These days, all the great writers, directors, and actors are gravitating towards TV and streaming due to better, more challenging material.  But not so long ago, television wasn’t taken as seriously as theatrical films. It was really HBO that started allowing TV to be seen with more respect by both the general public and critics.

A show like Tales From the Crypt doesn’t seem like something that would have attracted top-tier talent in the late 80s and early 90s, but it did. Each week, some of Hollywood’s biggest and brightest stars, both in front of and behind the camera, would be allowed some much-needed creative freedom to play in the gory sandbox. 

One of the most well-regarded episodes is Death of Some Salesmen from the show’s 5th season. It stars Ed Begley, Jr. as Judd Campbell, a ruthless traveling cemetery plot salesman, who goes around scamming the elderly and vulnerable (including Yvonne De Carlo) until he knocks on the door of the decrepit Brackett home and, in true Tales From the Crypt fashion, he’s served a big plate of just desserts. 

You see, the Brackett family has a long history with traveling salesman and they don’t believe Judd’s pitch one bit. After Judd discovers that they’ve killed other salesmen, he’s knocked out by Pa on his way out the door and wakes up to Ma and Pa plotting about what to do with him.

They want to wait until their daughter, Winona, gets a look at him and, if Judd has any hope of ever leaving this house of horrors alive, he’d better convince Winona that he loves her.

Tim Curry plays this entire carnival sideshow of grotesques with skill and attention to tiny details. His Pa is especially different from what we’re used to seeing him play from both a speaking voice to the way he moves.

He turns Pa into a no-nonsense, toxically masculine redneck with horrific stained yellow teeth and a tendency to tell his wife to shut up a bit too much. Even with all this, he does show that he truly loves his family and will do anything to protect them. He’s a murderer, but he’s also an ordained minister. Of course. 

His Ma is a sweet and chronically exasperated housewife who’s fed up with her husband’s behavior.  She’s quick to talk back when Pa belittles her and she’s a hopeless romantic, praying that, maybe this time, her daughter can find love with someone. She wants her daughter to be happy just like any non-homicidal mother does and that’s sweet in its own twisted way.

Winona is the true showstopper with her Halloween mask face, stringy hair, hunchback, and an intriguing odor due to the fact that she “ain’t washed in a couple of weeks.” Even with all these things that should repel us, Curry supplies her with a lot of heart and dignity.

She’s self-aware enough to know she’s no beauty, but she doesn’t dwell in misery about it and still believes she deserves love and happiness. She’s a sex-loving good-time gal, too, and is quick to take Judd for a test ride once she gets her paws on him.  This is so he can prove that he really loves her in a disturbing and outrageous sequence that, once seen, isn’t easily forgotten. 

Curry seems to be having the time of his life playing all these characters and he creates a family unit that is terrifying, darkly humorous, and full of love for one another. That’s hard enough to do in a feature film with a lot more time for exposition and character development, but in a 30 minute TV episode, it might as well be impossible.

Curry pulls it off and makes it look effortless just like the best actors do. For all his hard work, he was rewarded with a well-deserved Emmy nomination in 1994 – a rarity for a horror performance.

Unfortunately, the entire Tales From the Crypt series is absent from streaming services and has yet to receive a Blu-Ray release, but every season has been released on DVD and it’s well worth your time to purchase them all to marvel at the amount of talent and skill on display in this series.