Reader Beware: You Can Stream ‘Tales From the Crypt’ This Weekend

It’s, like, 2001 or 2002. I’m about 12 years old (MAYBE 13). My mom, my brothers, and I are on vacation at some sleepy little beach town in a crappy little hotel. I’m pretty sure it was raining (or maybe just our first night there), and we were inside. Someone flipped on the TV, found the Sci-Fi channel, and it was playing reruns of Tales From the Crypt. This had been a highlight of my summer already, and I sat there, watching a highly inappropriate show with my mother without a care in the world.

The episode in question was pretty gruesome. A woman wanted badly to be in a beauty competition, so she murdered her roommate (I think) to take her place in one. Then, when in the pageant, she starts killing more of her competitors, eager to rise in the ranks. She does rise, wins the contest, and gets her prize: the title of Miss Autopsy 1993 (I may have that year wrong). She gets rolled out on-stage, slit down the middle with her guts hanging out for all the world, me, and, again, my mother, to see.

Honestly, it feels weirder in retrospect than it did at the time. I was just happy to watch this super creepy horror show that I had come to love. And that would be a fleeting experience, as those reruns were short-lived, and I didn’t have the wherewithal to purchase the DVDs when they were being released in the early 2000s. I tried to purchase a bootleg on eBay a couple of years ago, but it got screwed up in the delivery, and I took that as a sign to just wait.

You’d have thought that the age of streaming would have brought the show back into our eyes (and hearts). Instead, rights issues have kept it in limbo for years, even preventing it from showing up on HBO Max, even though HBO was its original home. Luckily, that all changes today! But Tales From the Crypt isn’t returning home. Instead, the first season is available on Shudder starting today, with subsequent seasons being added every week until they are all available. I just fired it up to make sure, and the literal first thing you see is “Home Box Office presents.” Way to drop the ball, HBO!

To be fair, Shudder seems like a perfect place to host the show. Not only will it please fans, but it also has the potential to ensnare lapsed or first-time users. I haven’t had a Shudder account in years, and I absolutely renewed my subscription last night in anticipation. Ya got me! I want to watch all of the silly creepiness that show had to offer, and it looks like I can spend another summer doing so (but probably not with my kids).