SCAREDY CAT'S FILE

Is Tales from the Crypt Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot

Rating: 3
Author: Scaredy Cat

Barely, 3 out of 10. Each episode is a short, mean story introduced by a puppet with a dry sense of humor.

THE SCARE SIGNAL

SCARE SCORE

3 /10

DREAD LEVEL

Low

Each story is over within about half an hour, so the feeling rarely follows you to bed.

DOG

Dog: not fine

not fine, and we're sorry.

Ruling: It starts over every half hour, so sample one episode before you commit to seven seasons.

Tales from the Crypt has seven seasons and 81 episodes, and almost every one is a separate story with a new cast. A puppet called the Crypt Keeper introduces each of them, usually just before somebody's plan involving insurance money goes wrong.

The premise, briefly

A puppet host called the Crypt Keeper introduces a new self-contained story each episode, most of them about people who try to get rich or get even and regret it.

How much do you want to know?

The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.

CUT TO THE CHASE

How it ends

The series ends with an animated retelling of The Three Little Pigs. The Big Bad Wolf slaughters two pigs, a rigged jury of wolves convicts the third, and the ghosts of his brothers help him escape and plan a zombie pig revenge.

The scene you're dreading

The Santa episode, early in season 1 (episode 2): after a housewife gets rid of her husband's body, an escaped mental patient in a Santa Claus costume, who has been killing women, attacks her.

The dog

A dog dies in Tales from the Crypt, and several other animals die off screen, with their bodies shown afterward.

Each episode is a short, mean story that usually ends badly for whoever started it, and the puppet host tells it like a joke.

THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN

How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.

What actually happens

A housewife with an insurance plan meets a man in a Santa suit

Season 1 opens with a prison executioner who loses his job when the death penalty is abolished and keeps working on his own as a vigilante. The second episode is the one most people remember: a greedy housewife kills her second husband for the insurance money, and while she is getting rid of the body, an escaped mental patient in a Santa Claus costume, who has been killing women, attacks her. The rest of the season runs through a carnival daredevil who is buried alive as his grand finale, a woman who sells her beauty to a pawnbroker and watches her face age, and newlyweds who spend the night in a decrepit mansion after a car accident. Season 2 adds a ventriloquist who visits his idol and learns an ugly secret, a witch posing as a cosmetics salesperson, and a sideshow performer who falls for a cursed mummy.

Reading this instead of watching it is the correct decision. Scaredy Cat makes that decision automatic, for free.

A vampire with a conscience takes a night job at a blood bank

Season 3 is mostly schemers. A screenwriter wins over his neighbor with a potion from his landlord. An escaped murderer running for the Mexican border kills the state trooper who caught him, though the trooper swallowed the handcuff key first. A deadbeat husband plans to fake his own death, collect the life insurance and start over in Rio de Janeiro. A surgeon's old prank on his brother left the brother with a stroke and a paralyzed hand, and years later the surgeon is successful while his brother is stuck in medical research. A vampire with a conscience works as a night watchman at a blood bank and overindulges on the stock, and a group of kids who want to make horror movies break into a mortuary to see a real body. The season ends with a World War I episode about a general, his cowardly son and a firing squad, which is the only episode in the whole series longer than 30 minutes.

A restaurant whose entire menu is squid

Season 4 begins with a scientist who finds out he was injected with a deadly experimental virus cell instead of his insulin. A heavy metal front man announces that his best friend has married, and a pair of con artists run a séance on a tycoon. An aging model loses a commercial to her younger roommate, and a couple with a failing restaurant has a squid-only menu. A gunslinger who has just killed a Texas ranger wanders into a saloon and is haunted by the spirits of his past victims. A meek librarian hears that a serial killer is loose and is then made to work late. A small-time swindler with car trouble lets himself into a strangely designed mansion and meets twin sisters. A retired puppeteer is offered a chance to revive his Koko the Clown act. Hotel guests suspect a werewolf in the woods, and two elderly couples go camping while one wife tends a flower that blooms by moonlight and could make them young again.

A thief whose one weakness is butter

Seasons 5 and 6 keep the formula and stretch the premises. A salesman sells burial plots in a fake cemetery, a circus performer with psychic abilities is also very into cooking, and a thief with an addiction to butter comes out of prison. A student is tricked into giving a charming jock the answers to an Egyptology test. Fraternity pledges are bullied by their pledge master, and a hitchhiker in a thunderstorm accepts a ride and an invitation to a cabin. In season 6 an ambulance-chasing lawyer gets arrested in the remote town of Stueksville because of an illegal license plate, a meek computer programmer is greeted by the crass imaginary friend he has had since childhood, and the president of a soap company decides his advertising campaign has failed. One episode is narrated by a dead man who can still see, hear and feel everything around him.

Three sisters open a box of items from their late father's shop

Season 7 brings in new casts and new settings. A wealthy lord whose heart is weak changes his will, and three sisters who bicker constantly find a monkey's paw in a box in their late father's curiosity shop. A German prisoner of war in a British camp betrays his fellow escapees in exchange for extra privileges. A jewel thief who was double-crossed by his partner hides out in a hotel, a pawn shop owner takes in a pregnant homeless woman, and a paranormal researcher invents a machine that collects thoughts from the dead and turns it up too far. An advertising executive hires an ex-convict with a hypnosis device, a corrupt reverend learns that he has twin daughters, and a horror screenwriter becomes the main suspect in a series of beheadings after he is found washing his hands near the latest crime scene.

The ending, explained

The series finale is the only animated episode in the run, and the Cryptkeeper himself narrates it. It is a retelling of The Three Little Pigs in which the Big Bad Wolf slaughters Drinky Pig and Smokey Pig. That leaves the third pig, Dudley, to be accused of the murders, and a rigged jury of wolves finds him guilty. The ghosts of his dead brothers help him escape, and Dudley plans his revenge on the Wolf by building a zombie pig in a laboratory that a mad scientist used to own.

The post-credits ruling

Nobody has confirmed whether there is a scene after the credits.

✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: not fine, and we're sorry.

Questions people ask at 1am

Is Tales from the Crypt scary?

Barely. Tales from the Crypt is a 3 out of 10 with low dread, because each episode is a short, mean story introduced by a puppet host who treats it as a joke. Some episodes are gory.

How does Tales from the Crypt end?

The series ends with an animated retelling of The Three Little Pigs, narrated by the Cryptkeeper. The Big Bad Wolf slaughters two pigs, the third is framed by a jury of wolves, and he plans a zombie pig revenge.

Does the dog die in Tales from the Crypt?

Not fine. A dog dies in Tales from the Crypt, and several other animals die off screen, with their bodies shown afterward. Every episode has a new cast, so there is no single dog to track.

Is there a post-credits scene in Tales from the Crypt?

Nobody has confirmed whether Tales from the Crypt has a scene after the credits.

Who is the Crypt Keeper in Tales from the Crypt?

He is the puppet host, voiced by John Kassir, who introduces each episode of Tales from the Crypt. The series is based on stories from E.C. Comics.

BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION

The whole plot of Tales from the Crypt is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.

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