Tales from the Crypt (TV Series) Whirlpool (1994) User Reviews

"I wouldn't line a bird cage with this story." Really poor tale from the crypt.

[poolandrews · 4/10 · 22 March 2007]

Tales from the Crypt: Whirlpool starts in the tales from the crypt comic book offices where artist Rolanda (Rita Rudner) has her latest strip called 'Whirlpool' rejected by her demanding editor Vern (Richard Lewis), to add insult to injury Vern fires her as well for being rubbish. However the next morning Rolanda wakes up to find she is starting the day again, again she is fired & things happen in exactly the same fashion but but this time things don't quite end in the same way...

This Tales from the Crypt story was episode 3 from season 6, directed by Mick Garris I thought Whirlpool was a poor excuse for a tale from the crypt. The script by the show's regular producer Gilbet Adler & A L Katz was based on a story from 'The Vault of Horror' comic book & is pretty bad, for a start I would really struggle to call Whirlpool even horror themed, it lacks any dark sense of humour & the story is a complete mess. The basic premise of setting it in the Tales from the Crypt comic book offices has already done in season 2's Korman's Kalamity & the fact that what one of the artist's strips becomes reality was also the basis for Korman's Kalamity but without the horror, the fun, the gore or any sort decent twist ending. I mean the fact that this whole Tales from the Crypt episode just turned out to be a comic strip from the latest issue is not amongst the show's best twist's & it's revealed in a somewhat convoluted way.

This one is a period piece that looks to be set during the 50's & has decent enough production values, there's no gore, swearing or nudity in this one apart from the closing Crypt Keeper (John Kassir) segment when he reveals a decapitated head. Another thing I noticed about Whirlpool is that it has to be the shortest Tales from the Crypt episode so far, it runs for a few seconds over 20 minutes compared to the usual 30 odd minutes but even then it felt dull & boring.

Whirlpool is one of the lamest Tales from the Crypt episodes that I have seen although it's still not quite as bad as season 5's King of the Road.

Okay episode

[Woodyanders · 6/10 · 31 July 2012]

Struggling comic book artist Rolanda (a disarmingly sweet performance by Rita Rudner) gets fired from her job by her mean and demanding boss Vern (nicely played with lip-smacking nasty zeal by Richard Lewis). However, Rolanda finds herself repeating the events of that fateful day with some changes, but the same dismal results. Director Mick Garris, working from an insipid script by A.L. Katz and Gilbert Adler, relates the annoyingly redundant story at a brisk pace, uses a cool retro 50's film noirish style, and delivers a little mild violence and a quick sprinkling of gratuitous female nudity, but crucially fails to come through with much in the way of suspense, surprises, and dark humor. Moreover, the slight premise proves to be extremely monotonous and grindingly predictable, with a pretty irritating and dissatisfying "it never ends" inconclusive climax. That criticism aside, Rick Bota's slick cinematography provides a pleasing polished look and keeps things humming with lots of lively camera work, Nicholas Pike's jazzy score does the smooth swinging trick, having the story take place in the EC Comics office is a neat touch, and the terse 20-minute running time ensures that this particular show doesn't ever become tedious or overstay its welcome. Passable, but overall really blah and underwhelming.

Not a fresh plot but still funny

[bellino-angelo2014 · 7/10 · 10 July 2021]

This story begins with some sort of shooting for a movie where a woman tries to murder her husband after she is discovered with her lover. Unfortunately the lowly husband has the upper hand and strangles the blonde woman to death. Here the scene freezes and it becomes a black and white drawing and the scene moves in the comic book studio. Nerdy cartoonist Rolanda has her story rejected once again by her arrogant boss and in a rampage she decides to murder him. She does, but after a while the story returns at the starting point. Again the scene for the comic book, Rolanda that is fired and murders her boss and she is shot by the police that was passing by. The story repeats again but this time she is saved because in the alternate timeline she became the boss and her former boss had the same treatment he gave her in the past.

While some may find tedious the fact that there was this sort of deja vu in the episode, I personally found it funny and I really liked the twist at the end. Don't let the bad score fool you with this one.

"I didn't do it!!!"

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 7/10 · 22 October 2015]

I just about enjoy the plot/non-plot of this episode, it's strange and slightly interesting. And it is bizarre, even by Crypt standards! It begins with a downtrodden nerdy comic book writer who, after having one of her story pitches rejected yet again by her over-demanding jerk of a boss, snaps and decides to murder him! She goes back to the office and does so later that night, at which point a trigger-happy police squad bursts out of nowhere and shoots her dead - and then things start to get hellishly weird as it appears that this poor gal really cannot catch a break as her bad day start over, and over, and over again... And then it's about how no matter what she does to try to change the outcome, indeed including simply refusing to go anywhere near the office, her boss always ends up dead and she ends up shot full of holes. It's pretty much a lightly macabre take on a Groundhog Day scenario. There is an odd role-reversal twist ending, where it's suggested that it was the Rita Rudner character all along who was the mean boss and the man was in her position and it may or may not have all just been another idea for a tale that twisted and whirl-pooled upon itself... Nope, don't totally get it! It's certainly no classic of the series, but it's not as awful as I remembered it being. It was decent, I didn't love it, but I had fun. It's harmless, it's just so damn crazy! It's not as good, but I like it about as much as "Korman's Kalamity", the other 'meta' episode where "Tales From the Crypt" is actually a comic book, although that one is a lot more endearing and less annoying. Cute oddity of an episode that to me is not downright stinking, but is worth seeing just about for the sheer strangeness of it. Later!

Fun, fantastical, thrilling, unfairly rated

[deepfield67 · 8/10 · 26 October 2023]

Rita Rudner and Richard Lewis are fun to watch. It's a fast-paced neo-noir amusement park ride. Good cinematography, good editing. It's not a gruesome episode, just kind of a dark comedy of errors with a supernatural twist. I think it's a good watch, not sure why it's so lowly rated other than the fact that it's more like a Twilight Zone episode than a Tales from the Crypt episode. But it may even be closer in tone to a large portion of the popular pulp comics of (especially the late) 1950s than the average gory episode of Tales from the Crypt, which would probably be found in an early 1950s, pre-comic code comic. Anyway, the episode doesn't have eye popping effects, no gore to speak of (though there is a body count of 6, technically), but it's a thrilling little 50-style pulp mystery story that uses the "I keep repeating the same day no matter what I do" trope to entertaining ends.