John Kassir Movies

Previously filmed in Hollywood and Canada, Tales From the Crypt moved its facilities to the United Kingdom for its seventh and final season, allowing a rich new array of colorful backgrounds for the creepy yarns related to the audience by the cadaverous Cryptkeeper. British actress Natasha Richardson stars in the season opener "Fatal Caper," a prodigal son tale with a sinister twist. Other season highlights include "A Slight Case of Murder," with mystery writer Francesca Annis unwittingly plotting the "perfect murder" -- her own; "Cold War," featuring a young Ewan McGregor in the story of a very persistent vampire; and "About Face," starring Anthony Andrews as a philandering preacher who is perplexingly plagued by his past peccadillos. The series' final episode is also its first animated offering, "The Third Pig," a perverse twist on the Big Bad Wolf fable, written and directed by Bill Kopp of Eek the Cat fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this satirical horror-comedy, a gumshoe investigates a combination TV ministry/whorehouse/vampire infestation. After bounty hunter Vincent (Phil Fondacaro) unearths the remains of Lilith, queen of the vampires, he restores the alluring creature to life and lords over her using a magical talisman. Later, rowdy youngster Caleb Verdoux (Corey Feldman) convinces one of his dim-witted buddies to accompany him to a combination mortuary/house of ill repute where both young men fall prey to Lilith's charms. Rather than merely drinking her victims' blood, this vampire has a tendency to rip out their hearts with her projectile tongue. Caleb's sister, Katherine (Erika Eleniak), who works for a large televangelism operation run by the shady Reverend Current (Chris Sarandon), hires private dick Rafe Guttman (Dennis Miller) to track down the errant Caleb. Rafe's wise-guy antics soon get him in trouble with Lilith and the law, but not before he uncovers the ties between Lilith's organization and Current's ministry; it seems Vincent, and therefore Lilith, are working for the reverend. Soon, Rafe finds himself in the boudoir of Lilith's bordello, armed with a holy-water squirt gun and fighting to save Erika from the glamorous but deadly vampire. Like Tales From the Crypt Presents Demon Knight, the previous film spin-off from HBO's EC Comics-inspired Tales From the Crypt series, Bordello of Blood features interludes hosted by the puppet skeleton known as the Crypt Keeper (voice of John Kassir). Director Gilbert Adler, who previously helmed Demon Knight, would go on to produce 13 Ghosts and The House on Haunted Hill. Whoopi Goldberg makes an uncredited cameo as a hospital patient. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

In this sci-fi thriller, the cyborg duplicates of a government agent and his wife, a news journalist, revolt and frame their living owners for murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Our old fiend -- er, friend -- The Cryptkeeper is back with 13 more weeks of grisly playlets and howlingly bad jokes and puns as Tales From the Crypt launches its sixth season. Those who orginally watched the series on HBO could not help but notice that the average episode length had been trimmed somewhat: this was done to accommodate the Fox network, who was obliged to include commercials when rerunning Tales from the Crypt as part of their Saturday night schedule. As in previous years, the season opens with a 90-minute special, comprised of three half-hour stories: "Let the Punishment Fit the Crime," with Catherine O'Hara as a greedy attorney who learns the hard way that the law is a stern mistress; "Only Skin Deep," in which a young man makes a fatal choice at a costume party; and "Whirlpool," featuring Rita Rudner as a comic book artist who is trapped in a grisly, never-ending scenario of her own making. Highlights this season include "The Pit," featuring Wayne Newton in a revenge yarn fittingly set in Las Vegas; "In the Groove," wherein a cuckolded disc jockey played by Miguel Ferrer sets up what he thinks is the perfect murder; "Doctor of Horror," starring Hank Azaria in the story of a grim research experiment; and the last episode of the season, "You, Murderer," a Poelike mood piece in which the truth behind a murder is told from the corpse's p.o.v. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this episode of HBO's popular Tales from the Crypt horror anthology series, a wicked man who runs a home for the blind (and abuses its residents) gets a taste of his own medicine from two scheming denizens. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Back with his usual complement of horrific stories (and even more horrific clumsy puns and bum jokes) is our congenial -- or congealed -- host, The Cryptkeeper, who ushers in season five of Tales From the Crypt. Tim Curry and Ed Begley Jr. headline the season opener "Death of Some Salesman," in which an overzealous cemetery plot peddler falls for the wrong farmer's daughter. This episode originally aired as part of a 90-minute special, bundled together with two subsequent Tales from the Crypt: "As Ye Sow" (with Hector Elizondo) and the irresistibly titled "Forever Ambergris" (with Roger Daltrey). Some of the season's better entries include "Well Cooked Hams," featuring Martin Sheen as you've never seen him before; "Came the Dawn," starring Brooke Shields as a sexy hitchhiker who lures a two-bit thief (Perry King) into an unearthly crime of passion; and the season five finale, "Till Death Do We Part," with Eileen Brennan as center of attention in a mob hit...and a scorned lover's vengeance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Welcome back, fiends and ghouls! The cadaverous Cryptkeeper has 13 grim little morality plays to chill your marrow and whiten your hair during season three of Tales From the Crypt. This year's merry mayhem is kicked off with a 90-minute special, comprised of three half-hour stories: "The Trap," starring Teri Garr and Bruno Kirby in a cautionary fable about an insurance scam; "Loved