Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) **½
From the dawning of the modern American television industry in 1948 until well into the 1960’s, anthology programs were the predominant form of televised drama. Serials with recurring characters had been present from the very beginning, however, and one need only switch on the TV set and make a pass up and down the dial to see how the rivalry between the two formats panned out in the end. It is therefore very interesting that even after the “I Love Lucy”s and “Gunsmoke”s and “Peter Gunn”s of the world had swept the airwaves practically clean of the likes of “Playhouse 90” and “GE Theater,” there remained a small plot of territory in which the anthology format reigned supreme until the late 1970’s, and in which it sporadically twitches back to life even today— when it comes to horror, sci-fi, and dark fantasy, the serial has almost always taken a backseat to the anthology. Just about everyone is at least passingly familiar with “The Twilight Zone,” “The Outer Limits,” and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” from the old days, and the more recent “Tales from the Crypt” is probably only slightly less highly regarded. Other shows on the same model were more of a cult thing, and of those, my personal favorite was “Tales from the Darkside.”
“Tales from the Darkside” began as a one-shot Halloween special made expressly for syndication in 1983, with no less a luminary than George Romero serving as writer and executive producer. The regular series was launched in September of 1984 and ran mostly on non-network UHF channels without a lot of money to spend on original programming, generally in what were then kiss-of-death timeslots sandwiched in between the end of prime time and the beginning of the late-night infomercial blitzkrieg. Nevertheless, “Tales from the Darkside” proved a moderate success, and managed to last four whole seasons. Like any long-running series, “Tales from the Darkside” had its good episodes, its bad episodes, and at least a handful that were downright embarrassing, but on the whole it was one of the stronger attempts to do horror on broadcast television. The secret was in the writing, for amid episodes scripted from the ground up by a small stable of staff writers, the series also adapted stories by celebrated genre authors like Stephen King, Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison, and even Clive Barker. (Mind you, it also helped that a couple of episodes featured monster effects created by Tom Savini.) I can’t for the life of me figure out why no one has thought yet to give “Tales from the Darkside” the DVD box-set treatment.
But fond though my increasingly dim memories of the TV show may be, that’s not really what we’re here to talk about. No, this is supposed to be a review of the theatrical film that was released a little more than a year after “Tales from the Darkside” had been cancelled. Tales from the Darkside: The Movie was arguably even more of an anachronism than “Tales from the Darkside” the series, in that the anthology format still had at least a little bit of life in it on TV at the turn of the 90’s— anthology movies, on the other hand, were like termites preserved in amber. Perhaps it is partly for that reason that Tales from the Darkside feels a little stiff and ritualistic despite the involvement of a very impressive array of talent.
There is, as tradition demands, a framing story. A glamorous and attractive blonde woman on the cusp of middle age (former Blondie singer Deborah Harry, whose other acting gigs include Videodrome and Body Bags) bustles into her kitchen and begins preparing for the dinner party she’s throwing this evening, chattering amiably to someone off-camera while she does so. Most of her attention is focused on a big and involved cooking project that will constitute the core of tonight’s meal, and it gradually becomes apparent that this labor-intensive main course and the audience for the woman’s banter are one and the same. There’s a cage in the kitchen opposite the industrial-size oven, and inside that cage is a boy of perhaps eight or nine years (Matthew Lawrence, who turned up in Boltneck after he was all grown up). Evidently the woman and her guests are witches, of the sadly neglected child-eating variety— think “Hansel and Gretel” by way of Martha Stewart’s Living. One thing we can say in her favor, though: she cares enough to keep her dinner entertained. In the cage with the boy is a book called Tales from the Darkside, which the witch says was one of her favorites when she was little. The boy, who is smarter than he looks, sees this as an opening to buy himself some time by distracting his captor with a few fondly remembered tales from her childhood…
His first selection is “Lot 249.” The title refers to an item which a graduate student named Bellingham (Steve Buscemi, of Escape from L.A. and The Island) bought at an auction a short while ago, and which he professes to plan on selling at a considerable profit. The reason Bellingham is in need of a sudden cash infusion is that he has recently learned that he will not be getting the prestigious fellowship for which he had applied, despite supposedly having been the front-runner in the competition. Instead, Bellingham’s application was frozen in response to rumors that he had stolen a Zuni fetish artifact from his school’s anthropology department, a scandal that still has not been cleared up completely. The prize went to Bellingham’s frightfully preppy rival, Lee (Robert Sedgwick), and the defeated contestant is not at all convinced that the best man won. Lee’s academic record is one of towering mediocrity, and were it not for his older sister, Susan (Julianne Moore, from The Hand that Rocks the Cradle and Hannibal), writing most of his papers for him, it wouldn’t even be that good. That last part is supposed to be a closely guarded secret, known only to Lee’s best friend, Andy (Christian Slater, of Interview with the Vampire and Alone in the Dark), but Bellingham knows the score well enough to guess who was behind both Lee’s fellowship-winning research proposal and the inconvenient disappearance of the old Zuni knickknack. That’s where Lot 249 comes in. Inside the huge crate which the deliverymen bring to Bellingham’s apartment is an ancient Egyptian mummy. More importantly, inside the mummy’s thoracic cavity is a scroll bearing the incantations necessary to bring the millennia-old cadaver to life and force it to do the re-animator’s bidding. Nothing like a living mummy to square up accounts with the people who’ve wronged you…
