The second season of Tales from the Crypt tripled the number of episodes from the first, hitting the ground with intense momentum and the dawning of new possibilities offered by “prestige” television for not only the viewer, but the creator. Arnold Schwarzenegger, then the biggest mega-star in the Hollywood constellation, even dipped his toe in the directing pool this season with the second episode “The Switch,” starring the great William Hickey and Kelly Preston. Check out the entire, intimidating roster of stars and directors. For completists, especially, Tales from the Crypt will finish out a lot of Letterboxd lists.

Streaming for the first time in uncensored form courtesy of Shudder, here are the top three episodes of this season — but let’s be real, you really should watch every episode. That said, these three episodes will help you to understand the kind of stuff Gen X was reared on to fully contextualize things like Wes Craven’s self-aware, and completely genre-reverent Scream six years later,  and the tone and tenor of the revival buried in the cinematic slashers it heralded. 

Taking as a given how choosing just three from any season is a tough task, here are the three from season two that have lodged most stubbornly in my imagination for going on forty years now. 

In order of broadcast:

1. “Cutting Cards” (Season 2 Episode 3)

   DIRECTOR: Walter Hill
   WRITTEN BY: Walter Hill & Mae Woods

   “Cutting Cards,” adapted directly from one of the most notorious stories from the comics, finds Walter Hill returning to the show and blessed with a cast showcasing Lance Henriksen and Kevin Tighe, two of the greatest character actors of their generation. Stunt coordinator extraordinaire (and longtime Hill collaborator) Alan Graf gets a cameo as a hostile motorist over which our love/hate protagonists briefly bond, while Roy Brocksmith, fresh off a memorable role in Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall, shows up as a nervous bartender who’s seen, after this night certainly, literally everything. A tale of gambling addiction and misspent, engorged machismo, cowboy’d up Reno (Henriksen) challenges unctuous Sam to a series of games of chance. They have a long history of grievance to settle between them so the stakes start high (loser leaves town, never to return), escalate (Russian Roulette!), and finally land on a brutal poker game where loser of a hand loses… maybe a literal hand. They start with their fingers. The night is young.

   “Cutting Cards” draws on his trope of playing games of chance in Hill’s films, a pastime representing fate, perhaps, acceptable male interactions and in the end, the essential indifference of the universe. The original Tales from the Crypt story was published in October-November 1952 (Vol.1, No.32), penciled by Fred Peter. Hill hews fairly closely to it, but to my mind exceeds it in a thrilling cliffhanger where the two antagonists, after a series of escalating violations, almost… almost touch lips. Isn’t the subtext of all stories about men who hate one another at its root a tragic love story about unrequited emotions inexpressible to the projected doppelganger and loathsome to the repressed self?  In other words, Hill’s career-spanning themes — masculinity at conflict, the failure of men to negotiate their relationships through any expression other than violence — find their full fruition in this episode in just 20 tight minutes. It’s as gross and hilarious as men’s emotional shortcomings. As dangerous, too.

   Watch “cutting cards” on shudder

3. “Four-Sided Triangle” (Season 2 Episode 9)

   DIRECTOR: Tom Holland
   WRITTEN BY: Tom Holland & James Tugend

   Passing over excellent episodes like “Dead Right” (s02e01) starring a sizzling Demi Moore and the pitch black “The Thing from the Grave” (s02e06), make my next pick Tom Fright Night and Child’s Play Holland’s “Four-Sided Triangle” starring Chelcie Ross and Susan Blommaert as married yokels George and Luisa whose rural life is upended by the arrival of comely free-spirit Mary Jo (Patricia Arquette). George quickly develops an unwholesome fascination with their guest while Luisa quietly seethes and keeps score. Luckily for their marriage, poor Mary Jo suffers a head injury and falls in love with a terrifying clown scarecrow hanging in the cornfield. Maybe not so lucky for anybody as this gives George a really great idea for how to finally ravish the otherwise completely disinterested Mary Jo.

   In terms of the things that make Tales from the Crypt great, this one has it going on. It’s unapologetically sleazy, predicated on deadly marital strife, inspired by the most base animal impulses driving us, and hinges on a nihilistic twist that inspires glee and revulsion in equal, delightful measure. Everyone in this is extraordinary: from Ross and Blommaert’s typically-superlative supporting turns to Arquette’s rare ability to credibly embody both fatale and damsel in distress roles (a skill that would serve her well in David Lynch’s Lost Highway in a few years time). Not to mention, scarecrows and clowns separately scare the life out of me so putting them together is something like a peanut butter and jelly marriage from hell, while the subtle visual call-out to Jacques Tourneur’s all-time masterpiece I Walked with a Zombie (1943), well… that’s just the dark cherry on top.

   Watch “four-sided triangle” on shudder

4. “The Ventriloquist’s Dummy” (Season 2 Episode 10)

DIRECTOR: Richard Donner
WRITTEN BY: William M. Gaines & Frank Darabont

“The Ventriloquist’s Dummy” is awesome. I mean it. Awesome. Don Rickles is shockingly good as retired insult-ventriloquist Ingels whose entire act is Don Rickles’ act, but with a dummy. A ventriloquist’s dummy, I should clarify. Try to pay attention, hockey puck, Jesus it’s like talking to a brick wall. Sorry to wake you, dear. He inspires pathetic loser Billy (Bobcat Goldthwait) to follow in his ventriloquist’s footsteps whose adoration of Ingels eventually thaws Ingels’ reluctance to be a mentor and, really, just a good person. It’s a story that feels familiar until the secret of Ingels’ success is revealed. I know you think it’s about a haunted dummy. Years of haunted dummy movies have made you think this way. But it’s not that at all, boils and ghouls, it’s a lot worse. What I mean to say is that the twist in “The Ventriloquist’s Dummy” is spectacular: campy, disturbing, super gross, and somehow also really funny. I don’t want to give it away by citing inspirations and impact, but sufficed to say director Donner partnering up with screenwriter Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) and legendary effects supervisor Greg Cannom is a stroke of genius. 

For me, the most surprising aspect of “The Ventriloquist’s Dummy” is its unexpectedly-complex dissection of ambition, examination of mentor relationships and shocking pathos. Billy’s stagefright is as palpable as his desire to find acceptance. Ingles emerging after a long time in isolation and looking for liquid courage at the nightclub where Billy’s in the active process of crashing and burning on stage. I guess I wasn’t thinking I’d be moved by a two-hander starring Don Rickles and Bobcat Goldthwait. Just as I wasn’t expecting intelligence and emotional depth from a post-Superman Dick Donner production. The sum of tremendous performances, a perverse concept handled expertly, and absolutely spot-on effects support make this one of the key episodes of the entire run as well as one of the best, if not the best, examples of the hoary old Dummy sub-genre. Did I mention it’s awesome? It’s awesome.

watch “the ventriloquist’s dummy” on shudder

Walter Chaw is the Senior Film Critic for filmfreakcentral.net. His book on the films of Walter Hill, with introduction by James Ellroy, is now available for purchase.