Evan is about to do the deed while Caroline is out, setting up the stage for a break-in gone bad. But before Evan can succeed in the hit, Victor catches him and points his gun at him.

Victor reveals to Evan that he knows all about Caroline and her plan. "I was born during the day, but I wasn't born yesterday. You'd think after the death of her 2nd husband they would have gotten her by now."

Evan is scared, tries to talk Victor out of killing him, Victor assures him he's not going to kill him, and there's nothing Evan can give him either. He offers to double what she was gonna give him to pull off a hit on her.

When Caroline arrives home, she rehearses her reaction and phone call to the police. She walks in the house to find Evan sitting alone in a chair in the quiet mansion, Evan tells her 'he did it' and offers to show her where the body is. She follows him out to her car, he pops open the trunk. "Where's his bod.." she asks before she is knocked out and placed in the trunk by Victor and Evan.

Caroline wakes up, tied to an anchor on Victor's yacht. Victor and Evan step into her vision. "Why do you think it was so easy for me to agree to marry you?" Victor asks her, wanting to end her reign of terror. Caroline tries to negotiate for her life with Evan, but Evan turns her down, "Why should I split it when you'll just have me killed a week later?" Evan asks her.

"But you're different, Evan. I love you," She says.

"You don't love anyone but yourself," Evan sneers, he let's the anchor drop. Caroline watches the chain unravel. She tries to give a final offer to Evan, but the anchor pulls her under the water.

Evan looks overboard, impressed with how it looked, "Wow, just like in the cartoons!" He says, but there's the sound of a knife being shoved into his back. Victor stares at him with a cold look, "You know how I got so rich, Evan? I got paid a lot of money for taking out scumbags like you. First rule of being a hitman? Watch your back." He shoves Evan into the water. “You should have stuck with mowing lawns, kid.”

Victor cleans up the blood off his yacht and drives the yacht away. As he drives the boat, he gets a call from one of his kids: his granddaughters birthday is near. He speaks to her like a sweet grandfather, asking her how old she's gonna be and acting wildly impressed. Evan's dead body sinks into the watery abyss.

The Crypt Keeper reappears, "Looks like Caroline and her boy toy learned the hard way that greed doesn't float. I guess they're anchored down now," he laughs.

"Well that's about all the tide we have today, kiddies. I'll see you next fear!" He says, with one more iconic maniacal laugh.