Tales from the Darkside: The Movie

While the Twilight Zone–like anthology series Tales from the Darkside, which ran in syndication from 1983–88 and was created by George A. Romero shortly after making a killing with Creepshow, provided a fair amount of chills and thrills, it’s the 1990 movie version that (for me, anyway) has left the larger imprint.

Three creepy creature tales are framed by the bonus story of a boy, Timmy (Matthew Lawrence), who, similar to Hansel, is locked—and fattened—up inside the house of a witch (Deborah Harry). He prolongs his fate, as the main course of a meal to be served to his captor’s friends, by reading aloud from her favorite childhood book—entitled Tales from the Darkside, of course. The stories he chooses (and their filmic executions) run in ascending order of interest and quality, though there’s notable talent everywhere you look.

The first selection, based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1892 short story “Lot No. 249” and adapted by Southern Gothic horror novelist Michael McDowell, felt a bit snoozy upon release, but it fares considerably better today. Maybe that’s because it stars Christian Slater, Steve Buscemi, and a bitchy Julianne Moore, who makes her big-screen debut decked out in super-cheesy aerobics attire. Or maybe it just feels more satisfying than ever to watch entitled, cheating, preppy assholes get their comeuppance in gruesome and inspired ways at the hands of an underdog—in this case, Buscemi’s wronged, nerdy grad student, with strong assistance from his new mail-order mummy.  

You’ll also find yourself rooting for the underdog (undercat?) in the second tale, about a stray black kitty who might be responsible for the stroke-of-midnight deaths of three-quarters of the household that took it in. Because unless you’re a sicko animal abuser, there’s no chance you’ll be cheering on the crotchety old man in a wheelchair (William Hickey), who’s made his fortune selling sketchy, pro-cruelty pharmaceuticals, as he seeks to kill the cute furball—no matter what sinister things it’s been accused of. Hired to do the dirty work, a hit man (David Johansen) is left alone for a night in the cavernous mansion, and in this Romero-penned adaptation of Stephen King’s story “Cat from Hell,” a satisfyingly nasty cat-and-mouse game escalates between the two.

While all the film’s tales are as moody and atmospheric as one might expect “from the darkside,” the final offering, “Lover’s Vow,” is the most memorably so. It starts off with a struggling artist (James Remar) having one hell of a bad night. At an NYC bar, his agent drops him, so he drinks away rejection and exits with the bartender into an alley, where they are attacked by a huge gargoyle come to life. It decapitates the bartender, but says it will spare the artist if he never, ever mentions the incident to anyone. On the way home, his luck turns when he meets the woman who will become the love of his life (Rae Dawn Chong), mother of his two children, and good-luck charm for a more prosperous career. But can this secret haunting his memory and his paintings stay buried forever? Also written by McDowell and inspired by a segment in Masaki Kobayashi’s masterful Kwaidan (1964), this romantic tragedy—which forgoes the comic relief of the others—lingers longest.

There’s a better outcome for little Timmy, who asks the audience, “Don’t you just love happy endings?” But of course, in horror movies this usually means another brutal death awaits—just maybe that of a villain instead of a victim. Tales from the Darkside: The Movie was received rather tepidly, and none of the alluded-to follow-ups ever saw the light of day, but the film’s direction by the mostly TV-based John Harrison is smart, stylish, and morbidly cinematic.