Tales From the Darkside: Series Retrospective

1983-1988

Created by George A. Romero

There's nothing quite like anthology shows.  From the days of my youth doing my damndest to find my way over to a friend's house on Friday night for Tales From the Crypt to my college years absorbing Twilight Zone reruns on at midnight on SyFy to burning through Thriller on the DVR as a geeky adult, these things have been eponymous with my life.  Supposedly, they're bringing the latter series back, but I really don't have a whole lot of hope for that one.  A lot of these shows were that special brand of lightning in a bottle taking place in their own time period that just can't be replicated.  Case in point: Tales From the Darkside.

OK, guys, I'm giddy about this particular review.  For starters, I'd seen a few episodes before but didn't take in every show until I bought the complete series on DVD roughly a a year-and-a-half ago when all of the horror discs were marked down in the post-Halloween selloff.  I've watched a few episodes here and there ever since with the plan on writing a big overview, but other things kept getting my attention.  The moral of the story is that this is definitely the longest review-in-waiting that I've ever done.  No joke, that big multi-disc set that I picked up for twenty-five bucks at Wal-Mart has been perched on top of my dresser next to the DVD player for ALL THAT TIME.  I really don't know why it's taken me this long to watch every episode, because the show is really, really good.  In fact, I'll go even further and say that it's probably my favorite thing that I've ever seen associated with George A. Romero.

For the uninitiated, Romero is a really popular and influential guy in the horror community.  The creator of the modern-day zombie film with 1968's Night of the Living Dead and a whole heap of movies that followed in its wake, he's undoubtedly played a really huge role in the development of horror in the 20th and 21st centuries.  Sadly, he also passed away in the time that it took me to watch this series.  In the early '80s, this show was the result of the success of the Romero-directed anthology opus Creepshow.  The origial idea: Creepshow: The Series.  The title that the show would eventually take was perhaps even more of a nod to the EC horror comics that served as that film's inspiration, as what the creators and producers were shooting for was nothing short of a live-action horror comic book.  A pilot was produced that aired two days before Halloween in 1983, and it was successful enough to be picked up by CBS and distributed via syndication throughout its main run from 1984-1988.  So what made this show such a huge cult success?  Let's get to looking at the show's entire run, beginning with the pilot episode.

While I don't think that the episode is a particularly strong one, there's no doubt that I would have been TERRIFIED of that initial Halloween-themed pilot show.  The story is about this old miserly guy who holds an entire town hostage with his IOU system (hey, they're as good as cash).  The catch?  If any town child can explore his spooky house and find the IOU's, their debts are forgiven, but the crotchety fuck terrifies the poor kids with animatronic ghosts.  Man, what an asshole.  Of course, this Halloween there are all kinds of REAL ghosts out for the dude, and this was the format that the series would follow from this point forward.  Set up an intriguing and potentially scary situation, build it up and pay it off.  In short, A+ back-to-basics storytelling!

The first season introduced that ungodly theme music, with the camera gliding through the eerie woods complete with a soul-destroying voiceover: "Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But...there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit...a dark side."  BRRRRR.  There was some good stuff to be had as Tales From the Darkside found its footing.  My early favorites were "The Odds," with Danny Aiello as a bookie who never turns down a bet and Tom Noonan as the mysterious wagerer determined to break him; "Mookie and Pookie," with the gorgeous Justine Bateman in an early role who believes her deceased brother's spirit is now inhabiting her computer; and the Stephen King adaptation "Word Processor of the Gods" that takes the familiar "everything a creator creates becomes real" trope played out to perfection.  Jessica Harper, Harry Anderson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar show up in various episodes that are worth checking out, but everything here pales in comparison for what was to come.  Get ready.

While Season One featured a lot of talented people in front of the camera, Season Two brought us not only Romero but a bunch of his friends helping out behind it, and it shows.  The Halloween episode this season entitled "Halloween Candy" was directed by makeup maestro Tom Savini and is another instant classic about a rotten bastard who enjoys tormenting trick-or-treating children before running into a Satanic goblin.  Yes, this actually happens.  Romero himself wrote the episode "The Devil's Advocate," starring Jerry Stiller as a radio show host who wakes up in a strange, warped version of his studio before being tormented by calls from the past.  Stiller is just aces here (as always), but amazingly there's more.  "Lifebomb" is a story with one hell of a twist as a work-a-holic cuts a deal with an insurance company that virtually guarantees that his bad ticker won't kill him, but this guarantee comes with a hell of a cost.  Finally, Seth Green stars in "Monsters in My Room," a tale that any kid can relate to about the proverbial demons that lurk in your bedroom when the lights go out. 

At this point, I remember taking a long break from watching the series, but I remembered how strong that second season was.  When it was time to dive back in, I was ready, and what greeted me was "The Circus."  This was another Romero-scripted episode and was an excellent season starter as William Hickey plays a cynical reporter who doesn't believe the stories about the strange creatures on display at a traveling circus.  Three guesses how that turns out.  We also get an honest-to-goodness Christmas episode this time as two kids demand a Christmas tale from their parents - and in "Seasons of Belief," what they get is the "Grither."  One of the kids is played by Jenna Von Oy, a.k.a. Six from Blossom.  I think the focus of this season was more about creepiness than the normal slam-bang payoff, and the change of pace worked.  The proof of this is "Everybody Needs a Little Love," an adaptation of a Robert Bloch short story with Jerry Orbach as a lonely divorcee who becomes obsessed with a mannequin.  Said mannequin does not look like Elaine Benes.

Bloch would also be responsible for the story that opened the final season - "Beetles," where an archaeologist unearths an ancient sarcophagus and doesn't believe the dour warnings about what doing so could do to him.  Classic Mummy's Curse-style story, right there.  A few episodes later, Clive Barker joined the pantheon of horror luminaries on the show when he adapted his short story "The Yattering and Jack" for the series.  The episode is played for laughs and actually succeeds on a few occasions, and I'm not even going to spell out the story for this one.  Trust me, look it up.  Stephen King would return to write "Sorry, Right Number," where a woman gets a frantic phone call and struggles mightily to help the person making the call.  Imagine that Halle Berry movie, but good.  Fantastic writing contained in that previous sentence.  Also, remember how bad that Cameron Diaz movie The Box was?  See, I got the impression that the movie was essentially a horror anthology episode painfully stretched to 90 minutes...and that was proven here as Jodie Foster directs "Do Not Open This Box"!  Yet another big success as the show's run comes to a close.

Amazingly enough, though, we're not done, as two years later we were graced with Tales From the Darkside: The Movie.  I reviewed it previously here on the blog, and I won't do the entire blow-by-blow, but the short version is this: as a climax to the series, it's pretty much perfect.  And as Tom Savini put it, "THIS is the real Creepshow 3." 

That quote really sums up the entire experience of watching this series.  It seems like each successive generation of horror film-makers brings back the things that they loved from their childhood.  Right now, it's the things covered in this particular review.  1980s horror.  Back then, it was the horror comic books of the 1950s, and this show did that to absolute perfection.  Not every episode was a home run; to be fair, there are a fair amount of episodes that are fairly boring and not scary in the least bit.  But a ***+ half-hour of television at least every other week is more than acceptable ratio.  If you find this thing on the cheap like I did, it's definitely worth plunking down a couple of ten-dollar bills to have in your collection.  It's a really fantastic time capsule of that whole magical period in horror history and...wait for it...I actually prefer this to Tales From the Crypt now.  The difference?  Occasionally, Crypt would get cynical with its source material.  This was ALWAYS a celebration, and that's just such a rare, refreshing thing. 

Check this show out, kids, it's well worth 18 months of your life.