User Reviews

Tales from the Crypt: The Man Who Was Death starts as local state executioner Niles Talbot (William Sadler) sees himself fired from his job when the state legislator withdraws the death penalty for prisoners, out of a job but still on the look out for work Niles decides to clean the streets up himself...

This Tales from the Crypt story was episode 1 from season 1 & The Man Who Was Death is pretty much where this black comedy/horror show started back on the 10th June during 1989, directed by one of the show's regular executive producers Walter Hill I thought it was an OK way to pass 30 odd minutes but luckily there was much better to come over the next 93 stories. The script by Hill & Robert Reneau isn't much to get excited about, in fact I thought it was a fairly routine & somewhat predictable time-waster that didn't have a particularly strong twist at the end & just wasn't macabre enough. It's not without one or two merits, there's some mildly amusing monologues by Sadler's character & it moves along at a decent pace, but I don't rate this episode very highly overall & the best thing about it was the opening & closing Crypt Keepr (John Kassir) segments which in one he reminisces about some fly's childhood & how they used to be cute little maggot's.

There's no gore in this one although some people are electrocuted, the nudity count is much higher with a shower/jacuzzi scene & a sequence set in a strip club. The acting was OK with Sadler standing out as he puts in a good performance, he would later go on to appear in another Tales from the Crypt episode called The Assassin (1994) & also make further appearances in the two spin-off Tales from the Crypt films Demon Knight (1995) & Bordello of Blood (1996).

The Man Who Was Death is OK, I can't say I liked it that much but at the same time I didn't hate it. Personally I reckon there are better tales from the crypt out there...

***SPOILERS***Inaugural episode of "Tales from the Crypt" is about a man Niles Talbot, William Sadler, who just loved his job in being the state official executioner who's electrified dozens of convicted murderers over the last 12 years. It's a sad day in Talbot's life when the death penalty was overturned and he found himself out on the street looking for work. Not really needing the money, Talbot is on a state pension, Talbot spends his free time in court watching the wheels of justice grind to a halt with persons on trail for murder getting off Scot-free. That's because a shyster-lawyer-found a technicality in their case to get them off for the very obvious, in Talbot's mind, crimes or murders that they committed.

Outraged citizen that he is Talbot takes the law into his own hands and using his skills in the field of electricity to do in a number of people who were let off in court for the crimes that they committed. It was his latest intended victim who just bet the rap a Go-Go dancer whom he planned to fry while she was doing her act on stage that Talbot's plan backfired and he was caught red-handed by the police!

****SPOILERS***Convicted of murder and waiting behind bars for his sentencing Talbot is told by his former boss the prison Warden Havers,David Wohl, that instead of getting a life sentence for his crimes he's in fact gonna fry in the electric chair for them! That's because the death penalty was just reinstated by the courts the day before! The irony of all this is that all of those whom that Talbot on his own had electrocuted because he felt that they were let off on flimsy technicalities by the law. But in his case where the death penalty didn't legally apply when he committed his crimes the law was bent in Talbot's disfavor that one and only time!

In The Man Who Was Death Niles Talbot (William Sadler) is an executioner who is out out of work when the death penalty is revoked. Niles now a vigilante begins to take the law into his own hands, among his victims a biker and an adulterous couple both wrongfully acquitted of murder. However when the death penalty is reinstated Nile's gets the chair !

The first episode of the first season starts of with a bang. What make's this episode truly special apart from Sadler's great performance is that his character narrates the entire story making it at that much more personal.

10/10

From June 10, 1989, to July 19, 1996, HBO aired Tales from the Crypt, which was based on the EC Comics series. Ah, Tales from the Crypt, the scourge of parents in the 50s, which somehow ran for only 27 issues and yet we're still discussing it today.

EC publisher William Gaines and editor Al Feldstein loved horror, so they published a story called "Return from the Grave!" in the comic Crime Patrol #15. This was the first appearance of the Crypt-Keeper and a few issues later, the title became The Crypt of Terror - in my high school art club, this is what we named our haunted house and yes, it totally was an EC Comics reference, I was the hugest nerd - and then took on its real title a few issues afterward.

Drawn by Johnny Craig, Feldstein, Wallace Wood, Al Davis, George Evans, Jack Kamen, "Ghastly" Graham Ingels, Harvey Kurtzman, Al Williamson, Joe Orlando, Reed Crandall, Bernard Krigstein, Will Elder, Fred Peters and Howard Larsen, the look of Tales from the Crypt - and its sister comics The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear - may have the greatest line-up of artists ever.

Gaines often was inspired by - outright ripped off - other stories and movies for the tales inside the comic. Those include the works of H. P. Lovecraft as well as the films The Man in Half Moon Street, Vampyr, The Beast with Five Fingers and several Ray Bradbury b0oks. Unlike nearly everyone else, Bradbury actually read EC Comics and wrote to them: ""You have not as of yet sent on the check for $50.00 to cover the use of secondary rights on my two stories THE ROCKET MAN and KALEIDOSCOPE which appeared in your WEIRD-FANTASY May-June '52, #13, with the cover-all title of HOME TO STAY," he wrote to EC. "I feel this was probably overlooked in the general confusion of office-work, and look forward to your payment in the near future."

