Merry Christmas everybody! Well, Merry Christmas on Sunday.

Today, I bring you the absolute best in holiday cheer, Tales From The Crypt. Now, Julius, Tales From the Crypt and Christmas don’t go together. But, I’m telling you, they do. This tale, which explores complex ideas around giving yourself an early present, is so good that it needed to be told twice.

The first version is from 1972, in the British compilation movie Tales From The Crypt. Director Freddie Francis made his name as an Academy Award-winning cinematographer for Sons and Lovers. After filming the absolutely gorgeous horror movie The Innocents, Francis dived deep into B-movie territory. I mean, DEEP into it. Along with directing the Joan Crawford in the absolutely ridiculous Trog, he also has credits for The Creeping Flesh, They Came From Beyond Space, and Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors. Fortunately for Francis, he would have a career revival working for David Lynch on The Elephant Man and Dune and eventually filming Cape Fear for Martin Scorsese. Francis has a gorgeous eye for image and a fascinatingly sick taste for the macabre.

The wraparound story for Tales From The Crypt has five people finding their way into the lair of the cryptkeeper where they each get their own gruesome tales. Surprisingly, the first tale told is actually a Christmas story titled …And All Through The House. As fitting for a compilation movie, the first story is the strongest. It’s Christmas Eve in a posh early 70s house when Joan Collins gives herself an early Christmas present while a psycho is on the loose. It’s a joyous, brightly lit, campy affair full of twisted tension and good old fashioned morality.

Tales From The Crypt (1972) – Joan Collins… by FilmGorillas

When Tales From the Crypt became a television show on HBO, they remade …And All Through The House for the second episode of the first season. Director Robert Zemeckis tells the exact story, but in a far darker, more violent, and also more blatantly humorous tone than the first version. Joan Collins is replaced by Mary Ellen Trainor, a bit part character actress who has all the fun but less of the glamour that Joan Collins has. Where the original version was a brightly lit affair of suburban joy, Zemeckis is a shadowy affair that more closely recalls classic comic book shading.

Is either version superior? I don’t know. I have a warm spot in my heart for both versions. I grew up with the HBO version, but the movie version is so interesting and clever that it can’t be ignored or dismissed. They have become alternating annual watches in my home.

Merry Axemas! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!