Friday the 13th: The Series (TV Series) Tales of the Undead (1988) User Reviews

The series take off...finally

[ODDBear · 8/10 · 7 September 2009]

Finally the series takes off. After a somewhat slow start, "Friday the 13th; The Series" offers a rock solid episode that's funny, suspenseful, well acted and well written. Episodes 6 ("The Great Montarro"), 7 ("Doctor Jack") and 8 ("Shadow Boxer") showed improvements but still didn't hit the jack-pot but here's a winner.

The always good Ray Walston gives solid performance as a former comics writer with a grudge who's able to dish out some long awaited revenge against the man who stole his fortunes when he can become the super villain he created.

Micki, Ryan and Jack are all likable characters but they can go overboard on occasion, especially Micki. All actors are solid and here John D. LeMay and Robey get a chance to pull off some dramatic acting, especially LeMay who shines here (actually, Chris Wiggins sits this one out).

The show is fairly pedestrian when it comes to special effects but the transformations from old man to superhero are imaginatively executed.

Overall, the best episode from the series so far.

The revenge of the nerds is taken to a whole new level

[allexand · 8/10 · 2 July 2009]

While at the comic book store, Ryan witnesses the owner get killed by a man who uses a vintage comic book to turn into its hero. Naturally, he suspects the comic to be cursed and sets out to get it back.

"Tales of the Undead" is undoubtedly the strongest episode of the series yet. The writing here is the most solid it's ever been and the star wattage is upped too as Ray Walston guest stars.

Ray Walston does a great job here as the bitter man who gets cheated out of the rights to his own creation. His character's story is quite clever as it gives a nod to the creator of Superman, who apparently suffered a similar fate. The personified comic book monster, Ferrous the Invicible, looks really good too. The comic book panel transformation scenes, while obvious that they did this to save money on special effects, are surprisingly effective. The characters all have plausible motives. The method in which Ryan defeats Ferrous at the end is creative and provides a bit of poetic justice.

A few things keep this episode from being totally perfect. As good as the writing is, there are a few flaws. The manner in which the teenager initially steals the comic is a little too melodramatic and over-the-top. I've never known many comic book enthusiasts, but I just can't imagine someone reacting this way. Also, why does he not kill Ryan since he sees the whole thing? Later when Ryan tells Jay Star that the comic book makes Ferrous come to life, he goes over there to get it back with Ferrous' secret weakness in hand just in case. Why is he so quick to believe Ryan? If someone told me a comic book character was out there killing people, I'd have them carted off in straitjacket, but that's just me.

While not without its flaws, "Tales of the Undead" sets a new benchmark for this series. It's definitely worth seeing.

The Cursed Comic Book

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 22 March 2024]

Jack is in Singapore, and Ryan goes to a comic book shop owned by Charlie Evans to receive his order. Charlie shows him the rare edition of the number one of "Tales of the Undead" that he intends to sell in an auction, where he will get at least US$ 25,000.00 per the sale. The magazine introduces the hero Ferrus and is signed by its creator, Jay Star. However, the hoodlum Cal breaks the display case to steal the magazine. When he grabs the comic book, he turns into Ferrus, kills Charlie, and knocks out Ryan. Micki is skeptical with the story told by Ryan, but he discovers that Lewis bought the comic book to from Jacon Starenski, maybe the real name of Jay Star. Ryan believes that Jay died poor, but heads to his address and finds that he is alive, living with his maid Mrs. Forbes. Jay receives Ryan, gives an autograph to him and discloses his story. Jay tells him how he would have been cheated and his Peerless Comics and Ferrus were taken from him. Ryan tells him that Ferrus has come to life, and when Ryan leaves the house, Jay leaves too to seek revenge.

"Tales of the Undead" is another reasonable episode of "Friday the 13th: The Series". Jack Marshak is only credited and does not participate in the story. The plot of a hero from a comic book that comes to life is entertaining and the conclusion is funny. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Fábula Assassina" ("Assassin Fable")

My favorite Martian

[movieman_kev · 9/10 · 29 March 2009]

Ryan believes that a popular comic-book character, Feris the Invincible, has come to life and is killing people. He then seeks out the character's creator, Jay Star (the late great and my personal favorite martian, Ray Walston) But both Ryan and Micki are not aware that Star knows quite a bit more than he's letting on.

Bouncing back with a vengeance after the abysmal "Root of All Evil" episode of the series, this is a great episode of the show that would not only captivate regular watchers of the show, but comic fans as well due to the strong parallel between Superman and his creators & Feris and his. This episode also uses comic-book panels to good economical and stylistic effect (unlike say the re-released version of "The Warrors" where it was a detriment to the viewing experience, but I digress) All in all a rather strong episode of the series that stands well against the test of time. Even though Ryan should have name-dropped Amazing Fantasy #15 rather than Spider-man #1 (relative small nitpick from a Marvel fan-boy)

My Grade: A

The First Good Episode

[Gislef · 10/10 · 9 August 2020]

Finally, a good episode. 'Friday the 13th: the Series' had a spotty premiere. "Tales" was the first good episode, IMO, for several reasons. The first is that the show started the trend of having a sympathetic villain. It started with 'Stargate' star David Hewlett as a near-demented comic book fan and typical series one-dimensional bad guy. But then Ray Walston kills him off at the halfway mark.

