HBO's Tales From the Crypt was a big deal when I was a kid. It was supposed to be cool, these episodic horror tales brought to you by A-list directors, horror vets and recognizable stars, presented to adults, gorier than any network show could be. I tried several times to get into the show -- I STILL make attempts to get into it -- but I just can't. I think I always just had a problem with how the show's not genuine about being scary, not serious about presenting a dramatic or chilling Alfred Hitchcock Presents/Twilight Zone type of anthology. They're about being "tongue-in-cheek," which is just kind of a lazy way of saying "we refuse to take this seriously because we think we're too cool for this stuff." I just don't think the episodes are done well and they rarely are as clever and funny as they think they are.
The show's agenda is to take all of those old EC Comics parables and make fun of them, dressing them up in a big, glossy production, but really just making fun of them and the genre, turning it into comedy. Making it lighthearted, mocking horror is what attracted recognizable stars to the show, because they wouldn't dare be caught dead doing something as lowbrow as a horror. A mocking takedown, though? That's excusable. Excuse me while I roll my eyes. This show is really hokier and unscarier than R.L. Stine's Goosebumps. THAT is how little I think of Tales From the Crypt.
I remember kids at school eventually making a big deal when Tales From the Crypt's first movie, Demon Knight, came out. While I should have expected that I wouldn't like it based on my feelings about the series, I looked forward to it. It was the first movie I rented from Blockbuster, but I really didn't like it. So when Bordello of Blood came out, I didn't even bother. I didn't want to see it. In fact, I'd see the ads and just roll my eyes and think it looked like a From Dusk Till Dawn knockoff, but I already knew it wouldn't be as good as that movie (which I loved at the time), because Tales From the Crypt was never good, period, let alone good enough to rival an awesome movie like that.
I eventually got into the comedy of Dennis Miller, watching a ton of his comedy specials, listening to albums, watching HBO's Dennis Miller Live. (HBO used to rerun that show well after it aired, which is shocking since its topical, but pretty awesome of them to do.) When reruns of Dennis Miller Live from around '96 hit, Dennis would constantly make jokes about Bordello of Blood and how bad he thought it was. I liked Dennis Miller a lot, and even though he always trashed the movie, I felt like I had to check it out. Dennis Miller! In a horror movie! Sure, it's Tales From the Crypt, and I didn't have high hopes because of that, but I eventually did check it out...
It's a weak movie, but better than Demon Knight. And true to Tales From the Crypt form, it's a neat idea, but they trip over themselves to make it "funny" and "campy" at the expense of everything else. A hard-boiled detective noir work about the P.I. investigating a vampire case, where the femme fatale is the head vampire, could be a pretty cool story. Showered with Tales From the Crypt's Cheez Whiz and filtered through HBO's 12 year old "BEWBIES!" mentality, you get this Grade-Z butt burp. But the movie has one saving grace that nobody wants to acknowledge: Dennis Miller. How did I come to that conclusion? Because Miller is the ONLY thing that is actually funny in the movie, and if you remove him, you're left with one of the dumbest, most unwatchable movies ever made.
And Miller had to be ad-libbing most of his dialogue, if not everything. So much of it IS Miller, and he seems like the type to show up and be like "Yeah, this is shit. I'm doing what I want to do." And while HBO had its talons in Miller at the time, since that's where he did his talk show, I'm kind of thinking Miller's name wasn't the first to enter any HBO exec's mind when casting their Tales From the Crypt movie. While there was a period in the mid-90s where he did a few movies, Miller was never setting out to be an actor, and it's not like his humor can be easily placed in a movie. So, I don't know how Miller even came into the mix, but it was to the movie's fortune.
Miller doesn't belong in this movie and he knows it. He uses it. His Rafe Guttman character doesn't belong in his world of degenerates, morons and shitheels that he can't believe surrounds him, but that's his life and what his job brings him. He's a down on his luck P.I. who's smarter -- and smart-asser -- than everyone else in town, looking for any job he can get. He's hired by a woman to find her no-good brother, tracking him down to the vampire whorehouse of the title, making quips all along the way. And while I said this mixture of hard-boiled noir and vampires could have been great played straight, Miller delivers a funny take on the standard jaded private-eye of these stories; he's so run down, he's dealt with such low lives, that he doesn't even really care about the vampires or supernatural shit -- they're low-lives just the same, and he's going to be a sarcastic ass about all of it.