EC did more than thirty Bradbury stories and yes, paid him. They appear in the Fantagraphics collection Home to Stay!: The Complete Ray Bradbury EC Stories.

But it was not to last.

Dr. Fredric Wertham had already written an article in Collier's entitled "Horror in the Nursery" and for the American Journal of Psychotherapy he turned in "The Psychopathology of Comic Books." In 1954, the next book by Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent, and a highly publicized Congressional hearing on juvenile delinquency made comics look so bad - not to mention a government breakup of the monopoly that distributed magazines - ruined the industry.

Gaines wanted the surviving companies fight outside censorship and repair the industry's damaged reputation with the Comics Magazine Association of America and its Comics Code Authority. There had to be a comics code on every cover of every comic published, which isn't what Gaines wanted. He also learned that other companies pushed for the words horror, weird and terror to not be allowed on the covers. This basically was everything he published.

All three horror books and the SuspenStory comics were canceled in 1954.

Incredible Science Fiction #33 was the last EC comic book to be published and a reprint of the story "Judgement Day" was nearly censored because at the end, the hero is revealed to be black. Gaines went nuclear.

By the 1960s, EC was sold - MAD Magazine was all they published - and became part of Warner Communications. You may know the two Amicus movies that were licensed - Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror. And because Warner also owned HBO, that brings us to this show.

Thanks to an incredible group of producers - David Filer, Walter Hill, Richard Donner, Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver - and aired on HBO. This meant that hardly anything got censored.

With A-listers in the casts, great special effects and an original Danny Elfman song, Tales from the Crypt was a big deal.

A lot of credit goes to the Cryptkeeper, who was performed by a team of puppeteers - Van Snowden, David Arthur Nelson, Anton Rupprecht, Shaun Smith, Mike Elizalde, Frank Charles Lutkus, Patty Maloney, David Stinnent, Mike Trcic and Brock Winkless - and voiced by John Kassir. Even kids loved him, which led to toys and a cartoon based on this bloody horror show, making the children of the parents who lost their EC Comics upset that their kids were watching such a program.

On June 10, 1989, the first episode "The Man Who Was Death" aired. It was based on a story that originally appeared in The Crypt of Terror #17.

"Aww, poor little fellas. When I think of their childhood, all those cute little maggots. Hahahahaha. Our story is about a man with nobler ambitions. He likes to kill human pests and he does it in front of an audience. Now that's entertainment! Hahahaha. So hang onto your hats kiddies, this one's a real shocker."

The Cryptkeeper was here and he was ready to share a story directed by Walter Hill, who wrote the script with Steven Dodd and Robert Reneau.

Niles Talbot (William Sadler) has been promoted to being the man who flips the switch on the electric chair. But when the death penalty is abolished, he becomes a vigilante who punishes criminals who get away with it. All until, well, he gets caught and the death penalty returns.

Biker Jimmy Flood (Robert Winley), Theodore Carne (Gerrit Graham) and Cynthia Baldwin (Cindi Minnick) are all executed until the idea of killing the guilty goes to Niles' brain and he starts wiping out exotic dancers.

That's the first episode! It aired the same evening as "All Through the House," but let's get to that one next week.

A very strong start for a fun, but uneven series.

It managed to capture what could have been a great movie in only 30 minutes. It is about a man working at the Death penalty, he enjoys putting 'bad people' on the chair.

One day, he loses his job and decides to continue his job by electrocuting criminals.

Eventually, the police catches up to him and karma puts him in the death chair.

One of the reasons why the episode works so well is because of the neat twist, the excellent performance and dialog.

It was clever and a successful pilot.

A man may have a job. He may have a profession. This one has a vocation, a calling. An electrician by trade, he starts work at the state penitentiary maintaining the generators, and graduates to executioner, but after 12 years the state abolishes the death penalty, and he is made redundant. It is felt that due to the sensitive nature of his work it would not be a good idea if he were reassigned to other duties. As a consequence, he spends his time hanging out in bars philosophising. A man who has a true calling may find it hard to give it up, and that is the case here.

A murderer who escapes being tried for his crime on the most technical of technicalities becomes his first victim. Then a man and his mistress who have murdered the former's wife are acquitted, but they too face justice in spite of the not guilty verdicts.

Somehow you know this is not going to have a happy ending, you'd know that even if you hadn't seen one episode of this series before, but this one is poetic indeed.

