Avis Metacritic

Good-humored gore, ably directed by Ernest Dickerson (JUICE), formerly Spike Lee's cinematographer.

Zane is an absolute blast, whether doing a little dance or trying to steal his way into each character's soul, he's having too much fun.

What "Tales From the Crypt" does best is sustain a look and tone that bring a comic-book's broad strokes into the realm of a live-action movie without seeming too mannered or arty. The film's gooey monsters with their electric green eyes and ferocious voracity are among the more convincing zombie demons to be found in a recent horror film.

Mix "Night of the Living Dead" with Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" movies, then add a hefty dose of "Beavis and Butt-Head"-style silliness, and you have "Tales From the Crypt Presents Demon Knight," a fang-in-cheek horror thriller that likely will please fans and turn off non-devotees.

The silly story is basically just an excuse for some thrills and goofy one-liners, but even if the more likable characters tended to get killed off too early for my taste, I wasn't bored.

The movie isn't particularly well-paced, and I found it dull. But I've got to give credit to Todd Masters, who designed the special-effects makeup, to Gilbert Adler, who directed the Crypt Keeper sequences, and to Zane, who plays the Collector with style and wit. If I were 12, I might've loved it.

Despite its aspirations to big-screen scares, this delivers more kitsch than a truckload of glow-in-the-dark skeletons.

Feels pedestrian and moribund.

To call Demon Knight a popcorn movie is to give it too much credit — I doubt it would raise the pulse of Orville Redenbacher.

Based on the quality of the screenplay alone, “Demon Knight” is strictly a direct-to-video affair; with “Tales From the Crypt” tacked to the title, the budget expands exponentially to accommodate state-of-the-art special effects--most of them featuring dismemberment, naturally.