Monsters

I picked up on this show towards the end of its original 3 year run and loved it. I continued watching well on until the reruns finally disappeared entirely.

Made by essentially the same people who made "Tales From The Darkside", (minus one major player), it was just as good, I thought. While "Tales" was the darker, more sinister show, with the creepy organ music and negative film forest shot intro, "Monsters" was both more humorous and more disturbing than "Tales".

The premise of the show was basically the same, borrowed idea from "The Twighlight Zone", featuring weird stories, some that made me feel creeped out when I'd turn out all the lights to watch, and some that were downright silly and made me laugh. They were all very entertaining.

I wish reruns would air again.

I caught this show on Sci-Fi a few times a several years ago and was very surprised that it wasn't half bad. If I remember correctly they usually had twist endings a la Tales from the Crypt which I genuinely love. I'm having trouble remembering specifics about the plots to the episodes I saw but I think they usually had a way of showing that the real monsters were ordinary people who did horrible things, pretty cheesy and predictable but entertaining nonetheless. One show, however, sticks with me years later, an adaptation of the Stephen King story "The Crawling Finger". Its about a guy who, for no real reason as is frequently the case in King's short fiction, finds a finger coming out of his bathroom sink drain. He tries several different ways to dispose of the finger, learning along the way that a) it takes a very, very long finger to make the journey through the pipes and into his sink, and b) there are five fingers on a hand. It was truly creepy and made the story that much better since I actually got to see how disturbing having an alien appendage coming out of one's plumbing would be.

It's easy 20 years later to forget this very low-budget horror anthology series ever existed. It was not up to competing shows of the period like TALES FROM THE CRYPT or even DARK VISIONS. But the occasional episode hit a home run, as readily evidenced by a recent rerun of many of the episodes on the CHILLER channel. There was usually a twist ending and some low-rent guest star or rising young star to liven things up. My favorite of those I saw recently: a middle-aged woman (Karen Valentine), not without her charms, is married to a crippled inventor. Her missing first husband, a real Tarzan type, shows up very much alive after years away, and the nasty fun begins. Valentine, who often played a goody two-shoes on TV, spends a lot of time in a flimsy negligee and has a silly yet oddly arousing sex scene with a headless body! Another truly creepy episode had two boys (one of whom, Matt LeBlanc, would go on to fame on FRIENDS) messing with alleged vampires in a barber shop. Better they should have stayed away. Or just gotten their hair cut. Yet another episode, starring a very young Tori Speling and Ashley Laurence of "Hellraiser" fame, has a quartet of teens conjuring up the long-dead and very evil owner of an old mansion. He soon returns to take back his mansion. The grue quotient for many of these episodes ran pretty high. MONSTERS may have appeared to be strictly for the kiddies, but not always. I recommend the series to all horror fans.

I remember being 12 or 13 years old and begging my mother to let me stay up on Saturday nights to watch this cheesy half-hour horror show. I always think of it as the 80s version of Goosebumps, though I don't think it was specifically aimed at kids. Not that scary, but fun for lovers of the horror genre! The best part of the show was the monsters, of course... different ones every week with not too shabby makeup and effects, considering that this was a low-budget show.

I must first begin by expressing the fact that Monsters was a well done show and out did its' predecessor, Tales From the Darkside. Don't get me wrong. Tales had a great staff, a lot of world renowned writers, and a brilliant cast. But It stayed within the realms of family viewing. It was a show that even the most uptight and strict parents could let their kids watch. It was very tame. I believe policies and guidelines for TV shows may have been a factor, which is why we can really only compare Monsters to shows like Tales from the Crypt. Even though, Tales From the Crypt bares all, in terms of gore and murder and you won't find half naked women on the VHS tapes of Monsters. They are a better match because they delve deeper into horror, while being able to make you laugh and expect the unexpected. Monsters had great effects, a great score, and you can't deny the talent that went into that show.

I think that we should admire the creators of Monsters, because if it wasn't for shows like that one, there would have probably not been a place on television for great shows like, Tales from the Crypt.