Tales from the Crypt Fat Tuesday, the original article

Previously when talking about Tales from the Crypt Fat Tuesday/ Dead Easy I quoted a article from a Tales from the Crypt Magazine special about Demon Knight. I had real issues reading the article as all I had was very poor resolution scans to deal with, now I have sat and really strained my eyes and used software I didnt previously have in order to copy down every single word from this article so that others can read it with ease. Still not enough is known about this film and I seem to be one of only a very small amount of bloggers talking about it, so here it is in an easy to read format with yet one more piece of concept art and a picture of the front cover of the magazine this article was apparently taken from. I have included the authors name at the bottom as I am not in anyway taking credit for the article, I just wanted it up and easy to read and figured this was something I could do for the horror community.

 

 

MORE FEAR ON ''FAT TUESDAY''

Demonic possession, resurrection, religious icongraphy and other worldly temptation are ambitious concepts to be tackling for the first Tales from the Crypt feature Demon Knight. But with two more movies to go, what do you do for an encore? 

''The next one is more psychological than blood, grue and gore'' says A L Katz with a smile. ''As a Matter of fact, today we wrote a scne where a shadow figure squeezes through the skull of an old lady and into her brain. And that's just where the movie begins.''

Much like the TV eries, the movie franchise will also attempt to branch out into different horizons, according to Katz and writing partner Gil Adler. The latter will also be directing the second Crypt feature, whih is tentativelty titled Fat Tuesday and scheduled to go into production in Februrary on a $12 million budget. ''When you think of a Crypt movie, you think ironic, sardonic humour and you also think of a certain amount of scares and gore.. Adler explains. ''And as with the series, there are some nice twists and turns along the way. You think you're being lef one way and we twist it into another direction.''

Based on a script by J.P. Kelly, Fat Tuesday will be set in the Deep South (possibly New Orleans) and concerns a man trying to determine what happened in his past, and how memories of that past will bring back a malevolent entiity if they are ever recalled. ''As this guy get closer to the truth he also gets closer to rleasing this thing from the prison inside of him,'' Katz explains, ''We will be creating a unique Bad guy- one you've never seem before that is compelling and funny. It will scare the shit out of you.''

As with the Crypt shows, Adler and Katz have spent an extensive amount of time rewordking Fat Tuesday into the Crypt style (a title change is expected before the film is released).

''The script that J.P. Kelly wrote was intresting and very compelling but as with all things, we've played with it, thought about it and molded it over, so it has evolved into another life of its own.'' says Katz. ''His original story was very much about a man remembering something from his past and it possibly involved child abuse, which was a little too much to tackle. But the idea of a man remembering something from his past was an intriguing idea. The setting J.P. placed it in was fascinating, and there's even a swamp in there that becomes a character of its own. It's sort of a perverse den where heaven and hell meet and is filled with magic- dark and dangerous magic.''

As for potentialmakeup FX, Todd Masters' shop is currently creating preliminary designs(which will include, among other things, an evil Harlequin), but the artist notes that it won't be as extensive show as Demon Knight proved to be. ''Its more scary in the Haunting sense.'' explains Masters, ''But there is enough stuff in there to keep us going.''

The unique structure of the film franchise has  also create an intresting dynamic. When the idea of features was initially being thrown around, the three main executive producers, Richard Donner, Robert Zemeckis and Walter Hil, all considered directing one each. As time went on, their involvment resulted in each picking a script and nurturing the project along with another director at the helm. Thus Zemeckis oversaw Demon Knight, Donner will be close to Fat Tuesday and Hill will be involved with an urban horror opus currently entitled Body Count (which producer Joel Silver describes as a modern Frankenstein tale) - though the story for the third movie is still tentative.

''Each of the films could be franchisable in its own right.'' explains Katz. ''It's not altogther impossible. Several characters could be taken into sequels, and I don'tthink it would be all that suprisingif that's what happens. In the end, were trying to create satisfying, fulfilling mythologies, and the probability that at least one movie won't be able to contain them is not exactly a revelation.''  
                                                                -Anthony C. Ferrante

Fat Tuesday we still dont really know much about it

 

 I didnt realise that Fat Tuesday was basically another name for Mardi Gras a Carnival celebration, beginning on or after the Christian feasts of the Epiphany (Three Kings Day) and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday. In England where I am from it is basically what we would call Shrove Tuesday AKA pancake day. So basically it is the idea of having a last day/night of eating rich, fatty foods before you fast for lent. Funny really then that I never put two and two togther and realised that there was almost a Tales from Crypt movie released which would have been set around the time of pancake day, makes you think doesnt it?

I wrote a series of posts a few years back about the Tales from The Crypt films those released, those not and those films that almost became Tales films, one of these films an unreleased one was going to be called Fat Tuesday, a few things have made me return to write this sort of follow up post. As far as I can tell no real new information has come to light on the film, sure a few more people have made blog posts about it but they all seem to be picking from the same scraps I did, I am also not nieve enough to believe that my post was the first or possessed any more insight than most, but it is this very lack of information which sort of keeps this long dead film alive, the less info there is the more curious people are, they less they know the more they wish they knew.

A source calling himself Unknown30 contacted me in July of  2018 claiming to have more knowledge of this film, I would properly credit the individual but beyond the user name I do not haveany details. According to this individual TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS FAT TUESDAY was going for a September 1996 release by Universal. The story for the film was written by JP Kelly who pitched it to Joel Silver who thought it would make a great Tales movie. Gilbert Adler and A L Katz both rewrote the film but they had trouble getting the tone right apparently resulting in three sloppy drafts in a row. After this Silver wanting a finalized script that worked hired X Files writer Darin Morgan who was apparently a fan and wanted to work with the show's writers. Apparently not only did he agree immediately he also turned in a final draft three days later.

