In the age of almost every major studio having its own streaming service, it’s pretty easy for shows and movies that were previously hard to find to just be available online. When Disney+ launched, it arrived with plenty of classic Disney movies that had previously never been available online (but even it was missing titles that will seemingly never show up on streaming). Even as a lot of content migrates away from Netflix, difficult to see shows and movies continue to pop up with some regularity. This week saw one of the most sought-after shows finally appear for the first time, but it’s not where you expected.
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One of the most iconic TV shows from HBO of all-time, beyond just the ’90s when it premiered, was the horror anthology Tales From the Crypt. Once a staple of the premium cable network, the series has been one largely lost to time for viewers who didn’t already own it on physical media. The series (based on the classic EC Comics from the 1950s) was tied up in a tangled web of rights issues that have rendered it almost impossible to bring back. Now, though, Shudder has pushed through and is not only streaming the show for the first time ever, but they’ve wrangled every episode (though there’s a catch for the release).
Tales From the Crypt Now Streaming for the First Time Ever
As of yesterday, Friday, May 1, Shudder has not only brought back Tales From the Crypt for audiences but has also become the exclusive streaming home for the iconic HBO show. That’s right, not even a subscription to HBO Max will allow you to watch the series; you have to stream it on Shudder. Such a monumental release has prompted Shudder to deliver a worthy rollout, though, as only Season 1 of the series is available as of this writing, with new seasons of Tales From the Crypt premiering on the service every Friday for the rest of May and June.
Time will tell how long Shudder will be able to keep Tales From the Crypt in its grasp, as the series immediately becoming popular could mean the license won’t get renewed and could make its way back to HBO proper. This is not only a major gain for Shudder (which got fans riled up earlier this year when it cancelled their hit original show, The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs), but a win for horror as a whole, as this one totemic series can finally be watched more easily.
The best thing about Tales From the Crypt is that each episode is a self-contained story, with an all-new narrative and cast, so if you don’t like one, you can just jump ahead to the next. There’s good news with this, though, which is that Tales From the Crypt’s 93 episodes across seven seasons means there are a SLEW of familiar faces in each of its episodes, from horror royalty like Brad Dourif, Lance Henriksen, Malcolm McDowell, Tim Curry, and Zelda Rubinstein, to major stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brad Pitt, Catherine O’Hara, Ewan McGregor, John Lithgow, Ke Huy Quan, Kirk Douglas, Michael J. Fox, and Whoopi Goldberg. Central to it all, though, is the iconic voice of John Kassir as The Cryptkeeper, who introduces and concludes every story with a hilarious narration.
The series also attrached major filmmaking talent to bring its stories to life, including Back to the Future’s Robert Zemeckis, plus Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), William Friedkin (The Exorcist), Richard Donner (The Omen, Superman), Tom Holland (Fright Night, Child’s Play), Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary), and Fred Dekker (Night of the Creeps, The Monster Squad). It’s a Who’s Who of the horror genre, but also Hollywood itself, and the kind of TV series that they really don’t make anymore.
One thing that has perhaps gotten lost in the time since Tales From the Crypt has not been on television and been unavailable for streaming is just how popular the series, and specifically The Cryptkeeper himself, became in its heyday. Not only did the seven seasons of the show make the leap to the big screen in the form of two feature films (Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight in 1995 and Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood in 1996), but also two records, including a Christmas album where the Cryptkeeper performed classic holiday songs.
Furthermore, the success of the series saw an animated spinoff get ordered, with Tales from the Cryptkeeper running for three seasons on Saturday mornings (with toned down violence, of course). There was even a kids’ game show, Secrets of the Cryptkeeper’s Haunted House, all of which saw Kassir reprising his iconic role. The conclusion of Tales From the Crypt saw HBO try to replicate the success with the sci-fi themed Perversions of Science, though it only lasted one season.
Suffice to say, when Tales From the Crypt was at its most popular, the series and its primary character were a certified hit. Now that the series is finally streaming once again, maybe a new generation can finally fall in love with it and see what all the fuss was. We’ve been dying to see it after all.
