THE WEEK

27 SATURDAY MOVIE: SKETCH ARTIST (Showtime, 10-11:30 p.m.) Jeff Fahey of The Lawnmower Man stars as a police sketch artist working on a murder case. Fahey draws a picture of a suspect described to him by a witness, played by Drew Barrymore (Poison Ivy), and is stunned to see that the sketch looks exactly like his wife, portrayed by Sean Young.

This sub-Twilight Zone plot, hatched by Michael Angeli, results in a slack little thriller, as Fahey tries desperately to prove that someone other than Young is the killer. But there's no spark between these two actors, who walk through Sketch with bored, hangdog expressions. It's impossible to understand why Fahey is so sure Young didn't commit the crime, or, if she did, why he should be particularly interested in keeping her out of prison. A little jail time might snap both of them out of their bad moods. D

TALES FROM THE CRYPT (HBO, 10:30 p.m.-midnight) The fourth-season opener finds this horror anthology in good, nasty form. Three new stories premiere here. The first, ''None but the Lonely Heart,'' marks the directorial debut of actor Tom Hanks; it's the story of a con man, played by Treat Wil-liams, who seduces elderly women, convinces them to sign over their savings to him, and then kills them. The idea isn't a new one, but Williams is completely believable as both a charmer and a murderer. Hanks (who also appears in a cameo role) keeps the story moving swiftly and introduces the gruesome climax so subtly it's bound to surprise you. ''This'll Kill Ya'' features Cleavon Little, Sonia Braga, and Steel Magnolias' Dylan McDermott as research scientists on the verge of a medical breakthrough. McDermott's character is an arrogant lout who makes the lives of the other two miserable, so they play a mean trick on him, injecting him with a substance they tell him is lethal. The rest of ''This'll Kill Ya,'' directed by the painter Robert Longo, involves McDermott's violent revenge on his colleagues. ''On a Dead Man's Chest'' is about the lead singer of a hot heavy-metal band (The Mambo Kings' Yul Vazquez) who gets a tattoo on his chest that proves to have a life of its own. As directed by William Friedkin (The Exorcist), ''Chest'' is the strongest Crypt tale of the set. Friedkin and scriptwriter Larry Wilson get all the details right and manage to make being a rude rock star seem both heavenly and hellish. Then too, there's a terrific, all-too-brief performance by rapper Heavy D., playing the sinister tattoo artist, Farouche. Midway through the painful procedure, the wincing singer points to Farouche's eye patch and asks if it's ''just for effect.'' Farouche pulls up the black patch to reveal a disgusting clot of scar tissue and explains calmly that ''this was payment for a tattoo I gave Baby Doc when he was running Haiti.'' The late dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier didn't like Farouche's design, ''so he took out my eye with a salad fork.'' Now that's the kind of throwaway detail that lifts a crass thriller into goofy greatness. None but the Lonely Heart: B+ This'll Kill Ya: B On a Dead Man's Chest: A-