Over the last 2 weeks, I have watched The Terminator and Tales from the Crypt, two “horror” genre films that have an asterisk next to them, as they weren’t quite scary.  Both films are extremely entertaining, one as an action-packed thriller, filled with a bit of outdated CGI and the other as a set of ironic horror stories from many authors about how bad choices in life can have haunting repercussions. Each of these films are well written and entertaining, yet one is a movie that is referenced constantly in TV and film today and the other I couldn’t tell you had ever existed until I watched it. However, I found both of these films to have wonderful writing and storylines.  They both provided me with laughs, quality, and thrills.

Tales from the Crypt was a very confusing movie to get a read on without watching the whole thing.  From the textual evidence I found before viewing the film, such as the scene in which Arthur Grymsdyke comes back from the dead to get his Valentines Day revenge, I had the impression that this film was supposed to insight fear in the audience, but then the scene cut to a valentine’s day poem filled with irony over the dead corpse, bringing humor to the mix. The movie was hilarious and cheesy. Nothing could prepare you better for what you are going to watch other than the original trailer of the film. It’s a goofy rendition of creepy clips from each story, that make you wonder if you’re going to laugh the whole time, or get a little scared. This is exactly what this movie was supposed to be, as it was an anthology of 5 stories, by multiple authors placed in one movie.  It didn’t have time to set up all the content and climax, instead it throws you directly in the mix, allowing you to predict what is going to happen, instead of fearing the unknown.  In a scholary article, “The Element of Surprise in Anthology Horror Film”  by Sonia Lupher, she writes “”Because the general narrative structure of anthology horror film does not place much emphasis on creating suspense, most surprises are named so because they are impossible to predict based on the lack of previous clues.” Along the lines of her point, I think it is hard to make a successful horrifying anthology, as there is not a lot of time to build up fear in the audience. Instead, this movie seemed to have some dark humor, showing the awful deaths of horrible people.  While it was fantastically presented and entertaining, it just has a very small niche of people that truly love it.

Roger Ebert, a renowned movie critic, wrote, “He writes that he was in love with the stories from Tales From the Crypt, as it invoked the original sense of horror flicks, with skeleton hands shooting out of graves and smiling skulls.  “It’s put together something like the comic books, with the old Crypt Keeper acting as host and narrator.”  Having the movie put together like a comic will give it a more comical feeling than horror.  He couldn’t have been more right.  Every story was set up to show a person who was about to commit a horrible deed after they left their catacomb tour, and the horrible demise that was a result of karma.  In one scene, Joanne is haunted by an evil Santa after killing her husband on Christmas Eve, who is later let in the house by her young daughter. The wife is killed by Santa Claus in a rather ironic manner, burnt and turned into coal. One article I disagreed with was ” Tales from the Crypt (1972)” on Cult Movie Reviews.   The review can be summed up in one short quote.  “The first story, with Joan Collins and a murderous Santa Claus, has promise but it’s much too short. The next three stories are all fairly pointless, with Reflection of Death being a complete waste of time.” This person obviously did not find the film to be entertaining.  While I can admit, the car crash (2^nd) and reflection of death (5^th) story were a bit drab, I still find them very interesting.  However, to say that the Arthur Grymsdyke story is bad is just plain wrong, as I found this one to be my favorite. An old man, who makes toys for the neighborhood children out of “rubbish,” is brought to suicide when one man turns the whole town against him just because he didn’t like his dirty estate.  He comes back to get revenge on the ring leader of his pains, killing him on valentines day a year after committing suicide.

At the very beginning of the Terminator, the visuals within the movie started to give me the chuckles.  Blue streaks of lighting crossed the screen. followed by a large flash of light.  While I know this was some of the best for their time, it amazes me that special effects have changed so much from then to now.  So, Time travel just occurred, but couldn’t they travel with clothes, The Terminator is naked. This seemed a bit odd and gave me a chuckle. However, after reading, , “Screening Masculinity: The Terminator and others male representations from the 1980s. “ A scholarly article by Jordi Revert that discusses the position of masculinity in The Terminator. He wrote, “”The Terminator develops a science-fiction fantasy claiming the imposition of masculinity and coming back to the primitive instincts, mechanized in the Terminator and incorporated in Kyle Reese, in order to survive and save the future.”  I completely agree with him, as if very much indeed feels as if men are the key to everything in life.  While the whole movie revolves around saving Sarah, it is because she is to raise John, the savior of the world.  Yet, they still make it known that John is the savior.  They could have had a daughter, but they chose a son.

In the 80’s, I feel like women were making big achievements towards equal rights as a group of people in work, life, and general respect.   In Janet Maslin’s New York Times periodical at the time of the release, “There is far too much of the latter, in the form of car chases, messy shootouts and Mr. Schwarzenegger’s slamming brutally into anything that gets in his way. Far better are the scenes that follow Sarah,” she wrote.  The movie has been referenced all the time in movies, using quotes like “I’ll Be Back” or “Come with me if you want to live.” The first, which is said by The Terminator as he strolls out of a police station, is a precursor to the gnarliest scene in the whole film, that one might say looks like something out of Grand Theft Auto. Sarah never really has a shining moment like this until the end, in which she escapes and kill the terminator.  The movie focuses much more on The Terminator and his fights. Maslin makes this point, as the depth of the story should come from Sarah, not the killer. We can also get a sense of Maslin’s point from the original trailer from The Terminator’s release. The trailer is a non-stop 2 minutes of action.  It travels through different scenes within the movie featuring car chases, explosions, to shootouts.  Yet once again, Sarah feels a bit undervalued. 

While this may have been an issue with the film, I do think it is still one of the greatest classic blockbusters of all time, as the story packs a huge punch. Many critics such as, Peter Bradshaw, would have to agree. He stated, “T1 has such storytelling firepower you won’t worry about how “machines” have supposedly risen from the ashes of a future nuclear war, or how time travel has been invented, apparently available to both oppressor and rebel.”  The story of The Terminator leaves behind no confusion or holes to fill.  The story explains and discusses all of the features we wanted to see in the film.

I greatly enjoyed both films and would highly recommend them to anyone who gets the chance to see them.