Next is “The Cat from Hell.” When Halston (ex-New York Dolls vocalist David Johansen), a high-priced professional assassin, reports to the mansion of old man Drogan (William Hickey, from Puppet Master and The Sentinel) to take on a job, the last thing he expects is to be engaged to kill his employer’s cat. That’s just what Drogan wants, though. The mansion wasn’t always the empty place that confronts Halston upon his arrival. Up until recently, the crippled and embittered pharmaceuticals tycoon lived with his two sisters, Amanda (Dolores Sutton) and Carolyn (Alice Drummond), and a manservant named Gage (Mark Margolis, of Infested and the Full Moon The Pit and the Pendulum). Then Amanda adopted a stray cat, and within weeks, all three of Drogan’s companions died in “accidents” in which the cat was implicated. Drogan does not believe this to be coincidental. His company’s most profitable drug was tested primarily upon cats, and it is the old man’s conviction that Amanda’s pestilent kitty is as much of an assassin as Halston, sent to the Drogan house to exact revenge on behalf of its species. Halston accepts the assignment, thinking it should be the easiest job he’s ever done. He’s mistaken…
The last tale before we head back to Debbie Harry’s kitchen to wrap up the framing story is called “Lover’s Vow.” (This is a poor choice of titles, incidentally, for if you’re observant enough, it gives away the twist ending.) Preston (James Remar, from The Warriors and Hellraiser: Inferno— I, for one, was hoping at this point for Joey Ramone) is a struggling artist living in that alternate-universe New York we see so often in the movies— you know, the one where people with no reliable income can nevertheless afford to live without roommates in thousands of square feet of converted industrial real estate? He’s supposed to be meeting his agent, Wyatt (Robert Klein), at his favorite bar to discuss the outcome of recent negotiations with the owners of some gallery or other, and he’s way late. Preston rushes over to the bar, where he learns that the gallery will not be accepting any of his work. Furthermore, this has happened so often that Wyatt has decided to cut Preston loose— he’s paid on commission, and like he says, he can’t afford to live on ten percent of nothing. After Wyatt leaves, Preston hangs out until closing time, drinking up what little money he does have. Thus he is on the scene to witness the bartender’s extraordinary death: after locking the place up, the barkeep is seized and dismembered by a huge, winged gargoyle, apparently the one from the roof of a nearby apartment building come to life! The creature obviously means to kill Preston, too, but it agrees to leave him alive in exchange for a promise never to tell anyone about what he just saw. Then, on the way home, Preston encounters a young woman named Carola (Rae Dawn Chong, of Quest for Fire and Fear City), who is headed straight toward the alley where he last saw the gargoyle. Preston intercepts Carola, tells her that there is grave danger afoot, and convinces her to follow him to his apartment instead of continuing to wherever it was she’d been going. This leads, in a rather unlikely manner, to the two of them falling in love. It also leads to a sharp turnaround in Preston’s career, for Carola happens to be well connected in the local art scene, with gallery-owning friends whom she can persuade to exhibit Preston’s creations. Sooner or later, though, you just know he’s going to feel tempted to tell Carola about what happened on the night they met…
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie ought to be significantly better than it is. It’s by no means a bad film as it stands, but just look at who was onboard for this project! In front of the camera, you’ve got dependable (if not exactly brilliant) performers like Steve Buscemi, Christian Slater, and Rae Dawn Chong. Dick Smith did the special effects. The screenplay for “The Cat from Hell” was written by George Romero from a story by Stephen King. All that talent really should have added up to more than a decent, but by-the-numbers, horror anthology. Part of the problem is that the individual stories vary in tone as much as did episodes of the TV show, and while that makes for a faithful translation from small screen to large, the movie’s mood swings are somewhat jarring. “Lot 249,” though officially based on a story by Arthur Conan Doyle, is a mean-spirited revenge yarn on the EC Comics model. “The Cat from Hell” is more black comedy than anything else. And “Lover’s Vow” is a straight-up modern fairy tale— in fact, it appears to be a loose adaptation of a traditional Japanese ghost story called “The Snow Maiden.” The framing story aims to bring all three of those disparate strands together, but the attempt is not very successful, either in terms of the story itself or in terms of imparting unity to the movie as a whole.
On the other hand, the three main tales, when looked at in isolation, each have a fair amount to offer. “Lot 249” has one of the better twist endings I’ve seen, and the outcome of the confrontation between the mummy and the last of Bellingham’s enemies unexpectedly addresses some recurring complaints that thoughtful horror fans have long had with mummy movies. “The Cat from Hell” frequently is funny (although it isn’t always easy to tell whether the humor is deliberate or accidental), and many viewers will be pleased by the filmmakers’ obvious efforts to invoke the spirit of Creepshow. “Lover’s Vow” mostly succeeds in capturing the threatening irrationality of the world as portrayed in ancient folktales, and while the gargoyle is surprisingly unimpressive by Dick Smith’s usual standards, I can’t help cutting Tales from the Darkside: The Movie a little slack just for having a gargoyle in the first place.
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