During the early-90s there was no show on TV I looked forward to more than “Tales from the Crypt.” I taped every episode and matched them up to issues of the comics I had collected (this may very well be the nerdiest sentence I have ever typed). This did nothing for my social life (“Hey girls, want to come over and see my impressive collection of ‘Tales from the Crypt’ episodes?”) but began to shape my appetite for genre and horror. Now, 15 years later, “Tales from the Crypt” is coming back.
Gil Adler, a producer on the original HBO series and Andrew Cosby (“Eureka”) are developing a new hourlong series based on the comics. But here’s the bad news: it won’t be an anthology horror series. Says Cosby, “It will be an ongoing series that uses characters from the comic books in a more modern context.” Huh?
The comics didn’t have much in the way of returning characters besides The Crypt-Keeper, The Vault-Keeper and The Old Witch but those characters won’t be returning. Are they planning some kind of weird “X-Files”/”Fringe” style series? I’m not sure how you can stay true to the comic but not have it be a horror anthology…
The original HBO series ran for seven seasons in the early 90s and attracted an impressive stable of directors including Robert Zemeckis, Richard Donner, Walter Hill, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Hanks, William Friedkin, Tobe Hoober and Michael J. Fox.
The series was especially popular at first, spawning three movie spinoffs and even a Saturday morning cartoon series (“Tales from the Crypt Keeper”), but interest eventually waned and and the show was canceled in 1996, just short of 100 episodes.
Producers are currently talking to Cinemax as a possible home for the series (some of the original episodes were heavy on the gore, cursing and nudity) but are not ruling out a broadcast cable or network deal.
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