User Reviews

Tales from the Crypt: Showdown starts as Texas Ranger Thomas McMurdo (David Morse) catches up with the notorious gunslinger, thief & killer William Quintaine (Neil Giuntoli) & challenges him to a showdown which he loses. After killing McMurdo in the showdown Quintaine heads for the saloon where he meets up with the ghost's of his past victims, at first refusing to believe what he is seeing Quintaine eventually has to face up to the truth whether he likes it or not...

This Tales from the Crypt story was episode 8 from season 4, directed by Richard Donner one has to say that Showdown doesn't really feel like a Tales from the Crypt episode. Showdown was one of two segments from a TV pilot film called Two-Fisted Tales (1992) made by the same production team as Tales from the Crypt but focused on stranger none horror or sci-fi stories from the comic book Two-Fisted Tales, I suppose to save money they filmed an opening & closing Cryptkeeper sequence to bookend each individual story & passed them off as a proper Tales from the Crypt episode which it isn't & it doesn't really feel like one either. The script by Frank Darabont is a character driven supernatural ghost story although there is no overt horror in it, no real gore, no bad language & a lack of scares. As I said this was not made for Tales from the Crypt & it show's. At twenty five minutes in length it passes the time & the story is alright if a little lightweight & forgettable, I also have to say there isn't any sort of twist or ironically dark ending which makes it feel a bit pointless.

Along with the Showdown segment the next Tales from the Crypt episode King of the Road (1992) was also taken from Two-Fisted Tales although to be fair Tales from the Crypt returned the favour when Two-Fisted Tales took the episode Yellow (1991) from the end of season three & used that as one of it's stories! There's no gore here apart from one or two gunshot wounds & there's nothing particularly scary or horror themed. The acting is alright although I didn't recognise anyone.

Showdown is an OK way to pass thirty odd minutes, the production values are very good & the Cryptkeeper sequences are fun as usual but it's not a story that will live long in the memory once it has finished.

If you can't fight fate, go out with guns blazing... This monstrous anomaly of an episode is just a plain old nasty clusterf**k to the eyes that plays out like a fever dream! And even when you're watching it again in the context of knowing what the hell it's actually supposed to mean, it still makes zero sense.. So this outlaw cowboy, after a classic old showdown at dawn with the deputy who hunted him down, gradually comes to realise that the truth of his existence is that he is a dead man wandering in a dusty limbo, both he and the deputy having shot and killed each other at the same time, and that only by accepting the fact can he ever be free to move on and find peace in the afterlife... The lofty themes which are done in a very half-assed way, don't even belong in this kind of show at all, and this is not a Crypt episode as far as I'm concerned. It's just weak tripe, there's nothing remotely meaningful about it. If you'd like to see something that's actually worthwhile and moving that's along similar lines to this, do try to check out the 1999 movie "Purgatory." Aw bless ya rotten old heart for trying Cryptkeeper, but not even your lovably hackneyed ghoulish quips can make this feel like the Crypt episode it so clearly is not! Absolutely terrible, it doesn't have any weight to it at all and is painful to watch. If the overall goal was to confuse and disorientate the audience to the point of insensibility, then I salute them!

Cocky young outlaw Billy Quintaine (an excellent performance by Neil Giuntoli) stops off at a rundown one-horse town that's populated by the ghosts of his victims. Director Richard Donner, working from a compelling script by Frank Darabont, relates the absorbing story at a steady pace, stages the bloody and exciting shoot-outs with real flair and panache, and does an expert job of creating and sustaining a brooding, gritty, and grimly serious tone that becomes more increasingly bleak and unsettling as the plot unfolds towards a violent downbeat conclusion. The uniformly sound acting from the bang-up cast helps a whole lot: Giuntoli excels in the lead, David Morse brings a quiet intensity and conviction as determined Texas Ranger Tom McMurdo, Roderick Cook does well as wily Irish carpetbagger Cornelius Bosch, and Tommy Townsend contributes a lively turn as hearty tour guide Big Bart. Moreover, there's a strong and provocative central message about how it's impossible for a desperado to run away from his own dark past. Hiro Narita's sun-burnt golden-hued cinematography provides an appropriately dusty'n'desolate look while Michael Kamen's twangy and harmonic score hits the melodic spot. An eerie and effective episode.