The episode ends with Warner being held captive, forced to act as the zombie’s shrink. In addition, however, the child is also an undead ghoul. Of course, that turns out to be the case. As he and his crew stalk about the house interviewing the mother, the child – a young girl – seems to be sneaking round murdering them. To boost ratings, he suggests recording a live episode from the home of one of his most frequent callers, a mother (Zelda Rubinstein) of the world’s worst child.
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This episode was about a radio psychologist (David Warner), whose show is on the brink of cancellation. I didn’t have HBO in my own house, so catching it late at night – before Dream On – was something of a rebellious and subversive exercise. So this, the seventh best episode, runs somewhat personal, as it was one of the first I saw. What’s more, fans of the show seem to skew personal, electing their own individual favorites rather than citing a list of generally agreed-upon bests there is not one universal “greatest” episode. As such, a summation of the series’ seven best is a daunting chore. Tales From the Crypt ran for 93 episodes, and has a surprisingly strong track record unlike many classic shows that have about a 40% success rate (I think Star Trek, which ran 76 episodes, has about 30 – 35 good ones), Tales from the Crypt has very few out-and-out duds to think of. Nevertheless, I charge bravely ahead into the dark, sickening, blood-soaked, intestine-like channel of gore that is Tales From the Crypt. Well, as scientific as a critical review can be. If I omit your favorites, I apologize, but I’m trying to be scientific. I am going to attempt to come up with the five objectively greatest episodes of the show.
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Each story was a morality tale of some sort, wherein someone would give into an extreme vice or deadly sin (usually lust, greed, or wrath), and then experience a form of cosmic (and often supernatural) retribution. For those unfamiliar with the wonderful HBO program, each 30-minute episode was hosted by a talking rotting corpse called the Crypt Keeper (voiced by John Kassir), who would introduce every episode. Tales From the Crypt started in 1989, and ran for seven seasons, leaving the airwaves in 1996.