Tales from the Crypt Death of Some Salesmen (1989–1996) Online

Season five starts off with a gruesome, truly traditional bang with Death of Some Salesmen. A scam-artist finds himself in hot-water after he finds out his latest targets have a peculiar fondness for disposing of salesmen. His only way out is to wed the couple's truly repulsive daughter.

Ed Begley, jr., is a deadpan delight but it's the always watchable Tim Curry ( IT, THe Rocky Horror Picture Show) that steals the show as he pulls off three different roles thanks to the brilliant makeup work of Todd Masters and his own genius acting skills. Yvonne Decarlo (Lilly Munster) even has a small role.

This episode is truly faithful to the feel and the report of the fifties comics as it winds towards it's brilliant ending.

"Death of Some Salesmen" (love the tongue-in-cheek title already!) is one of the last truly great Tales from the Crypt episodes, largely thanks to the delightfully macabre humor and Tim Curry's amazing portrayal of no less than three characters. The story isn't very original, none of the Tales really are actually, but this tale is as entertaining as it gets with some nice gore, creepy characters and a good pace. Ed Begley Jr., a seriously underrated actor if you ask me, plays shifty salesman Judd Campbell who tricks elderly people into buying a beautiful final resting place that actually doesn't exist. His deceptive techniques don't make much of an impression on the crazy Brackett family, as it's some sort of sport for them to kill salesmen using the products they sell. Judd's last chance for survival is marrying the hideous and equally deranged daughter Winona. Tim Curry ("The Rocky Horror Picture Show") plays all three members of the Brackett family and he's seemly having a great time. Especially Winona is a repulsively over-the-top character that grunts and doesn't care too much about personal hygiene. The gore includes a couple of grisly images of salesmen-leftovers and a truly nasty sex sequence. After an overall disappointing fourth season, this first installment of season five was a really splendid one. Recommended!

Nice little trivia element: on the bedside table in Winona's room, there's a picture of Ma & Pa Brackett in the famous "American Gothic" pose. Of course, in order to see this, you have to be able to keep your eyes open during the horrifying sex session.

I made the mistake of sitting down with a sandwich before rolling the season 5 premiere of Tales from the Crypt. The show is, obviously, no stranger to gross-out humor and gore, but nothing throughout the series has been quite as downright disgusting as the character of Winona Brackett. Yikes. I almost lost my lunch.

Tim Curry completely disappears into the roles of the three Bracketts. This episode is a complete testament to his skills and versatility as an actor. Ed Begley Jr. is also suitably slimy as the slick salesman who you don't really mind seeing in his fatal predicament, and Yvonne De Carlo has a small but memorable appearance as one of the folks he swindles. My only complaint about the story is the final twist; it caught me by surprise, but I'm not sure how much sense it made in the context of the story.

this one kind of grew on me a bit.At first I hated it cause of "winona" mans she was gross! But after watching a few years later I throughly enjoyed Tim Curry's performance(s) I personally liked PA Brackett the best.The dialog throughout is fantastic.Strangely the music fits this tale very well,combined with great make up,and setting, this tale does a good job of making u feel your in the back country. Although The Keppers one liners were really lame this time around. What a great way to kick off season 5,which by the way I thought to n]be one of the best acting wise.

I'll never be a door to door salesman.

Crooked no-count cemetery plot salesman Judd Campbell (well played to the slimy hilt by Ed Begley Jr.) meets his match in the form of a murderous backwoods family with a nasty knack for bumping off bothersome traveling salesmen. Director Gilbert Adler, who also co-wrote the clever script with A.L. Katz, relates the fun story at a brisk pace, ably milks the wickedly amusing sense of pitch-black humor, and delivers one doozy of a surprise twist ending. However, it's the bravura work of Tim Curry in no less than three roles that really gives this particular show an extra entertaining lift; he's simply amazing as the cantankerous Pa, sweet Ma, and, most impressive of all, the supremely hideous, ill-kept, and disgusting daughter Winona. (Special kudos are also in order for the top-notch make-up by Todd Masters.) Yvonne De Carlo pops up in a neat small part as gullible widow Mrs. Jones. Moreover, this episode boasts some nicely grotesque bits and two sex scenes (the opening one between Campbell and a pretty diner waitress is fairly steamy while the second one with Campbell doing just what you think with Winona is truly gross and revolting). John R. Leonetti's slick cinematography provides a pleasing glossy look. Michael Kamen's folksy score hits the harmonic spot. A solid start to the fifth season.

