Darkroom

"You are in a house. Maybe your Own. Maybe one you've never seen before. You feel it... something evil. You run, but there's no escape. Nowhere to turn. You feel something beckoning you. Drawing you into the terror that awaits you in the DARKROOM!"

I just watched the complete series of Darkroom over the last couple of nights and was completely surprised by how compelling, effective, creepy and amusing the short stories were in this anthology series. There was a nice variety to the tales in tone and length, with a certain cleverness within their imaginative twists and turns. Ending on a killer note. They were well-made and ably brought across with sound technical delivery despite the cheap looking origins.

The memorable intro is ominously unnerving and from the photographic darkroom James Coburn effortlessly narrates with a wry touch. Familiar faces in the cast show up, some even before hitting it big. Interesting to see some genre film-makers attached; Paul Lynch (Prom Night, Humongous), Curtis Harrington (Queen of Blood, The Killing Kind & Ruby) and Rick Rosenthal (Halloween 2). Other than one story I didn't care for (Daisies), I really enjoyed this creative, if short-lived series.

Some of my favourites were 'Make-Up' starring Billy Crystal and Brian Dennehy, 'The Partnership' starring David Carradine and 'Exit Line' starring Samantha Eggar and Stan Shaw.

Well worth a look if you were entertained by the likes of 'Night Gallery' and 'Alfred Hitchcok Presents'.

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Fun little EC-ish horror anthology series that lasted only seven episodes on ABC in 1981/82. Each episode had 2 to 3 short stories in it with a total of 16 stories in all. The best of these being the 1-2 punch of "Needlepoint", a VERY short voodoo revenge story that scared the living hell out of me when I was 4 years old (no V-chip back then), and "Siege of 31 August" with Ronny Cox as a Vietnam vet who gets his just desserts for terrible war crimes. Too bad it only ran half of a season. Universal really needs to release this on DVD soon as stars like Billy Crystal, Helen Hunt, Brian Dennehey, Claude Akins, and more gave this short lived series some much needed future star power. Here's hoping they're reading this.

James Coburn hosted this short-lived anthology series where he presented each tale literally from a darkroom, where he would develop pictures that would relate in some way to the story. This only ran for 7 episodes, and the reason may have been because it so relentlessly cynical and downbeat, with rarely a happy ending for anyone. This might work once or twice, but for most of the 16 segments it must wear the viewer down, and make them turn it off. Did feature future stars like Helen Hunt and Billy Crystal. "Night Gallery" did this sort of thing better. Not yet on DVD, but was on YouTube for awhile. Universal studios owns it, so perhaps Shout/Scream Factory will release it?

I just binge watched every episode of this show on NBC so if you've been looking for it go watch it there before it vanishes back into the void of forgotten tv shows. First off it isn't 16 episodes as listed here it's 8 and each episode has 2 or 3 stories. Out of the 16 stories about 4 were actually good. The rest are very forgettable and i LOVE old movies and tv.

The major problem with this show is poor writing and episodes are either too long or too short. The 4 i feel you should watch are The Bogeyman Will Get You, Uncle George , A Quiet Funeral , and Make-up starring a young Billy Crystal. Those episodes were actually fun and the right length. Who knows you may like some of the other stories it was fun seeing all of the old character actors that popped up in EVERYTHING back in the 70s and 80s.

I remember watching this with my family when I was a kid. Some episodes were scary "Catnip") and some were tense ("Guillotine"), but I enjoyed them all. Too bad it only ran for one season.