Tales from the Crypt: You, Murderer starts as rich businessman & wanted criminal Lou Spinelli (Humphery Bogart) gets a phone call from his wife Betty (Isabella Rossellini) saying that the goons he sent to kill her failed. Worried Lou races home & discovers that he has been double crossed by Betty & his plastic surgeon Oscar Charles (John Lithgow) who operated on Lou & gave him the same face as famous Hollywood actor Humphrey Bogart to evade capture by the police. Betty & Oscar are having an affair & want Lou out of the way but their carefully worked out plan doesn't quite go according to plan...
Episode 15 from season 5 this Tales from the Crypt story was in fact the final episode of the sixth season & You, Murderer certainly ends it on a highly memorable note. Directed by Robert Zemeckis this has a very unusual & unique story & a unique way of presenting it. The script by A. L. Katz & Gilbert Adler was based on a story from 'The Vault of Horror' comic book & revolves around the odd idea that a criminal would have plastic surgery in order to look exactly like Humphrey Bogart, it actually sounds rather silly but the episode works a treat. There's a distinct film noir feel about it as it's clearly set in the 40's & the entire episode is narrated & told from the point of view of Lou as he witnesses & comments on witnessing his own murder. What starts out like like a crime thriller turns macabre in a Tales from the Crypt sort of way when after Lou is murdered his soul still remains in his dead body, hearing & seeing everything that goes on around it. It's a rather clever episode that is very enjoyable, something a bit different & ultimately very memorable for the right reasons.
Another aspect of You, Murderer that I liked was that the entire programme is seen from the point of view of Lou, we see what he sees as the episode develops as it were & we never go outside of his point of view. Technically it must have been a nightmare to achieve & the production team pull out all the stops with lots of trick photography, there are occasions when Lou looks into mirrors, or a shiny hip flask or the rear view mirror of a car & he looks at 'himself' or sees his own reflection in a window & the makers optically insert real archive footage of Humphrey Bogart into these scenes even though in reality he had been dead for forty odd years. If that wasn't enough the opening & closing Cryptkeeper sequences are a fun homage to director Zemeckis' film Forest Gump (1994) with the Cryptkeeper sat on a bench eating some 'Shocolates' & calling himself Fearest Gump! As well as inserting archive footage of Humphrey Bogart into the main story here the Cryptkeeper gets to talk with Alfred Hitchcock as the production team put footage of him in here during these scenes as well. You, Murderer is just a conceptually & technically very clever Tales from the Crypt episode & rounds the sixth season off in memorable fashion.
You, Murderer is a very unusual Tales from the Crypt episode & at the same time a great one on various levels. Easily one of the most enjoyable episodes of the sixth season & the series as a whole although it's more of an oddball thriller than straight horror.
Episode 15 from season 5 this Tales from the Crypt story was in fact the final episode of the sixth season & You, Murderer certainly ends it on a highly memorable note. Directed by Robert Zemeckis this has a very unusual & unique story & a unique way of presenting it. The script by A. L. Katz & Gilbert Adler was based on a story from 'The Vault of Horror' comic book & revolves around the odd idea that a criminal would have plastic surgery in order to look exactly like Humphrey Bogart, it actually sounds rather silly but the episode works a treat. There's a distinct film noir feel about it as it's clearly set in the 40's & the entire episode is narrated & told from the point of view of Lou as he witnesses & comments on witnessing his own murder. What starts out like like a crime thriller turns macabre in a Tales from the Crypt sort of way when after Lou is murdered his soul still remains in his dead body, hearing & seeing everything that goes on around it. It's a rather clever episode that is very enjoyable, something a bit different & ultimately very memorable for the right reasons.
Another aspect of You, Murderer that I liked was that the entire programme is seen from the point of view of Lou, we see what he sees as the episode develops as it were & we never go outside of his point of view. Technically it must have been a nightmare to achieve & the production team pull out all the stops with lots of trick photography, there are occasions when Lou looks into mirrors, or a shiny hip flask or the rear view mirror of a car & he looks at 'himself' or sees his own reflection in a window & the makers optically insert real archive footage of Humphrey Bogart into these scenes even though in reality he had been dead for forty odd years. If that wasn't enough the opening & closing Cryptkeeper sequences are a fun homage to director Zemeckis' film Forest Gump (1994) with the Cryptkeeper sat on a bench eating some 'Shocolates' & calling himself Fearest Gump! As well as inserting archive footage of Humphrey Bogart into the main story here the Cryptkeeper gets to talk with Alfred Hitchcock as the production team put footage of him in here during these scenes as well. You, Murderer is just a conceptually & technically very clever Tales from the Crypt episode & rounds the sixth season off in memorable fashion.
You, Murderer is a very unusual Tales from the Crypt episode & at the same time a great one on various levels. Easily one of the most enjoyable episodes of the sixth season & the series as a whole although it's more of an oddball thriller than straight horror.