A traveling con man, posing as a salesman, runs afoul of an unusual family.

The performances are all around enjoyable, the writing isn't as hammy as Crypt episodes can get, and there's a touch of nudity to start things off. As other reviewers have mentioned, Tim Curry really steals the show with his multiple performances. The pacing is pretty good. There's a decent sense of tension in each scene, making the whole thing move along nicely.

At least one other reviewer has pointed out that the ending doesn't make sense. This is sort of true. The problem is that the story was pushed further than it needed to be, for the sake of reveal that wasn't needed.

Still, a satisfying, fun episode.

SERIOUS SPOILER ALERT-

If he had dug the hole, not found the 'dowry box,' and was just surprised by the family, that would have been fine. They could have said that the whole thing was 1)to please their daughter, and 2) to get him to dig his own grave, then the ending would have worked fine. As it stands, the family needed to dig the hole, bury the dowry with his contract in it, then filled the hole in... it seems like a lot of work just to surprise him with the contract with his name on it.

I watched this episode on YouTube. Mind you this is the only episode from the series I've watched all the way through, but being 16, I enjoyed it very much. With the macabre humour, and the excellent characters, what could go wrong? The acting in this episode is ingenious. Ed Begley Jnr is very good as Judd Campbell. But the show belongs to Tim Curry, whose trilogy of the Brackett family is unforgettable, especially Winona. Tim Curry was easily the best guest star of the series, and was nominated for an Emmy. Personally, he should have won it! The criticisms is that there is a disgusting bit, when Judd opens the door, and finds a dead body in a horrifying position, and then Pa Brackett hits him on the head with an axe, knocking him out, and the rather graphic sex scene that was quite disgusting. Very entertaining episode though, with some great dialogue!9/10. Bethany Cox

Tales from the Crypt: Death of Some Salesmen starts as heartless conman Judd Campbell (Ed Begley Jr.) who poses as a door-to-door salesman to steal money from people calls upon the Brackett family, first he meets Ma & Pa (both played by Tim Curry) who invite him him & seem interested in what he's selling. However Judd quickly discovers that the Brackett's take great pleasure in killing salesmen...

This Tales from the Crypt story was episode 1 from season 5, the second of two Tales from the Crypt episodes to be directed by one of the show's regular producers Gilbert Adler I thought Death of Some Salesmen was a good opener to season 5. The script by Adler & A L Katz was based on a story from 'The Haunt of Fear' comic book & for most of it's duration is a terrificly twisted horror story, unfortunately I though the ending let this one down which is strange considering the ironic morbid twist endings are what Tales from the Crypt is best known for. I don't understand the point of the big set up, I don't understand why they buried the certificate so far under their basement & I don't get why they wanted Judd to dig it up, did I miss something? Am I just totally stupid? Why did the Brackett family go the amount of trouble they did, was it to see if Judd really loved Winona? There were other ways & that still doesn't explain why they had the argument & started the big fight or how they would know that Judd would specifically try & shoot Winiona, does it? I'm sorry but this episode was great until the last 5 minutes when for me it totally fell apart in it's rush to stick to the 30 odd minute time scale, however I thought the opening & closing Crypt Keeper (John Kassir) segments were among the best as it spoofs a home shopping channel with him as the host complete with bad wig. This episode to it's credit though also has a wonderful sense of dark humour running through it with some very amusing dialogue & a horrible sex scene which might make some squirm.

The show looks as good as usual & there are some fantastic effects to transform Tim Curry into three different character's that look to have come straight out of that famous America Gothic picture, there's some good gore including a decapitated head, a mangled body & someone with a vacuum cleaner hose shoved down his throat. This particular episode also features one of the grossest scenes ever as Judd has to have sex with the utterly repulsive & grotesque Winona, just the mere thought is enough to make one wrench but to see it on screen is nasty. The acting is good by Begley but Curry steals the show here as he literally plays the Brackett family single handed.

Death of Some Salesmen is a good tale from the crypt that in my opinion is let down by a weak ending which I didn't get & that in itself is at odds with the series in general.

This is my sixth favorite tale in the series. There really isn't much to it, it's pretty much a black comedy and grifter thriller but what makes them thrilling is hoping that the guilty gets steered toward their own bad decisions.

