Tales from the Crypt (TV Series) Confession (1996) User Reviews

Probably the best episode of the worst season (finally!)

[bellino-angelo2014 · 8/10 · 18 July 2021]

In the city where the episode is set (tho is never specified) women are murdered one by one and they are decapitated with their heads taken as throphies. After a while the police calls famed detective Jack Lynch (Ciaran Hinds) also for interrogating screenwriter Warhol Evans (Eddie Izzard) since he was seen washing his hands near the last crime's scene. But Evans will be a very though nut to crack and will turn the interrogation around, up until the real killer will be found out: it was Jack that decapitated his victims and for not leaving a trace he hid their heads in bowling balls and once at home he hid them in the freezer.

I felt better after seeing this episode as this season had lots of bad episodes (including the only one to which I gave a 1) and I thought the show jumped the shark (which sadly is true). This episode was very good as it's a bit like the typical episodes of the series. And I couldn't believe that the murderer was Jack as he had the best way for never being discovered! Not to be missed for TRUE fans of the show.

Season Seven Highlight

[mattressman_pdl · 9/10 · 6 November 2007]

Women all over the city are being decapitated left and right, leading the police to call upon Jack, a top-flight detective, to wrangle a confession out of a slimy screenwriter.

The two English actors in the title role do remarkably well as they go, dramatically, head to head in an episode almost too good for television. Eddie Izzard, an extremely funny comedian, holds his own in what is unfortunately one of the last episodes of Crypt ever.

The episode is, however, bogged down by a series of light-weight episodes preceding it. But this one is definitely worth your time, at least to see the show's final good episode show what truly could have been done if it had gone on.

Not too bad this one although slightly predictable.

[poolandrews · 5/10 · 10 December 2008]

Tales from the Crypt: Confession starts as police inspectors Herbert (Alun Armstrong) & Minty (John Benfield) are called to a murder scene in a strip club where they find the headless torso of a woman, the third such decapitated woman found in recent weeks. Then on a tip-off a screenwriter named Warhol Evans (Eddie Izzard) is arrested after he is seen washing what looked like blood off his hands near the murder scene, Warhol denies everything & is rather cocky about the whole thing so Herbert & Minty call in serial killer expert Jack Lynch (Ciarán Hinds) to conduct the interrogation. Is Warhol the killer? Do the cops have the right man?

This Tales from the Crypt story was episode 11 from season 7, directed by Peter Hewitt I thought Confession was one of the better episodes from the generally disappointing seventh season. The script was based on a story from the 'Shock SuspenStories' comic book & like a lot of season seven isn't really a straight horror, it's more of a dark thriller with a decent if somewhat predictable twist ending. I mean if there is anybody out there watching Confession & actually thinks Warhol did it must be pretty damned naive & quite frankly was probably born yesterday. The majority of Confession is set in a police interrogation room where Warhol the suspect gives as good as he gets from the tough street wise serial killer expert cop Jack, there's some nice interplay here in these scenes as both character's try to twist what the other has just said or some fact. Confession is a decent enough episode that kept me watching to the end which as I have already said is a bit predictable but does work nicely enough. There's a very interesting line of dialogue here in Confession, at one point Jack questions Warhol about his screen writing & it is mentioned that he wrote an episode of a show called Tales from the Crypt (Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. Self referential moment with the subtlety of a sledgehammer) but it was a long time ago & the show had been cancelled which in reality actually mirrored the real life Tales from the Crypt as it had indeed been cancelled at this point. Maybe the production team were trying to tell us something... Despite the title Confession no-one actually confesses anything during the episode & in fact no-one is even charged with the murders & the whole story is about character's denying any involvement in them.

Confession has a strange sort of look to it, it has the feel of a 50's detective period piece at times but the setting is definitely contemporary. Like a lot of season seven there's not much gore, scares or horror here, there's a headless body, a head in a jar & three decapitated heads in a fridge are seen. The cast is solid with dependable British veteran actor Alun Armstrong playing a cop while stand-up comedian Eddie Izzard puts in a surprisingly good performance here. Well, it certainly beats his role in The Avengers (1998) anyway...

Confession is a decent if rather predictable Tales from the Crypt episode that, sad to say, is probably one of the better ones from the seventh season.