The concept of ghouls has always fascinated me. I learned about them for the first time when I was ten from Salem’s Lot back in 1979. There’s a scene between Mark Petrie and the Glick brothers at his home where the younger Glick brother points to a mask Mark has on his shelf and asks what it is. Mark replies, “It’s a ghoul,” and the kid then asks what’s a ghoul, Mark replies, “A ghoul is an evil demon who preys on corpses, feeds on human beings, and robs graves . . .” The next time I run into these creatures at the movies is  The Monster Club (1981). It’s an anthology movie where one of the stories is about ghouls, and unfortunately since I haven’t seen it since childhood I can’t remember a thing about, only that I was creepy. When I was a kid I also liked to read books on monsters, and one of my favorites I kept taking out of the school library was Ghosts And Ghouls by Gwen Risedorf. Again memory is vague but I remember learning more about ghouls from that book.

I think Tales From The Crypt (1989-1996) only dealt with ghouls in two episodes, the one I previously reviewed here, “House Of Horror,” and this one, “Mournin’ Mess.” What I liked best about this particular show is that the ghouls don’t stray too far from the basic premise of what they’re supposed to be, just updated for modern times. It was the 10th episode of Season 3 (aired July 31st 1991).

Here’s the original EC Comics tale from No. 38 (Oct/Nov 1953)! Click photos to enlarge & read! 

The ghouls in this aren’t just mindless and repulsive monsters that skulk around graveyards, they look like you and I and they’ve modernized their “feeding” to fit in with society, hiding in fact in plain sight. Jess Gilchrist (Rita Wilson) is the chairwoman for this group called the Grateful Homeless Society; they run the local cemetery and see to it society’s unwanted are buried with dignity. Check out the acronym for the society: G.H.O.U.L.S, which stands for Grateful Homeless Outcast & Unwanted Layaway Society, GHS, for short. The only thing I didn’t like about this episode is the ghoul aspect is telegraphed so blatantly, but then again that’s taken directly from the EC comics story, with some slight alterations. In the comic it’s the Grateful Hoboes, Outcasts & Unwanteds Layaway Society. Plus, Gilchrist’s ghoulish side is also telegraphed early when she meets the star of the episode, douchebag reporter, Dale Sweeny (Steven Weber). He’s days away from eviction, drinks too much and lays too much and isn’t shy about laying a chick just to pump her for information. This he does with Jess to get her to talk about her society, and this is where we get hints there might be something “wrong” with her. She tells Dale she doesn’t eat meat, but says it in a such a way we don’t believe her and when she’s having sex with Dale she playfully bites his shoulder, a little too much, another hint there’s something off about her.

Going on at the same time is a series of killings, mostly of homeless people, and they’re quite gruesome. Who’s doing it, well from the shadow shown, we can assume it’s at least humanoid, and being only a 26-minute episode we only get to see one killing. The late Vincent Schiavelli plays homeless man Robert, and as the episode opens up and he and his buddy, Dancer (Stack Pierce), are holing up in a cardboard box during the night to get out of the rain. Rob leaves to fetch help (Dancer is sick) when he’s killed; Rob comes back to find a severed hand; Rob’s then pegged as the Homeless Killer. But he knows things, and if this episode was lengthy we’d find out exactly how he came to discover the secret of GHS and who’s behind it, and big names too, like politically big names. How the hell does a homeless dude like Rob learn all that?!

Dale gets pulled into this when Ron spots him at a PR event in the cemetery for the society and thinks he’s hungry enough to want to ferret out the secrets. He tells him to hang out in the cemetery at dusk and he’ll get all his info. Rob is eventually killed off, most likely by the real Homeless Killer, which are the ghouls running the society. I guess they’re murdering people society won’t miss and then having them buried in a cemetery they own so they can feed on the remains. Ghouls are the vultures of the monster world, but as we’ll soon see carrion isn’t all they’ll eat.

The episode takes a significantly creepy and horrific turn in the final act when Dale picks a recent arrival and stakes out the fresh grave. As he watches the piled on earth suddenly sinks. For some reason I found that simple act unnerving when I first watched it. Dale needs this story, because by the final act he’s been fired and evicted, and so starts his decent into hell as he grabs a nearby shovel and starts unearthing the grave. He comes upon a door! That’s right an actual door where the casket was lain upon. Dale falls through and in so doing finds a labyrinthine tunnel system, it actually looks like a mine shaft, with caskets situated everywhere.

He makes the mistake of hiding in one and gives away his location when he screams realizing he’s in the casket they buried Rob in, and now Rob’s in a horribly half eaten state! When I first saw this it didn’t register, but seeing this so many decades later I kept thinking the moment he opened that door in the grave he should have been assailed by the scent of rotted flesh? Horror directors seem to always forget dead bodies smell. Anyway, the coffin Dale is in is brought to a room with a huge dining table in it, and here he meets the ghouls running their “feeding racket,” and wouldn’t you know it one of them is Jess! They wear human masks to fit in. Without their human visage they’re bald, pointy-eared and have freaky looking mouths! There’s an added twist too! Earlier on we met another reporter, one Dale hates and one his old job was given to, and he too is a ghoul! He rips Dales ear clean off, and the final shot is of Jess, sans mask, leaning in for a bite!!

This episode hit me at the right time because I was thoroughly creeped out by it from the start and the gore, being minimal, still gives a nice jolt. The ripping off of Dale’s ear and the sharing of it between two ghouls; the severed hand earlier in the show, and the showstopper, the gruesome remains of Rob!

So far Tales From The Crypt has not been transferred to blu-ray, but the entire series is on DVD, and you can get it here on Amazon. If you prefer just Season Three you can stream it through them too and it’s also on DVD.