Ed Bengley Jr is good at playing a con artist whom is just a total sleaze in which people are nothing but objects to him for his own gain and listens to no one except his own greed. Coning Ms. Munster out of her money you just all the more reason you want him to get what's coming to him.

But it's Tim Curry whom really drives this tale. This guy is my favorite actor believe it or not because this guy could just about play anything. His performance is just excellent as he play all three characters I really bought that there was an actually family there as each of them have distinctive personalities. Even like the make up work where the family just looks really ugly but a little comical at the same time almost like twisted live action Mad Magazine characters. I even like some of the lines they get to say there are some memorable lines my favorite "If I have to kill ever salesmen on the planet, so be it." I find that blackly funny because of how tall an order that is, all I can to that is good luck.

And like any grift it just twists one way and another. I like how the tale seems like the Salesmen is the one that is still grifting them but unfortunately he's forgotten the most important rule, "A Grift can go the other way around".

Rating: 4 stars

Shouldn't that read "Deaths Of Some Salesmen" - whatever! Do travelling salesmen still exist? The brand always had a bad reputation, but this guy isn't a salesman, he is a con man, and boy, what a creep. The show begins with him in bed with a gorgeous young thing - gratuitously topless - having charmed his way into her bed on a promise, he makes a course remark about her dropping her knickers, and he is out of her life shortly after 6am - the show is on the road. Is it any wonder some women cry rape? But the gods have a far worse fate in store for Judd Campbell than a few years behind bars.

We see him ripping off one elderly widow, and by implication many others, then he calls at the wrong address by mistake, and boy is this a wrong address, and did he make one gi-normous mistake? Still, at least he won't make anymore.

This is surreal comedy, and without reading the casting credits you may not even realise that with some clever camera-work one actor is playing three parts.

In my humble opinion the fifth season was when this show first really started to slide and get into the weaker and more poorly-done episodes, and we all know how bad it ended up eventually. But this one was special, and a stellar choice to open the season with. It's all about a naughty little con artist who finds a tempting new prospect in a strange hillbilly family of wackos who are nowhere near as dumb and gullible as he thinks they are, and who harbour a fortune buried in their basement, as well as a burning hatred for salesmen... Okay, let's discuss Mr.Tim Curry for a sec. As an actor I think he's at his best and most impressive when he's either doing voice-over work or wearing elaborate prosthetic makeup, and his triple-thread performance here which I could only ever seriously see Curry successfully pulling off which he does, is utterly fantastic as he plays a family that I'm pretty sure is from hell and brilliantly shows his range and versatility. He makes for a horrid, but effective-looking woman as the sweet Ma, as Pa I found him the most scary as the face and voice were very similar to Pennywise from It, and as the unbelievably monstrous daughter Winona he was a grotesque tour-de-force! All of her eye-rolling expressions and snorting just kept cracking me up. You almost feel sorry for Winona, she looked that dreadful, and the scene where this hunchbacked harpooned-whale of a girl mounts and essentially rapes the awkward man is hilariously awkward and is sure to make the bile rise in your gullet! He must've *really* wanted to live, because lovin' Winona was not easy.. I'm afraid I couldn't muster all that much surprise at the revelation at the end as my shock supply was quite used up after that experience of a scene! I did find it a bit unbelievable that the family would be capable of devising such an elaborate scheme just for the sake of entrapping the con man and beating him at his own game. Well, the last few minutes do seem a bit rushed but it all still works, and with three Tim Currys for the price of one there's just no way this tale could possibly lose! It's funny the way he looks more like himself as the two female characters than he does as the father. Like many of the episodes it's got a really smooth ending where everything seems to culminate in a pitch-perfect point...and then literally blam! It is over. Judd No!!! Oh gawd.. Well Judd is definitely dead! Eh, I don't care. Ed Begley didn't play it sympathetic enough that I would have. He could've though, Ed's a very underrated actor, and I'm a fan. His line right at the beginning to the pretty lady he's just duped into sleeping with him was when you knew that this guy was going to come to a most unpleasant demise, as if the title of the story wasn't a dead giveaway! It really wasn't going well for him from the get-go, and I was kinda wondering why he didn't hot-tail it outta there as soon as he saw the people who lived in that grimy old house. Was any amount of money really worth all that!? All in all it's a solid episode that's one of the nastiest and funniest in the series, and one that deserves its rank as a fan favourite. Oh I love it, it's just too precious!!