Movie Info
Movie Name: Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight
Studio: Tales from the Crypt Holdings
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): January 13, 1995
MPAA Rating: R
The Crypt Keeper is going Hollywood!
The Crypt Keeper is going Hollywood! On the run, Frank Brayker (William Sadler) finds himself holed up in a small New Mexico boarding house. When the Collector (Billy Zane) arrives with the police, Brayker realizes it is his time to take a stand. He is the only one keeping the world from falling into darkness and now he must convince a mix-match bunch of people him to believe in his mission if he hopes to protect the world from evil. The evil is outside and it wants in…and dawn is far away.
Directed by Ernest Dickerson, Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight is a horror-action movie. A spinoff of the HBO TV series Tales from the Crypt, the film was released to negative reviews, but gained a cult following over the years.
I admit that I wasn’t a big fan of Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight when it was released. I saw it when it first came to video and never saw it again. While I do think the movie has faults, I do think it is kind of fun watching it years later.
Is it love?
The story for Demon Knight (unlike episodes of Tales from the Crypt) was an original story. It is this story which hinders the film. Like a classic horror film, the movie has the characters trapped inside a building with the evil just clawing to get in. A lot of the “rules” are random (the Collector can attempt to hypnotize people inside the place with no rhyme or reason) and much of the story is rather uninspired. Movies like Night of the Living Dead and even something like From Dusk Till Dawn did the same idea better…but the movie isn’t a complete waste of time.
What raises Demon Knight is the cast. Billy Zane is the high point of the movie as the eccentric demonic Collector while William Sadler feels almost like a Michael Biehn in Terminator…he knows the danger that is coming and has to be a sacrifice. You have great character actor Dick Miller in one of his bigger roles, C.C.H Pounder as the owner of the establishment, and Thomas Haden Church playing the classic “jerk character” that you know is going to cause all the problems. Jada Pinkett also had one of her earlier roles as the heir apparent to mission (I kind of wish there had been a sequel starring Pinkett). Of course the Crypt Keeper (voiced by John Kassir) bookends the movie.
Hell has a bad dental plan
The movie still visually feels like a Tales from the Crypt episode. Everything is extreme in line with the EC comics that inspired the series. The green demon blood, the bright red human blood, over-the-top gore, and scantily clad women are combined with some odd sets that are sometimes a bit hard to get a handle on. The demons are kind of cool looking, but I feel that they were under-used in this sense.
Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight is a fun movie that is a tad too long to be a great movie. It is a little disappointing in that sense (I think it could have been even memorable with some tweaks to the script). The movie is an interesting hodgepodge of genres and worth seeking out if you are looking for something that isn’t too scary but still meets most horror needs. Tales from the Crypt Presents was meant to start a franchise that at least included a trilogy, but the series ended with Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood in 1996 (an unofficial entry called Ritual was released in 2002).
Related Links:
Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood (1996)
Tales from the Crypt—Season 1 Review and Complete Episode Guide
Tales from the Crypt—Season 2 Review and Complete Episode Guide
Tales from the Crypt—Season 3 Review and Complete Episode Guide
Tales from the Crypt—Season 4 Review and Complete Episode Guide
Tales from the Crypt—Season 5 Review and Complete Episode Guide
Tales from the Crypt—Season 6 Review and Complete Episode Guide
Tales from the Crypt—Season 7 Review and Complete Episode Guide
