Comments: Box set

Summary: Been dying for another dose of chills from your old poison pal, the Crypt-Keeper? Then pull up a slab and revisit all the repulsive goings-on in the third season of Tales from the Crypt, the over-the-top TV anthology inspired by the classic E.C. horror comics of the '50s. All 14 episodes of the 1991 season are compiled in this three-disc set; as with previous seasons, the shows serve up gruesome tongue-in-cheek fables adapted from the original comics (and spiced up with some liberal nudity and impressive special effects), and with a host of Hollywood talent in front of and behind the camera. Series producers Robert Zemeckis and Walter Hill each contribute a creepshow apiece (the impressive season closer "Yellow," with Kirk Douglas and Dan Aykroyd, and "Deadline," with CSI's Marg Helgenberger, respectively), while Michael J. Fox stars and directs the season opener "The Trap" (which co-stars Teri Garr and Bruno Kirby). Elsewhere, Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) gets gruesome with Whoopi Goldberg in the voodoo vengeance story "Dead Wait," while action veterans Russell Mulcahy (Highlander), Stephen Hopkins (The Life and Death of Peter Sellers), and Steven De Souza (screenwriter on Die Hard) each unleash their inner spook engines on an episode, with Hopkins's bizarre "Abra Cadaver" (with Tony Goldwyn and Beau Bridges as dueling doctor siblings) a perfect summation of the Crypt spirit and the season highlight. The third-season set is rounded out by a trifecta of extras: A Tall Tales Panel is a 14-minute look at the season, with comments by a panel of series participants recorded at Comic Con in San Diego. A Tales from the Crypt Reunion is the complete half-hour panel discussion, and Crypt Jam is a frothy music video composed of clips from the season. --Paul Gaita