"There is a blithe camp aspect to "Tales From the Crypt." The stories are based on 1950's E. C. Comics, published by William M. Gaines under titles such as "Tales From the Crypt," "The Vault of Horror" and "Shock SuspenStories" The horror is spiked with humor and calculated exaggeration. Setting the tone for the series is the creepy punster called the Crypt-Keeper, an animatronic puppet designed by the special-effects expert Kevin Yagher ("A Nightmare on Elm Street"). One unanticipated hitch: the resemblance of the skeletal puppet to current photographs of starving and deathly ill children in Iraq. Horror is not limited to comic books. Primal nightmares are rooted in reality, and the overlapping of images can be disorienting."