Tales from the Darkside

"Tales From the Darkside" is an interesting anthology series which has been syndicated for as long as I can remember. Every now and then you can catch the episodes on WGN out of Chicago or on the Sci-Fi Channel. The series is a poor man's "Twilight Zone". I believe that all of the episodes were made in the mid-1980s and dealt with subjects very similar to those dealt with in Rod Serling's series. The special effects were usually sophomoric and so were the performances, but the suspense and sense of the "unworldly" usually kept me on the edge of my seat. The writing and direction of most of the episodes are clever and intelligent. However, there are several duds in the series. For the most part "Tales From Darkside" is an interesting supernatural series that has been overlooked, but is usually just as potent as "The Twilight Zone" or "The X-Files". The series was popular enough to spawn a theatrical movie in 1990, but the movie falls far short of the original television episodes. Overall I give the series 4 out of 5 stars.

The television horror anthology has a long and noble history. In the Fifties, Rod Serling blazed the trail with THE TWILIGHT ZONE; though the series mostly veered in the direction of what may be called "speculative fantasy", it did produce its share of horrific/macabre episodes. This was to be followed by THRILLER in the early Sixties, a much more overtly Gothic series hosted by Boris Karloff, and one of the first television series to catch flack for experimenting with graphic violence (one episode featured a man staggering down a flight of stairs with an ax buried in his head!). Serling struck again with NIGHT GALLERY in the Seventies, an often genuinely weird and experimental series that, like THRILLER, often drew from the great pulp horror tales of the past for inspiration. And, in the Eighties, came George Romero's TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE.

I vividly remember the show as a pre-teen; it would premier late at night, around 11:30 after the news and "normal" programming concluded. As that bleary witching hour approached, when the wholesome prime-time like of FAMILY TIES and THE FACTS OF LIFE seemed miles gone by, disorientation and apprehension would set in - the atmosphere was right for a kid to be scared! And nothing was scarier than DARKSIDE's opening sequence. What looked like pastoral postcard scenes of rural Vermont would give way to the ominous intonations of Paul Sparer, backed up by a prickly synthesizer score. The title card would then appear in dripping letters of crimson. It was, in a word, unforgettable.

For budgetary reasons, the episodes were shot on video; on the one hand, this gave them an air of cheapness, but on the other lent them a kind of creepy immediacy. The frequent appearance of veteran stars meanwhile, some of who hadn't then worked in years, provided some old-fashioned cachet. Eddie Bracken starred in one I'll never forget - A Case of the Stubborns, based on a story by Robert Bloch. Bracken plays a cranky old grandfather who refuses to accept the fact that he has died, much to the distress of his family. As the days pass, Bracken begins to decompose, to the point of literally sneezing his nose off. Another one that stuck with me was called Inside the Closet, which starred Fritz Weaver as a doctor with a horrible Tom Savini-designed secret locked in his doll closet. One of the (deservedly) best-loved episodes was a Christmas-themed affair called Seasons of Belief. This one had E. G. Marshall sadistically terrorizing his children with stories of The Grither, a sort of demonic Santa being whose name must never be spoken. Building to a truly spectacular conclusion, Seasons of Belief stands out as an endearingly bilious Yuletide classic. In addition to the old-timers, TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE boasted some up-and-coming talent as well - the aforementioned A Case of the Stubborns also starred Christian Slater. Another one I remember, called Monsters in My Room, had little Seth Green as a boy who faces the titular trouble. To further sweeten the package, horror masters like Romero, Savini, and Bloch frequently contributed behind the camera.

TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE looms large in the pantheon of Eighties horror (when the genre wasn't afraid to be bold and nasty), as well as in the hearts of those of us who remember it. As it's been off the air for some time, a DVD release may well be in order, so that a whole new generation might behold what gave many Children of the Eighties a pleasant little chill back in the day. As the show's closer immortally put it: "The Darkside is always there, waiting for us to enter, waiting to enter us. Until next time - try to enjoy the daylight."

This was one of my favorite horror shows as it was very watchable and enjoyable. There were many shows of this type during the time it ran and one can say it was probably the inspiration for a couple of the other ones that came on during this time such as "Monsters" and ever the one that Freddy Krueger had as the stories from those two shows I sometimes think came from this one. However, this one was around first and it is the best of the bunch. Granted, the episodes on Tales from the Crypt got a little darker and you could sometimes get lucky and see some nudity this one had by far the better stories. It also had one of the coolest openings of the bunch as well, for it may have been simple it was also effective in telling the viewer that they were on a trip to the darkside. Many good episodes are to be found, one of my favorite involved a woman renting a room in a place or something and there is a hole in the wall and something seems to be living there. I also remember one about some old lady who treated her father horribly and was good at making cookies, but she gets what is coming to her in the end. All in all one of the best horror shows out there.

Every anthology TV series has its duds. It's just par for the course with these types of shows. It does seem that Tales From the Darkside had far more duds than brilliant episodes. Still, even the duds are dripping with mood. In that respect, it's a far creepier show than, say, Tales From the Crypt. That show might be more consistent in terms of the writing and the acting, but Tales From the Darkside wins in terms of mood and atmosphere.

Some of the more interesting episodes are Halloween Candy, Trick 'R Treat, Anniversary Dinner, Miss May Dusa, Baker's Dozen, and The Geezenstacks. There's some creepy, haunting stuff in there.

Tales From the Darkside is still worth checking out, but just be prepared to have to wade through a lot of bad/mediocre episodes to get to the good ones.

Although I was in my early teens when I watched tales from the darkside, if left an impression on me. As a matter of fact, I still remember the first TFDS episode. The Halloween episode in which a rich old, whom everone in the town owns money to, has fun with his debtor's children by making them search for the outstanding notes in his creepy mansion. If a child found the outstanding-notes, that families debts would be wiped off. Of course, none of the children every found them...running out of the house scared out of their minds....until a real witch shows up! Needless to say, the old miser is paid a visit by the devil himself! I still rmemeber it to this day. Anyway, TFDS has dozens of episodes with eerie endings. If you like the late 80's tv series MONSTERS, you would also enjoy "tales from the darkside". It is just too bad that they don't show it any more....