Apparently, these first few episodes, if not the entire series, are adaptations of stories from old EC horror comics (Tales from the Crypt being one of them), and I do distinctly remember this particular story coming from a very different version of Tales from the Crypt, a British horror anthology movie where the Cryptkeeper was just an older man in a hooded robe. It’s actually a fun movie, but very different in tone and style from the HBO series.
Anyway, this one here has actress Mary Ellen Trainor killing her second husband (and for all we know, the first too), on Christmas Eve. Trainor had some decent movie roles in the 80s and 90s, but I think I know her best as Brand and Mikey’s mother in The Goonies. Here, while she is still a mother to a precocious little girl named Carrie Anne (who never knows what’s going on), she also spends the episode in some sort of sexy sleepwear, so…not really the Goonies Mother.
So, Trainor’s Elizabeth puts a fireplace poker through her second husband’s head. He seems to be maybe a jerk, but we don’t get to spend much time with him to find out, and while it is snowing outside, my first thought is this woman did not put enough thought into how she would dispose of a body. OK, she is looking to maybe toss it down a well, so I hope nobody uses that well for drinking water, but the point stands. She never quite gets the body to the well because that’s when Santa shows up. But this Santa is a psychopath in a Santa suit, as played by actor Larry Drake, years before he made Dr. Giggles and played a slasher with a penchant for bad puns that somehow still sticks with me, and he’s an ax murderer.
Elizabeth then tries hiding. She clobbers Santa a couple times. She even realizes that she can frame Santa for her husband’s murder, something I thought of before she did. I mean, it’s Tales from the Crypt. Whatever she does isn’t going to work. Plus, you know, I saw that anthology movie with the same story in it.
She really freaks out when she gets stuck in a closet and realizes Santa is climbing up to Carrie Anne’s open window (don’t ask, that was a little ridiculous). Her maternal instincts kick in, she breaks out, and…Carrie is fine?
Oh wait, she let Santa in. Drake has his only line of the episode: “Naughty or nice?” and the story ends with the implied murder of Elizabeth.
Oh, the Cryptkeeper does tell us Carrie Anne is fine. This Santa only likes older woman…in pieces. Not sure how watching the brutal death of her mother is going to make that little girl “fine,” but here we are. The kid lived.
What about the Cryptkeeper? He starts the episode coming in from outside, dressed as Santa, and while he does wear the suit in the post story segment, I think it is more noteworthy that the Cryptkeeper can actually go outside. Plus, I don’t think we see his legs working all that often.
Notable names: Trainor, Drake, writer Fred Dekker (writer of The Monster Squad), and director Robert Zemeckis behind the camera.
More Stories
Weekend Trek “Into The Forest I Go”
Paradise “Jane”
Tales From The Crypt “Spoiled”