Walston was probably the biggest star that 'F13' scored. This was in the 80s, when Walston was having a second renaissance between Boothby on 'Star Trek' and Judge Bone on 'Picket Fences'. He presents a decent rounded character with hints of backstory when he talks about having seen "cruel miracles". There's thing likes his relationship with Nancy Forbes that are hinted at it but never explained, and the episode would have been much less if it had stopped to explain everything that is hinted at. She even gets a touching bit right before her death when it's clear she's romantically interested in Jay... and he uses that to find out where the secret issue is before killing her.

While an 80's syndicated show isn't the place you'd go to get social commentary, the story of Jay Star symbolizes how the creators of Superman, Siegel and Schuster, had to fight for their ownership and credit for their own Man of Steel, Superman. Walston as Jay gives voice to how authors of the 30s and 40s were treated as little more than slaves by the comic book publishers of the era. Yeah, that may have been typical. But it's still sad how the creative minds of the era were "outwitted" by businesses and their lawyers. It also helps that Walston creates an interesting character around the whole thing.

Chris Wiggins is absent from the episode. Ryan mentions that Jack is in Singapore, and maybe the production staff was looking to write the character out and focus on Micki & Ryan. Jack's absence is unfortunate, but it does let the writers focus on Ryan. And the character benefits from the increased attention: he's much more interesting than in his last nine appearances.

Yes, the "transformation" scenes are cheap and low-budget, but what do you expect from a relatively cheap, low-budget show? It beats CGI like we got in "The Poison Pen". And all of Paramount's money for syndication was going to 'Next Generation' and 'War of the Worlds'. The cheap-looking comic book art used for the transformation suits the tone of the episode and the comic book theme.

You do wonder why a comic called "Tales of the Undead" featured the Iron Man-like Ferrus. I suppose that's typical of the era: Iron Man premiered in "Tales of Suspense", too, even if he premiered in 1963 instead of the 1947 cited for Ferrus. It's a cute Easter Egg, but I could see it being confusing to non-comic book readers since the title of the episode is focused on it.

And is Ferrus a hero or a villain? He's presented throughout as a hero, but treated as a villain. Or was he an anti-hero? No one comments on the irony of a "hero" being used as a murder weapon.

Overall, an excellent episode mostly because of Walston and more attention on Ryan. It all comes together when Ryan has to kill his idol. It beats the killer-of-the-week dying by his own hand.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?

Excelsi-horror!!!

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 9/10 · 26 May 2015]

This episode is really good and is definitely one of the best of the series thus far. I love stuff that's all about the seldom-used theme of comic books coming to life in a horror setting, it's just so massively appealing to me! The number of movies and television episodes that add to this fun weird micro-genre are quite few and this is a good addition to them. The effects of the transformation sequences that 'show' the bearer of the cursed unpublished issue of "Tales of the Undead" changing into the fearsome "Ferriss the Invincible", and bring the most fantastical visual element into the story are basic and rough, I've seen it done a lot better, but I still like them, they do work and fit the tone, and whatever, it's always just that kind of strange magical live-action scenes to comic book illustrated panels and back again imagery that stirs my imagination and I always generally love it. I mean how scary would it actually be if a famous super-villain stepped right out of the pages of your comic to hunt you down and murder you? Ha, I could so see Ryan as a comic book lover and I find the opening scene when he's nerding-it-up in the comic book store so cute! The uh, store owner just happens to have on proud display a one of a kind issue of Ryan's favourite comic that is of course hexed and has the power to change whoever possesses it into a villain who, while the design does look a bit corny, is a lot of fun and again is very much in-keeping with the tone of the story. He looks like a lumbering demonic deep sea diver/astronaut that can't be destroyed except by being impaled with a very elaborate and pointy comic book trophy. Anyway then comes along a very young and skinny David Hewlett as a batshit-crazy comic enthusiast who soon swipes the precious volume, becomes Ferriss, murders the store owner and injures Ryan who then retreats and has to uncover the comic's secret before too many more people die at the wrath of Ferriss!! I love John Lemay in this episode, he gets to go through a good range of emotions. I like the touching scene where he talks to Micki about why he thinks that kids love to read comics. And also when he meets his childhood comic book idol(played with sinister skill by Ray Walston) and to his disappointment finds him to be a very bitter and broken-down old man who's still understandably angry years after he was bought out of his famous comic creation by a rival publishing company, and who eventually is able to murder the David Hewlett character and claim the comic as his own to obtain his revenge. And I like how this one ends with Ryan being done with comics for a while after effectively killing his idol, but then Micki manages to cheer him up a little, and the screen freezes on his funny lopsided wink! In my opinion a great episode that makes good use of its neat angle, and is to me just very well worth seeing. Don't be judging this book by its cover, see ya!