‘Tales From The Crypt’ Fans Will Love This Extra Bit Of News From TNT

Tales from the Crypt has had a long and storied history spanning from the pages of comic books to feature films to television and back again.

Its latest incarnation from M. Night Shyamalan will air on TNT and has officially received a greenlight, but that is only half of what fans of the property will love about the latest news.

Fangoria reports that the Crypt-Keeper’s tales will spawn a new bloc of horror programming, including a second anthology series entitled Time of Death.

Time of Death seems like it would have been right at home in the old EC Comics horror and suspense line from the 1950s with a premise that, according to the horror news site, “will tell stories that take its characters and viewers on a ‘long night of hell.'”

The pilot was written by Guy Busick (Desire, Watch Over Me) and R. Christopher Murphy with each episode taking place in real-time.

The second series that will be part of the horror bloc takes a more long-form narrative approach. It will be called Creatures, and will center on a Slenderman variation.

The hook will involve two former friends released from an asylum after 15 years of incarceration. Their crime: they tried sacrificing a fellow classmate to the Internet boogeyman Mr. Gorgi. Now a couple of 27-year-olds, they return to their hometown in Alaska and begin to feel Mr. Gorgi coming for them once again.

Creatures will be helmed by Tom Shankland, director of underrated horror flick The Children. Dominic Mitchell (In the Flesh) will write.

With the horror triple header commanding its own night, fans of Tales from the Crypt have to be happier than they were when they found out there would be no HBO Crypt-Keeper narrating the new series.

Since the premium cable channel owned the rights to that variation of the character, Shyamalan had no choice but to go a different direction.

Rather than ditching the character altogether, which would have been blasphemous in the minds of most Tales from the Crypt fans, he decided to go with an interpretation that will be truer to the comics version.

As The Inquisitr reported back in January, that means an old man with a cane, wearing a hood, and keeping warm by a fireplace.

While that may not seem too memorable on the surface, Shyamalan added through his Twitter account that the character would be “cool and dark.”

Many were just happy to know that a Crypt-Keeper of some kind would be accompanying the new Tales from the Crypt; but according to The Visit director, there was never any question.

.@slashfilm I’d never make Tales without the CK! Will be a new take on him as the puppet is property of HBO. Promise he’ll be cool and dark!

— M. Night Shyamalan (@MNightShyamalan) January 9, 2016

M. Night Shyamalan’s take on the Tales from the Crypt series has received a 10-episode order. Whether it gets a second will largely depend on how well this bloc of programming does for TNT, the former home of Joe Bob Briggs and MonsterVision.

On the one hand, there is reason to hope since the network has a longstanding love affair with horror films in general; but on the other, MonsterVision was canceled so it will be a wait-and-see approach for the Tales from the Crypt fanbase.

The hugely popular HBO version ran for seven seasons and 93 episodes. It also spawned a Saturday morning cartoon show that ran for an additional 39 episodes and a brief children’s game show.

Despite originating in comics and dipping its toes in the children’s programming market, however, Tales from the Crypt has always been a little too horrific for kids, and Shyamalan’s new series will likely be one to watch after the little ones have gone to bed.

https://youtu.be/IsjPnqnGZOo

What do you think about the new Tales from the Crypt and the two series premiering with it? Sound off in the comments section.

[Image via HBO’s Tales from the Crypt]