Tales from the Crypt: None but the Lonely Heart

Just for shits I checked out the Tom Hanks directed Tales from the Crypt segment “None but the Lonely Heart”.  I’m neither a fan or non-fan of the show.  The Cryptkeeper animatronic is damn good looking, the intro is fucking great and the theme song is classic. But the stories are hit or miss.  Sometimes they’re just boring while others are too predictable.  Every once in a while I come across a good one though which makes me appreciate the show again.  It’s great that so many filmmakers were involved in making these segments like Walter Hill (The Warriors, Hard Times), Richard Donner (Lethal Weapons, Superman), Robert Zemekis, Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad, Night of the Creeps), Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael J. Fox, Stephen Hopkins (Predator 2, Judgment Night), Tobe Hooper, William Friedkin, Bob Hoskins and a whole bunch more.  It makes the show special because seasoned veterans could craft a quick short without all the pressures that come with a studio made feature and it allowed non-directors to try their hand at directing.  Pretty interesting stuff.

In this episode Treat Williams (The Substitute 3-4, Deep Rising) marries old rich women and then kills them off so he can take their money.  Treat is really good at being a charming suitor and a psychotic sonuvabitch.  Tom Hanks gives himself a cameo as a matchmaker and he also has Treat kill him by ramming his head through a TV.  Speaking of which the murders are nice and varied with poisoning, strangulation, death by a necktie through a paper shredder and a shovel through the abdomen.  That last one is done in a particularly goofy manner with Tom going crazy with the editing and looping the death three or four times. 

This is definitely one of the better segments from Tales.  Hanks does a good job keeping it entertaining and the whole thing has a dark comedic tone that’s, well, kinda funny.   I’d like to see a full length horror picture by the man ‘cause according to this I think he’d do a good job.