Sydney
June 21-22, 2025
Sydney Showground Olympic Park
Long before Ryan Murphy came to put his spin on horror anthologies with American Horror Story, one name dominated the genre in the early 1990s, and that name belonged to a delightfully wicked, wisecracking corpse known as the Cryptkeeper. Based on the 1950s EC Comics series of the same name, the immense popularity of the HBO’s Tales from the Crypt eventually led to a three-picture deal intended to bring the property to the big screen.
While only two of those movies would eventually get made (though a third 2002 direct-to-DVD film Ritual was later rebranded as a Tales from the Crypt movie after it had already been released), the franchise’s first film remains a beloved cult classic and prime example of ‘90s horror. Starring Supa-Star guest Billy Zane in one of his most memorable and off-the-wall performances, we thought it might be time to look back at 1995’s Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight and relish in all its pulp horror glory.
Originally written as a standalone horror-action film long before becoming associated with the Tales from the Crypt brand, Demon Knight might not have even made its way to the screen except for a fortunate twist of fate. With producers originally looking to package a trio of scripts to present to Universal for their approval, co-writer Cyrus Voris revealed in a 2015 behind-the-scenes documentary that the initial talks had originally included another script from the rapidly emerging auteur filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. Namely, one that would eventually go on to become 1996’s From Dusk till Dawn.
Thankfully, however, producers were not able to reach a suitable agreement with Tarantino, and instead, Demon Knight was included with the intention to become the second film in the planned trilogy. However, buoyed by a relatively simple premise and a well-crafted script, Demon Knight was quickly pushed to the front of the line and was retooled to fit the Cryptkeeper’s trademark brand of black humour.
And central to that humour was the casting of Zane as the film’s primary antagonist, a high-ranking demon on a quest to retrieve a mystical key from a stalwart protector that would otherwise allow demonkind to reclaim the Earth and usher in a new age of darkness. In a movie boasting an ensemble cast that also included a young Jada Pinkett Smith, William Thomas Sadler and Thomas Haden Church, Zane’s smooth-talking Collector was the undisputed highlight.
Comparing his approach to the character to “Robin Williams’ Genie from Aladdin, but from Hell,” Zane turned what could have potentially become a fairly generic horror villain into one of the most memorable Hollywood hellspawn to ever crawl their way out of the infernal pit. And while Zane’s tenure in Demon Knight never really managed to strike a chord with critics at the time, it is often recounted by fans as one of his most beloved characters and is often credited with being responsible for landing him the role as the despicable Caledon Hockley in 1997’s Titanic.
Mischievously malevolent, garishly gory, and filled with the very special kind of practical creature effects that are now all too rare in the age of CGI rendered movie monsters, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight ticks all the right boxes and continues to stand as one of the most underrated horror releases of the past century. And now, 30 years after the Collector first began his demonic siege of the motel and boarding house that would determine the fate of the planet, Supa-Fans can have their own demonic encounter with Billy Zane at Supanova in Perth this weekend!
