A rather Christie creature feature.
Crypt Keeper: (gesturing to a brain on a plate) This is your brain. (transfers the brain to a frying pan) This is your brain on drugs. (gestures to another brain in a different pan) And THIS is your brain after watching Tales From the Crypt! (smashes the brain with a sledgehammer; to the camera) Evening, creeps. We interrupt your regularly scheduled terror-vision program to bring you a bit of culture. That's right, kiddies. Tonight, instead of rotting your grave matter, I'm going to improve it with a tasteful tale about someone who just can't fright the feeling. I call it: Werewolf Concerto.
In the forest surrounding a luxury resort, a guest is found gruesomely murdered. Every guest is aghast at the news, and one of them, Carl Rechek, is convinced that there is a werewolf among them. What's worse is that a storm has triggered a mudslide which has blocked the only highway leading out of the resort, leaving the guests even more frightened. Antoine, the resort manager, calms the guests down by pointing out that he has been anonymously contacted by Lokai (Timothy Dalton), a rugged man who specializes in werewolf extermination, who vows to eliminate the beast. Before he can exterminate the werewolf, however, Lokai must first deduce which of the guests, including Rechek, Antoine, and sultry pianist Janice Barid, is the werewolf. Each of them have their own motives and theories regarding the beast, and it's up to Lokai to isolate the truth from them. What Lokai isn't aware of, however, is that the werewolf might be closer than he thinks.
Tropes
- Abhorrent Admirer: Lokai tries to hit on Janice and invite her for a meal several times, but she keeps refusing. Considering what's revealed about both of them, there was a good reason why Janice didn't want to be alone with him.
- Actor Allusion: There are many references to James Bond throughout the episode, given that protagonist Lokai is played by Timothy Dalton, who was playing Bond himself when the episode was filmed.
- Lokai swipes a Walther PPK (Bond's weapon of choice) from Mr. Hertz and kills him with it. Lokai also wears a Rolex Submariner, and is shown to be rather good at games, saying that the difference between him and other players is that he never loses.
- Similarly, Mr. Hertz is played by Walter Gotell, who played General Gogol in The Living Daylights. Once again, he's antagonistic toward (and this time is gunned down by) Bond himself.
- Ambiguously Jewish: Carl, who has proof that Mr. Hertz is a Nazi war criminal and was all too happy to throw him to a pair of federal agents.
- Amnesiac Hero: Lokai could be seen as one, given that he's unaware that he's actually the werewolf he's hoping to hunt down.
- And I Must Scream: Lokai, who is implied to be aware that he can't fight his werewolf side. After being stabbed by Janice and laying dying, she reveals that she's a vampire and sinks her teeth into him as he screams.
- Anonymous Benefactor: The werewolf hunter anonymously called Antoine to offer their services in hunting the creature ahead of time, and their terms of service include keeping their identity secret.
- Anti-Hero: Lokai, who works to hunt the werewolf and kills who's revealed to have been a former Nazi, but is revealed to be the werewolf himself.
- Anti-Villain: Janet, who's a vampire that actually kills the werewolf and ends his reign of terror, saving the guests and staff of the resort. Unless she did so so she could get to them first.
- The Bad Guy Wins: A partial case. Janice stabs and feasts on Lokai after he bursts into her suite, and may start feeding on the other guests of the resort after she does him in. But despite this, he did kill five people in the span of a few days (one while not transformed), so at least he won't be able to kill again.
- Bait-and-Switch: Partially subverted. Lokai isn't a werewolf hunter. He's the werewolf. At the end of the episode, when he transforms, his werewolf half argues with his human half, indicating that Lokai somehow doesn't know he's actually hunting himself. When he bursts into Janice's suite, it's because he thinks SHE'S the werewolf, after Hertz was cleared. He soon finds out how wrong he was.
- Bludgeoned to Death: The transformed Lokai kills the maid who enters his suite by bashing her to death on the room's piano (which is silent through the process, as it's filled with Transylvanian soil).
- Boom, Headshot!: How Mr. Hertz is killed, compliments of Lokai.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Janice remarks that she's killed many a werewolf before, and makes cracks about how predictable they are to a dying Lokai, revealing that she's not only the actual werewolf hunter, but she's also a vampire.
- Call-Back: Janice had a great amount of Transylvanian soil hidden inside her piano. As revealed in The Reluctant Vampire, Transylvanian soil is essential to a vampire's survival.