Dedicated redneck penitentiary executioner Niles Talbot (marvelously played with infectious good ol' boy charm by William Sadler) goes freelance and bumps off various criminals who get away with murder after the state abolishes the death penalty. Director Walter Hill, who also co-wrote the tart'n'tangy script with Robert Reau, handles this cheerfully morbid material with his usual razor-sharp efficiency: the brisk pace never flags for a second, the tone remains playfully nasty throughout, and, in an especially nice and inspired touch, Talbot often breaks through the fourth wall and speaks directly to the viewer (Talbot's seamy narration is quite entertaining and gives this particular episode a truly funky film noir-ish feel). Moreover, we also get cool appearances by such familiar character faces as Gerrit Graham, Roy Brocksmith, and Robert Winley (in one of his trademark greasy biker roles). As a sweet extra bonus, both the fetching Dani Minnick and the insanely foxy Laura Albert strut their sizzling hot stuff in the buff. The nicely ironic conclusion with Talbot receiving an entirely fitting comeuppance with a onetime only sitting on Old Sparky likewise hits the spot. John R. Leonetti's slick cinematography gives this episode a neat glittery neon look. Ry Cooder provides a right-on rollicking score. A real bang-up affair all around.

'The Man Who Was Death' is the very enjoyable pilot episode to the well loved HBO TV series, based on stories from the beloved William M. Gaines publication "Tales from the Crypt". Here they begin in high style, setting in place the campy approach and predilection for stories about just desserts that would become series trademarks. After an introduction from that priceless puppet The Crypt Keeper, with his ever present groan inducing wordplay, we move on to our story proper in which William Sadler plays Niles Talbot, the executioner at a state prison who loses his job thanks to the abolishment of the death penalty. Well, Niles just loves his work, and soon he's decided to go into business for himself, frying any and all criminals who escaped serious punishment for their crimes. Said criminals include Jimmy Flood (Robert Winley, in one of his many biker roles), and Theodore Carne & Cynthia Baldwin (Gerrit Graham & Dani Minnick), who'd bumped off his wife for the insurance. Things go just fine for Niles until the extremely fitting resolution, when Niles ends up behaving exactly the way he'd always seen others behave. The wonderful Sadler is at his most engaging, often narrating straight to the camera and uttering some gems of dialogue. Walter Hill, one of the series executive producers, guides everything with a sure hand, working from an amusing script that he wrote with Robert Reneau. In addition to Winley and Graham, other familiar faces that turn up include J.W. Smith, Roy Brocksmith, David Wohl, Mimi Kennedy, Eve Brent, and Raymond O'Connor. The production is slick and the fun music score is by Hills' frequent collaborator Ry Cooder. An ingratiating episode overall, and a sign of fun things to come. Eight out of 10.

The strange circus-like music that plays over the rather heart-wrenching opening sequence is so eerily jaunty that it almost doesn't fit with the dire events taking place on the screen. It certainly is a shocker of a series debut, I honestly can't think of another tale to feature such a raw and disturbing prologue. It's no wonder this was chosen as the first episode to air for broadcast, even if it may not have been the first one filmed. William Sadler stars as the protagonist, or antagonist depending on your point of view. The entire episode pretty much rests on his shoulders and I'd say he did an awesome job, as it's really his cold and cocksure performance alone that makes it a hit and worth seeing. I enjoy his frequent "breaking of the fourth wall" narrative that runs throughout, I find it very sharp and engaging and it gives things a distinctive tone. And he's right about at least one thing. Television ratings would indeed go sky high if they ever showed executions. Sadler plays a completely heartless bastard who seems to truly relish the absolute terror that the condemned go through when their time has come. That's some kind of seriously sick excuse for a human being that can stare straight into the eyes of some desperate soul that's mere moments away from shedding this mortal coil... In the story, after the death penalty's been temporarily abolished he's fired because they claim he'd be in danger due to the inmates knowing about him, and I thought that was a fairly realistic touch, but I also get the feeling that it's because he creeps them out a little. He enjoyed the grim work just too much. And then, unsure of what his purpose is, he takes it upon himself to become the judge jury and of course executioner of what he deems to be the human garbage of the deep dark city, and loses his head in the power of it all. Okay, the spectacle of the thunderous spark and sound effects that accompany each of the electric deaths are all quite thrilling and great fun to watch! Gerrit Graham has a bit part as one of the victims. He's one of my favourite character actors and it's a shame they never had an episode with him as the star, because they could have got something special out of his personality. And hey, it's the sadly late and great Roy Brocksmith in his first of three Crypt appearances as the barkeep! I wonder if it's the same barman from "Cutting Cards". It doesn't seem to make sense the way that "Talbot" goes after the stripper at the end, but at a guess, I think it's meant to show that his mind's starting to slip and he's beginning to punish the more innocent people that really don't 'deserve' it, and that his desire to kill is overpowering his already warped sense of justice. And at the end when it's finally his turn to get the chair he pleads for his life as much as any of the felons he had earlier mocked. And that's fine, but I think it would've been more interesting if he'd played it slightly differently. Of course still like he's scared, but also perhaps a little exited to be experiencing the ultimate execution - his own, after being 'Mr.Death' for so long... The series must have meant a lot to Sadler, seeing as he was also in the first movie "Demon Knight" as the hero, and great in that as well, and he also had cameos alongside the Cryptkeeper in the episode "The Assassin" as the grim reaper from "Bill and Ted", and in the terrible "Bordello of Blood" as a mummy! Thanks to Sadler, it's a gripping, grim and very effective story. Great watch.