I don’t know about you fine folks, but I sure do miss Tales From the Crypt, HBO’s anthology horror series based on the comic book of the same name. It feels like a good time to bring it back to life. Someone should get on that immediately.

But until that time watching the old episodes, which ran from 1989 to 1996, and videos like this one are all we have. The video is a remake of the show’s opening sequence, using CG to make it look extra pretty. You can see the original and the remake below.

Now, before you get too excited waiting for the end when the infamous Cryptkeeper pops out of his coffin laughing maniacally…that moment does not come. Instead it’s a bit of an alternate ending, if you will.

The reason I spoil this is because fans of the show would only feel sad seeing it without knowing why the makers of an otherwise impressive video would do such a thing. There is a reason, and one of the people behind the video took to the Reddit post sharing the video to clarify what happened (and to share a link to what their Cryptkeeper would have looked like; fair warning: it’s effectively unsettling and also disturbingly anatomically correct, like Gollum from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit if he were a highly decomposed porn star corpse).

Here’s the explanation and link to the Cryptkeeper image:

Hi boils and ghouls !!! I’m one of the Cg artist who work on this project. If you want to see the full Cg creep keeper http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?190559-Crypt-keeper&p=1117009&infinite=1#post1117009

Why we did a cardboard ? Great question I know a lot of people would be disappointed to not see it a the end (me first). A the first time we want to make him talk a say somethings for the fans but we don’t have any right and John kassir the incredible voices behind the crypt can not help us without the autorisation of the procurers and the owners of the license. I was a little bit complicated at the end, we did this project on our free time, we put a lot of energy in it, so at the end we decide to stop here and share our work!! Maybe for the making off we will do somethings with the crypt!!

And your right the crypt in the cardboard come from the CG one

Thank you for your support :)

For those wondering, the video was made by Damien Peinoit, Adel Benabdallah, Omar Meradi, and Toufik Mekbel. It was done as a personal project in their free time, and as you’ll see, they know what they’re doing. Professionally they’ve worked on some pretty big titles as well, such as the Dark Souls II cinematic trailer and that excellent E3 2012 ZombiU trailer.

Now, while all of this is great work, I must be clear: The Cryptkeeper should NEVER be CG-animated. He should always be a dusty old puppet/animatronic creation. Some lines should never be crossed.

As for using CG for environments and enhancing visuals…that I can appreciate, if done this well. What do you think?

Video