- Additionally, like The Secret, the climax features a werewolf going up against a vampire. Only this time, the vampire wins.
- The Cameo: Wolfgang Puck appears As Himself, serving as the resort's head chef. Humorously, he's left utterly baffled when Lokai requests a cheeseburger for lunch instead of the elaborate dishes he already has on the menu.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Pieter the bellhop, who Lokai bribes to inform him if and/or when any of the guests receive contacts from anyone outside the resort. Towards the end of the episode, Pieter tells Lokai that Carl got a fax message from a pair of government agents he called, the agents being after Mr. Hertz for being a Nazi war criminal and planning to give Carl a reward for his proof of that fact.
- *Click* Hello: Mr. Hertz gives one to Lokai when he follows him into the woods at sundown.
- Clueless Mystery: There is very little physical evidence as to the werewolf's identity, so Lokai has to primarily rely on the suspicions of the guests and staff to solve the mystery.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Funny Foreigner Carl was absolutely right that a werewolf was loose in the forest, though that's established very early in the episode.
- Don't Go in the Woods: Because there's a bloodthirsty werewolf prowling about. Mr. Bailey learned this the hard way.
- Downer Ending: Lokai is unaware that he's the werewolf, and Janice stabs and kills him. If the ending is any indication, she may start feeding on the rest of the guests soon after.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Nearly every suspicion as to who the werewolf is, and even some other matters, are proven wrong by new developments in the case.
- Everyone Is a Suspect: The episode paints every person Lokai investigates to reveal motives that lead the viewers to think they could be the werewolf. They're all rendered red herrings when the person who actually is the werewolf turns out to be Lokai himself.
- Failure Hero: Lokai spends the whole episode trying to uncover the true identity of the werewolf so he can kill them before they strike again. He's ultimately the werewolf itself, and he's killed by the woman he had fingered as the prime suspect.
- Fantastic Racism: Being a vampire, Janice thinks very lowly of werewolves, or "lupies" as she calls them, and exterminates them as part of her secret double life.
- Femme Fatale: Janice, who ultimately kills Lokai, then reveals herself to be a vampire.
- Foreshadowing: Lokai and Janice's identities are hinted when they talk about how they both "don't do breakfast". A pair of guests also inform Lokai that they were expecting him at breakfast, which reinforces that fact.
- Funny Foreigner: It's rather downplayed with Carl, whose accent and beliefs of werewolves set him up as one of these. But the end reveals that he knew what he was talking about all along.
- Fur Against Fang: Towards the end, Lokai is revealed to be the werewolf, and he then gets blindsided by Janice, who is a vampire.
- Genre Blindness: After incapacitating Lokai, Janice derides werewolves for always being loud and sticking their chests out, which makes the job of a werewolf hunter so very easy.
- Genuine Imposter: Lokai. He was the werewolf the entire time, and his werewolf half was killing the guests searching for the actual werewolf hunter who was hunting him.
- Hard Boiled Detective: Lokai plays the part for most of the episode, with his grizzled-yet-smug attitude hoping to gain the guests' trust that he'll find and kill the werewolf.
- Homage: The episode is one to the works of classic mystery authors like Agatha Christie, since it features a classic, albeit complex, "Whodunnit?" as its plot. There are also a fair amount of homages to James Bond, since Lokai is played by the actor who was known as Bond at the time of the episode.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Lokai gets stabbed In the Back with a silver candelabra, so hard that it pokes straight through his chest.
- Improvised Weapon: Janice uses a silver candelabra to stab the transformed Lokai from behind several times.
- Innocently Insensitive: Antoine tries to calm Mr. Bailey's grief-stricken wife by letting her know the coroner deemed his death as instant, which doesn't help in the slightest.
- It's All About Me: Lokai vows to kill the werewolf because he's basically a blowhard who wants to be treated like a hero. He's actually the werewolf itself, and isn't aware of the fact he kills people.
- Karmic Death: Even though he technically wasn't aware of what he was doing, Lokai gets one from Janice, who is revealed as a creature of the night as well.
- The Killer in Me: The werewolf that Lokai spends the episode hoping to kill? It's himself, and he doesn't even know it.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: While Lokai easily gains the trust of the resort's guests and staff, he's smug, arrogant, and full of himself, and he doesn't even know that he's the werewolf who's been killing everyone.