Miller's just having a blast in the role. While a lot of performers in various Tales From the Crypt productions ham it up or go campy or phone it in, Miller's sensibilities just mesh with this character, and I think his kind of easygoing performance isn't the typical looking down on horror and making it a cartoon, in Tales From the Crypt style, but out of disbelief at headlining a movie. I'm not saying Miller's a bad actor, but following his career, I know that acting's not something he set out to do, and it's not like he was even a regular performer back on Saturday Night Live. I get the impression he had agents pushing him to go for roles and make some money. But he works for this role, he's good in the role, he makes it better, he makes it funnier -- he's having a blast and he makes this movie a blast.
The ONLY other person who comes close is Kim Kondrashoff as the weirdo Jenkins. Looking like Lars Ulrich after he heard about Napster and Hulked out, this dude grunts out all of his dialogue like he's taking the world's hardest shit and looks like he's about to have an aneurysm so bad it has its own aneurysm. He's so oddly memorable he's funny. (You can see Miller even about to crack when he's around the guy and not even trying to hide it.)
Other performances are forgettable. Erika Eleniak is miscast; Corey Feldman's more awkward as an adult performer than he ever was as a kid; Angie Everhart just cheeses it up (we needed someone better as Lilith; she needs to be funny, fine, but still seductive, dark, dangerous and mysterious, so I think someone like Tawny Kitaen, Kari Wuhrer, Krista Allen or Tia Carrere would have been better. Too bad they wasted Brenda Bakke in Demon Knight, she could have worked, too.); and Chris Sarandon is disappointingly a ham here, which I guess at least compliments Everhart's cheese. It's neat to have a cast member from The Lost Boys and one from Fright Night, the two classic '80s vampire movies that are constantly pitted against one another by fans, but it probably wasn't even intended.
The movie has no style, certainly isn't scary, and fails to be funny when Miller's not around. So why am I even devoting all of this time to talking about this movie? Because people -- fans and cast members -- blame the movie's sucking ON Miller...! Corey Feldman, who's probably the weakest one in this thing, will actually go around in interviews criticizing Miller's involvement, saying he's not funny in it, calling his involvement "disastrous," and criticizing his performance. WHAT?! Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Felddog? (Feldman also condemns Miller for failing to promote the movie adequately, frequently referring to the way he would supposedly go on Leno and tell people not to bother seeing it. But here's a clip of Miller on Letterman telling people TO go and see it, even if it's just to justify his paycheck.)
That criticism and accusation is not close to being accurate. Miller's the only funny one in this thing, the only one making an effort. I don't want to get political or anything, but it really all comes down to Miller's political views shifting in the early '00s. He was one way for most of his career, and his views changed as he got older, and he was affected by real life events. Prior to that, it was cool to like Miller, he was the thinking person's comedian. But suddenly, it became cool to trash Miller, and even all of his prior works. I'm not a conservative, but I still enjoy Miller's old stand-up and his talk show and still even enjoy some of Miller's recent work. Maybe it's the familiarity since I was such a fan, maybe it's the skill with which he can deliver a joke -- the dude still makes me laugh. I don't always agree with him. (Heck, I didn't even always agree with him before he became a "turncoat." There were a couple of times on his show where I found him to be too judgmental.)
It's entertainment, and sometimes it would be nice if people could look past certain things. They're entertainers, you're not voting them into office where they could affect the way you live. It puzzles me, some of the awful things certain entertainers are accused of, but the press and their fans will look the other way, but there are those who will be run out of town and have legacies torn down over a couple of political beliefs. You probably don't agree with everything your friends and family members believe. Do you shun them? Mock them? Throw away everything they've given you, everything that reminds you of them? Do you go to Rekall and have your memory of them wiped? So why treat freakin' entertainers that way?
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
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