According to this guy it was a damn good script.  This is what he had to say about it ''The story was about a psychiatrist Roger and his son who move to New Orleans after his wife dies find themselves terrorized by the ghost of Roger's father, a voodoo witch and a demonic jester. It was a perfect followup to Demon Knight.''

''According to this source Adler and Katz stepped in and refused to make the film angered at the fact that their script was rewritten. To top it off, Universal bought Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis' spec Bordello Of Blood so that the latter wouldn't leave to go and work for DreamWorks. Those two things sealed the fate of Fat Tuesday. It's a damn shame cause Darin's script perfectly captured the EC Comics spirit and was so rich. Darin Morgan is still a criminally underrated writer and FT was in my own personal opinion the best script he wrote. It was the first script I ever read from beginning to end cause it was so good.''

I also wanted to bring this up again as recently a film has come out called Fat Tuesday, I found this out while looking for info on the missing Tales from the crypt film. This Fat Tuesday film was Screened at the Atlanta Film Festival and is written and directed by Louisiana native Jorge Torres-Torres. Apparently it was Filmed on location during the final days of Mardi Gras. The rough story of the film is that a hitchhiker infiltrates a group of friends with the intent of murdering her unsuspecting victims during the event, so in short its nothing like the tales from the crypt film would have been. I havent seen this film although I would like to give it a shot, apparently though people claim that it is slow but that it is gritty and a decent flick, it has been compared to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer which is movie which I personally rate pretty highly.

I guess the truth is I dont relly have much more to say than I did the first time and if you havent read that post then I recommend that you give it a look Tales From the Crypt Fat Tuesday original post . I guess some missing movie legends just remain exactly that forever legends.

Tales from the Crypt Fat Tuesday/Dead Easy.

Ok so in my last post I mentioned the fact that originally at least there was only  two “Tales from the Crypt Presents” movies, “DemonKnight” and “Bordello of Blood.”. I then went on to talk about Ritual and how it was originally going to be the third film but then it was made to be a stand alone horror film before eventually being released on to disc as a Tales film a long time latter. There was however another Tales Movie apparently  filmed and completed between Demon Knight and Boredllo of Blood but never released. That film was the film I am going to talk about today, it was  “Fat Tuesday.” 

 

The trilogy might have started with Demon Knight the script for which apparently predated the Tales From The Crypt TV series but when they originally decided to make a trilogy of films it was  intended to be the second film in the trilogy. Dead Easy was at one stage intended to be the opening film of the trilogy. Dead Easy and Fat Tuesday are the same script/idea but it seems like they kept floating between the two possible titles. According to Gilbert Adler the reason for Demon Knight becoming the first film was issues they were having with the script for Dead Easy "We were rewriting it, and it was getting scarier and more intense, but a lot of the humor had been lost, and we always felt that was an important part of Tales from the Crypt -- scare people, then let them laugh.''. You might be thinking at this stage that Dead Easy had been dumped but no if you went and saw Demon Knight in the cinema then you would have seen it had a post-credits scene where the Crypt Keeper told everyone that if they hadnt had enough that they could return to the cinema soon to see the next Tales from the Crypt movie “Dead Easy”so for at least a time Dead Easy was going to be the second film in the trilogy.

The amount known about Fat Tuesday/Dead Esay well its not a lot really, most of what is known comes from magazine articles around the time Demon Knight was released. ''The next one is more psychological; than blood guts and gore'' according to A.l Katz ''As a Matter of fqact today we wrote a scene where a shadow figure squeezes through the skull of an old lady and into her brain and thats just where the movie begins.'' Adler was apparently directing Fat Tuesday and it was going into production in febuarary with a $12 million budget. The film was going to be based on a script by J.P kELLY. It was going to be set in the Deep South (possibly New Orleans) It was supposed to be about a man trying to determine what happened in his past and how his memories of this would bring back a malevolent entity if they are ever recalled. The closer the guy gets to the truth the closer he gets to releasing something inside of him. They claimed that they would be creating a unique bad guy one who would be unique and funny and like nothing we had seen before and that would also scare the shit out of people. I have found a scan of this article and I wrote the above by squinting like mad, I will share it below incase you can read it better than I.

I personally think that the plot for the film and what they had planned for us actually sounded great, yet we never got it so why not? Well apparently the reason we never got to see it according to rumors was due to with issues due to the films casting and possible racial implications. Since the script was very voodoo related youd imagine that they would have required a large African-American cast. Well during pre-production there was apparently a bunch of debates focused on whether the film would be commercially viable with a largly African American cast. The story goes that apparently the film was actually completed but the cast was entirely white. This apparently led to “Tales from the Crypt” producer Joel Silver steping in, claiming that he would be branded a racist if the film was released and because of this it was locked in a vault and has not seen the light of day since. It is intresting to think that there is a Tales from The Crypt film out there that we have never seen and I wish I could see it but I figure it will never be shown, I do wish that with the change in times they would either release the original script, noveilse it or remake it with an appropriate cast.

The two pictures I provided above and tried to read are from an article on “Fat Tuesday” that apparently came from a “DemonKnight” magazine that was published when that movie was released. There is also some art which has made its way online and I will post it here because its both intresting and I think its rather good too. Does this art really tell us anything? Well it supports the claims that the script includes a man looking after his child and it also shows that this villian as well as being described as a shadow and as having come out of the man it seems to take the form of an Evil Jester, its hard to draw anything concreate from this but maybe it was a bit like the creature in Stephen King's IT maybe it was an Evil Shadow which took the form of a Jester it sounds pretty intresting to me, I would still love to see it but I guess it will just have to live on as a movie legend.