- Model Couple: Mercedes and her husband are the kindest guests at the resort, inviting Lokai to their table and telling him who they suspect the werewolf to be without fuss. They also playfully humor Lokai when he suspects Mercedes of being the werewolf, and mourning Mr. Bailey's death at the creature's hands.
- Mystery Episode / Noir Episode: This is perhaps the only episode in the series where there's a genuinely tantalizing mystery that intentionally gets the viewers' brains working hard to solve it. There are also noir elements included, such as a femme fatale, sleazy sleuthing music, and a variety of lies and alibis.
- Mythology Gag: Carl is played by noted voice actor Charles Fleischer, who previously auditioned for the role of the Crypt Keeper's voice.
- Off with His Head!: How the werewolf kills Mr. Bailey, slashing his throat and tearing it off with its bare hands. It's then seen raising its prize to the sky and howling in victory.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: This is heard as the episode begins, as the werewolf kills Mr. Bailey, its first onscreen victim.
- Only Sane Man: Mr. Hertz is pretty much the only person who questions the insanity of the episode's premise.
- P.O.V. Cam: We see brief glimpses of the werewolf's point of view as it chases after Mr. Bailey.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "I think I'll take you up on breakfast after all." This is said by Janice, who then reveals her fangs and feeds on Lokai.
- Properly Paranoid: Carl, the resort's Funny Foreigner guest who firmly believed that a werewolf is the culprit of the recent deaths of Mr. Bailey and two other guests, correctly deduced what it was that killed Mr. Bailey and the two others before him.
- Red Herring: Mr. Hertz, who refused to believe that werewolves are real, and is suspiciously found running into the woods at sundown, threatening to shoot anyone who follows him, isn't actually the beast. Pieter the bellhop reveals to Lokai, after he shot Hertz, that he was actually a Nazi war criminal who was trying to evade capture from the Feds.
- Road Block: Antoine reveals to the guests that they can't leave the resort because the previous night's storm has caused a mudslide that's blocked the highway.
- Self-Deprecation: The Crypt Keeper's intro makes it clear that he knows how tasteless his show is, so he tells the "kiddies" that tonight's episode is chock full of culture and contains a complex mystery to exercise their brains.
- Silver Has Mystic Powers: Lokai displays the classic lycanthropic vulnerability to silver when Janice stabs him with a silver candelabra.
- Skewed Priorities: After one of their own is found dead in the forest and Lokai assures them that they're under his protection, the resort guests spend their daylight hours playing a sort of guessing game as to who amongst them is the werewolf and the hunter. And they do so when they could just as easily be locking and barricading their doors and windows to keep the werewolf from killing them next.
- Smug Snake: Lokai is almost unbearably smug and full of himself, to the point where Mr. Hertz even mocks him for it.
- Sore Loser: Carl is noted to be a perennial loser at games, prompting Lokai to say that he must be a professional loser, which gets a rise out of him.
- Spot the Thread: Janice's piano makes no sound when Lokai smashes the maid's head over and over on its keys. We soon find out that it's full of Transylvanian soil to allow Janice to sleep in it.
- Tempting Fate: Lokai boasts to Hertz that he never loses. Janice is quick to disagree.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Janice is a renowned pianist who performs incredible symphonies in stadiums like the Hollywood Bowl, where Lokai is said to have recognized her. What no one knows is that she's a vampire who kills werewolves for a living.
- Wham Shot: The moment when Lokai transforms into the werewolf.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The rest of the resort's guests and staff disappear after Lokai goes hunting for Janice. Since Lokai is out of the picture by the end of the episode, we don't know if Janice killed him just so she could feed on them first.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Janice is known by the guests for not being seen during the day and only emerging very late in the afternoon. Pieter think she's an alcoholic, but Lokai deduces what he believes to be the truth.
Crypt Keeper: (wearing a fancy dress shirt) Poor Lokai. Thought he was starring in "La Boo-hème", turns out he was second lead in "Romeo and Ghoul-iet." (snickers) I hope you're not cultured out, kiddies, because the next part of our program is a little parda-die I've been working on. (the camera zooms out to reveal him holding a skeleton dressed as a ballerina) I hope you like the gore-ography. (to the skeleton) Whenever you're ready, Isadora! (throws it offscreen; it lands behind him a second later with a clattering sound) Hmmm. I guess it's back to the corpse du ballet for her. (cackles)