to Death," with Andrew McCarthy as a nerdish screenwriter who gets more than he bargained for when he transforms his sexy neighbor (Mariel Hemingway) into his willing love slave; and "Carrion Death" invokes unpleasant memories of Erich Von Stroheim's Greed as an escaped convict (Kyle MacLachlan) makes a desperate dash across the desert while still manacled to the corpse of a lawman. Other hell-acious season three highlights include "Abra Cadaver," in which a brilliant surgeon exacts a nasty revenge upon his practical-joking brother; "The Reluctant Vampire," with Malcolm McDowell as a gentle-natured bloodsucker who worries about reverting to his old bad habits when his current plasma supply runs out; and "Split Second," wherein the friends of a lumberjack come up with a sharp-edged comeuppance for the man who permanently blinded their pal. The last episode of the season eschews the supernatural in favor of straightforward suspense and human conflict, and is all the better for it; "Yellow," is directed by Robert Zemeckis and stars Kirk Douglas as a taciturn WWI Army officer who must deal with the cowardice of his son (played by Kirk's real-life son Eric Douglas) in his own unique fashion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The skeletal, ever-jocular Cryptkeeper serves up 13 new tales of horror, vengeance and not-so-divine retribution as Tales From the Crypt rises from its resting place for a second season. This year's grisly fun begins with "Dead Right," starring Demi Moore and Jeffrey Tambor in the story of a secretary who marries neither wisely nor too well. The second episode, a grisly twist on the old fountain of youth legend titled "The Switch," was directed by no less than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Later season three highlights include "The Thing From the Grave," in which a model (Teri Hatcher), tormented by an unbalanced ex-lover (Miguel Ferrer) finds that someone will always be watching out for her safety...even if that someone is beyond caring about his own well-being. Bob Goldthwait and Don Rickles form an unlikely duo in the morbid mood piece "The Ventriloquist's Dummy." Harry Anderson takes time off from Night Court to play a henpecked cartoonist who fashions his very own dream girl in "Korman's Kalamity." Volatile talk show host Morton Downey Jr. is the unwilling center of attention in the appropriately titled "Television Terror." And in the season finale "The Secret," a much-maligned orphan settles accounts with his evil adoptive parents...yuck!! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season six of the raunchy HBO football sitcom 1st & Ten is subtitled "Do it Again" -- meaning that the California Bulls are championship-bound again after a three-year dry spell. Sexy team owner Kristy Fulbright (Shannon Tweed) and foul-mouth coach Ernie Denardo (Reid Shelton) have placed their championship homes on their new star player, Vito Del Greco, alias Johnny Gunn -- played by a decidedly pre-Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Christopher Meloni. Episode titles this season include: "The Book According to Zagreb," "The Con," "False Start," "Mind Games," "Love and Marriage," "Clean and Sober," "Blood Money," "Vindication" "Gunn and Bullette," "Heaven Help Me," "Surprise Surprise," "All is Fair in Love and Football," "Earn This One for Ernie," and "Who Stole Johnny Gunn?". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After two "short" seasons of six and four episodes each, the raunchy HBO football sitcom 1st and Ten offers a full complement of 13 half-hour installments as the series enters season four. This year, the series' subtitle is "Going for Broke," indicating not only the game plan of the California Bulls, but also their perilous financial status. As ever, the three main characters are Delta Burke as voluptuous team owner Diane Barrow, Reid Sheltonas profanity-spewing coach Ernie Denardo, and O.J. Simpson (still a celebrity by accomplishment rather than notoriety during this period) as former quarterback T.D. Parker, now the team's general manager. Episode titles this season include "Ernie's Last Quarter," "A Second Chance Once Removed," "A Loaded Gun," "The Comeback Trail," "Illegal Use of Love," "The Bulls Change Hands," "A Mutiny on the Bull Team," "The Brink of Death," "Call for the Hall," "Blood on the Moon," "Land of the Free (Agent)," "Of Scalpers and Superstars," and "Championship Game Jinx." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This episode marks the first appearance of the obsequious Herbert Viola (Curtis Armstrong), who would develop into both a godsend and a pain in the neck for detectives David (Bruce Willis) and Maddie (Cybill Shepherd), not to mention their spacey secretary Agnes Dipesto (Allyce Beasley). The story concerns a married woman named Gail Woodley (Brooke Bundy) who has been carrying on an illicit romance by mail. She wants David to convince her rather unstable "lover" that the affair is over--but it ain't that easy. Watch for an unbilled "fall-down" appearance by C. Thomas Howell). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Delta Burke as glamorous team owner Diane Barrow and Reid Shelton as unglamorous coach Ernie Denardo continue to guide the destinies of the California Bulls pro football team in the second season of HBO's 1st and Ten. Added to the cast this season is O.J. Simpson -- yes, that O.J. Simpson! -- as veteran quarterback T.D. Parker. The season two episodes all bear the subtitle "Training Camp: The Bulls are Back." This should give the viewer a clue of what to expect in the season's bounty of six half-hour episodes, though the viewer will have to watch the episodes themselves in order to savor their R-rated dialogue, their ample display of female nudity, and their grimy, sweaty gridiron sequences. Episode titles this year include "The Rookies," "The Veterans," "Second Chance," "Quarterbacks Tell No Tales," "California Freeze Out," and "The Unkindest Cut." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide