Cinerama Releasing Corporation put out Tales From the Crypt in the United States on 9 March 1972. Despite it being a British (Amicus) production, it was first release there. It didn’t appear in the UK until 28 September 1972.
When I was a kid, EC Comics were just about the only comic books that I liked. I was, for obvious reasons, focused mostly on the horror titles. But I liked the rest — even the war and crime titles. This is probably due to the moral clarity of all their stories and their heavy use of revenge for their denouements.
It may surprise some readers to learn that I have generally been unhappy with filmed versions of these titles. I mentioned this in my capsule review of Tales From the Crypt. The three main horror titles featured jokey narrators who presented the stories. It was not high-brow humor. But it worked really well. It took the edge off the horror.
But we’ve learned a lesson about this just as we learned it about Stephen King’s novels. Things that work well on the page don’t necessarily work well on the screen. And horror puppets spitting out puns to introduce horror shorts don’t work!
And that’s why Tales From the Crypt works well. It’s all done straight. The Crypt-Keeper is here but he’s serious. And Ralph Richardson! It was followed with The Vault of Horror, which was produced the same way. No jokey puppets!
Interestingly, this was the first film based on the EC horror titles. It was only later that producers tried to make the connective bits humorous. These two Amicus films were co-produced and written by Milton Subotsky. Like me, he was a fan of the comics. And I think he understood that the jokes wouldn’t work. Later producers and writers were not as wise!
Tales From the Crypt (1972) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
