Darkside, les contes de la nuit noire

Much like Cat's Eye was a series of three short stories, Tales from the Darkside is done similarly. In this Stephen King work a boy tries to avoid being cooked and eaten by a witch by occupying her with fanciful stories.

There were three total stories featuring some well known actors. Some were already established, like Rae Dawn Chong and William Hickey. Others I don't believe were as well known at the time, such as Christian Slater, Steve Buscemi, and Jullianne Moore.

I thought the three stories were solidly done. I can't remember the order but the order of preference for me was: 1.) Mummy story, 1A.) Gargoyle story 3.) and a distant third was the cat story.

None of the stories were very spooky or scary, in fact you could say they were somewhat comical (especially the mummy story), but they all had an intriguing premise. The three stories all wrapped into the initial story made for a good movie.

As horror anthology films go, TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE is a good one, consisting of three segments and a wraparound story.

The wraparound has Deborah Harry preparing a very interesting dinner. Her main course is... disagreeable, and delays his fate by convincing her to listen to tales from the titular tome.

Tale #1 is called LOT 249- A college student (Steve Buscemi) receives the large, heavy box of the title, using its moldering contents to unleash gruesome vengeance upon the snobby cretins who have wronged him. Co-stars Christian Slater and Julianne Moore. An excellent story with a perfectly-realized monster and a fantastic double twist ending!

Tale #2, entitled CAT FROM HELL, stars David Johansen as a hit man, hired by an ancient zillionaire (William Hickey) to kill his... cat! Said assassin soon discovers that this is no ordinary feline! This one's absurdity is matched by it's sheer entertainment value. Both Johansen and the kitty are quite memorable in their blood-soaked duel.

Tale #3 is LOVER'S VOW, in which an artist (James Remar) witnesses something horrific and unbelievable. He is allowed to live, only if he never mentions what he has seen to anyone. Of course, such a promise is difficult to keep. Arguably the best part of the whole anthology, this story has horror, gore, and even poignancy. It also sports a jaw-dropping transformation scene! Co-stars Rae Dawn Chong, who is hot enough to melt lead! Yikes!

A terrific collection of terror tales, suitable for any Halloween fright fest!...

Okay, not officially, but basically this Romero/King joint effort is a successor to their Creepshow movies as much as a movie-length version of the TV series Tales from the Darkside. Maybe they avoided calling it Creepshow 3 due to the poor take from the second movie? Regardless, while the framing device is merely adequate, all three of the stories are chilling enough. The first two stories are in the fine old EC Comics/Creepshow tradition of bad people getting their comeuppance in memorable style. The third is a rather touching romance, all things considered. The best segment is probably the first, with performances from Christian Slater doing his best Jack Nicolson impression, and cult-fave Steve Buscemi as a murderous grad student. But it's all pretty enjoyable if you like that kind of thing.

******SPOILERS****** Betty, Debbie Harry, a local witch has the newspaper delivery boy Timmy, Matthew Lawrence, locked up in her house and after giving him all the cookies that he can eat to fatten him up for her and her fellow witches, who are coming over later that evening, to have him as the main course for dinner.

Giving Timmy a book "Tales From The Darkside" to read as Betty makes the preparations for him to be cooked Timmy tells her if he can read her some stories from the book so it would take his mind off of whats going to happen to him. Betty agrees to listen to Timmy reading the stories from "Tales From The Darkside" because it's also her favorite book and would make the mundane task of getting everything ready for the meal go a lot faster.

Timmy starts with the story about a group of collage students entitled "Lot 249". Edward, Steve Buscemi, gets a parcel, Lot 249, delivered to his collage dorm room that has a 3,000 year old mummy in it. Edward's fellow students once tried to get him expelled from school by planting a rumor that he stole an Aztec artifact and he knows who they are Susan, Julianne Moore, and her boyfriend Lee, Robert Sedgwick, and Edward is planing to use the mummy to get more then even with them for what they did to him.

Finding a secret scroll hidden inside the mummy Edward interprets and recites whats on that scroll to bring the mummy back to life who ends up killing both students. Susan's brother Andy, Christian Slater, finds out about Edward's actions and after he knocks out and ties up Edward to a chair he dismembers the mummy with an electric carving knife. But instead of killing Edward for what he did to his sister and his best friend Andy runs Edward out of the campus. Andy feeling that he took care of Edward and his mummy for good didn't realize that the mummy wasn't the only thing that Edward brought back to life.

The next story "Cat From Hell" that Timmy reads is about a rich old man Drogan, William Hickey, who hires a top Mafia hit-man Halston, David Johansen. Drogan gives him $50,000.00 up front and will give him another $50,000.00 after he can prove that he killed a black cat that has been terrorizing the old man and that killed his two sisters and butler and is now targeting him for elimination. Halston at first thinks that Drogan is nuts but soon sees that this seemingly harmless kitty cat is an indestructible and ferocious monster that's far more dangerous then any of the scores of gangsters that he "hit" during his long and successful criminal career.

The cat came to avenge what Drogan's Pharmaceutical empire did to develop a very expensive and successful drug called Tri-Dorma-Phenobarbin-Compound G. The drug is for people with heart trouble like Drogan as well as a legal stimulant like the drugs sold on the street by the mob for whom Halston works for. Drogan took the lives of 5,000 cat's over four years to perfect that drug. This mysterious cat was somehow sent to make Drogan and his family pay for what they did in regard to all those cat's that were experimented and killed to make Drogan and Co. very rich because of it. In the end the little kitty not only took care of hit-man Halston but the scared and guilt-ridden employer Drogan as well in a really gut wrenching and stomach churning final.

The last story that Timmy reads "Lover's Vow" is about a struggling artiest Preston, James Remar, who one night in a dark alley sees his friend Gage, Mark Margolis, savagely killed by some demon. The demon makes Preston promise never to tell about what happened and anything that he saw that night for the rest of his life of else.

Later that evening Preston meets a strange and mysterious woman Carola, Rea Dawn Chong, who he falls in love with and marries. Later Preston's artistic luck begins to change with his art work starts to get noticed by the public with him becoming a rich and very successful artiest.

On the tenth anniversary of him meeting Carola Preston feels that he has to tell her this secret that he kept from her all these years and that by him not telling her that he thinks that he was somehow not being truthful with her. It turns out by him doing that Preston finds out that sometimes the truth is not the wises and healthiest thing to tell; even to someone that you love and feel should know about it.

With that Timmy both out of time and stories and everything ready for him to become the main course for dinner for Betty and her witches friends there's suddenly and unsuspectingly a slip in the plot and what's for dinner that evening turns out not to be what Betty was preparing.

Very good anthology of the TV show "Tales From The Darkside" that turns out to be much better the you would have expected on the big screen.

Tales From the Darkside: the Movie was a very entertaining film. It has four stories in it. The first is a wrap-around story about a woman going to cook a ten year old boy for dinner, yet the child reads stories to her to try and delay his death. In a way, this is related to tales of the Arabian Nights. The three other stories are the ones told by the young boy. All of them are actually very interesting, have elements of fright, are generally well-acted, and have some kind of message. One deals with an ancient mummy out to avenge a smart yet socially outcast student at a college. Another story deals with a malevolent cat out to duel with a hitman paid $100,000 to kill a cat. Gruesome but great story with some real good acting, especially by William Hickey. Love that voice! The final story deals with a relationship between a gargoyle and an artist. An intriguing tale and has Rae Dawn Chong in it(a nice asset). All the stories are well-made and well-written, the wrap-around story being the weakest due to its resolution. Nonetheless, Tales From the Darkside is a fun horror film in the vein of Tales From the Crypt and Creepshow.