Tales from the Darkside: The Movie

3rd story sucks, but the other 3 are great. Worth it for 30yo Julianne Moore, young Buscemi, 21yo Slater, and Debbie Harry acting that doesn't suck.

This horror omnibus gives us 4 tales of surprising unoriginality that will keep you guessing at what the next lame horror cliché is going to be, while offering some amusing 80's star watching. The first one, with Debbie Harry as a maniac housewife about to cook a kid for dinner, is actually the best. It's also the shortest, which is good. The second, star-wise, is interesting because it features Christian Slater (about to be hot), Steve Buscemi (had a long way to go before becoming hot) and Julianne Moore (had a long LONG way to go before becoming hot). This features some silly nonsense about a mummy being reincarnated, without bothering to tell how such a thing could happen or why Buscemi would have such a thing in his room, or why the ancient knick-knack was stolen etc. Thirdly, we have the inevitable troublesome cat story. David Johansen (!!??) plays a mobster hired by a wealthy pharmaceutical guy to get rid of a cat that has killed all the people in the house. The reason for the cat's revenge? Because the guy tested pharmaceuticals on cats! (this is what he says, the cat's opinion is never dwelled upon). Of course, after 4 murders, it never occurred to the old codger to hire an exterminator or maybe even move. Some good special effects, though really unexplained. In the final story, we have a very interesting premise. After a struggling artist sees his friend get killed by a bat demon of some sort, the demon gets the artist to swear he'll never tell anyone about the creature. Which he agrees to. Shortly after, he meets Rae-Down Chong, not necessarily a good thing. Shortly after the meeting, he becomes instantly successful.. So you know where this is headed. So much so, I was predicting the dialog at the very end. Just plain shoddy film-making. Excreable horror. You can do a lot better.

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie is a great film with three great stories. The wraparound story: Its pretty good and it has a good ending. LOT 249: Julianne Moore looked so different. This story is a good mummy tale with a lot of gore! Cat From Hell: William Hickey and David Johansen put on very good performances. Lover's Vow: Excellent story,excellent music,excellent monster,excellent acting by James Remar and Rae Dawn Chong.This story gives Me the creeps.It makes you wonder what if? This story right here is worth the rental or purchase alone! Tales from the Darkside: The Movie is a great movie and I recommend all horror fans to check it out!

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.

The "Lover's Vow" is one of the best stories to ever be portrayed in film.

This is really three shorter movies, bound together by a fourth tale in which the other three stories are read. The first segment features an animated mummy stalking selected student victims; the second tale tells the story of a "cat from hell" who cannot be killed and leaves a trail of victims behind it; the third story is about a man who witnesses a bizarre killing and promises never to tell what he saw and the "in-between" bit is the story of a woman preparing to cook her newspaper boy for supper. Not the best king adaption, but hey, it ain't bad either. A good cast and some nice special effects. The Gargoyle was nasty! Plenty of gore here, but used in just enough moderation to be effective. A couple of tense moments, some god scares (Especially in the story about involving an elusive, seemingly immortal cat.) and pretty good music. Pretty good movie, just nothing really spectacular or life-changing. My rating for "Tales from the Darkside: The Movie"--6/10.

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) ** (out of 4) A witch (Deborah Harry) is holding a young boy hostage and about to cook him but she allows him to tell her three scary stories that will allow him a little more time to live. "Lot 249" is based on a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle and centers on a poor student (Steve Buscemi) who seeks revenge on a couple rich classmates with the help of a mummy. "Cat From Hell" is based on a story by Stephen King and was written by George Romero. It features William Hickey playing an elderly man who pays a man $100,000 to kill his cat, which he believes killed his sister and plans on killing him. "Lover's Vow" has a struggling artist (James Remar) see his best friend killed by a demon but this demon allows him to live as long as he never tells anyone what he saw. Apparently this film originally started out as CREEPSHOW 3 but for whatever reason they ended up changing the title but no matter what you call it this thing is pretty disappointing. The first film features a nice cast that includes Buscemi, Christian Slater and Julianne Moore but none of them can overcome the rather weak and slow story. It's never quite clear how Buscemi knows the secrets of this mummy and it's really not clear how he can be poor yet afford to buy this thing. The second story was apparently suppose to have been in CREEPSHOW 2 but the budget limits had them cancel it. The story here is a rather interesting one but I found Romero's screenplay to be rather weak and we really never get anything good. I'm not sure if there was more meat that was cut out of the story but there's never really any reason to believe what we're seeing and the reasons as to why this cat is evil would have been more interesting than just seeing it constantly clawing at the man trying to kill him. This segment does feature a terrific special effect of the cat crawling in and then back out of a man's mouth, which certainly looked very good. The final story contains the least amount of horror but it certainly has the best story. It's certainly a little slow moving but this actually adds a lot to the film and really sets up the ending nicely. The wrap around story isn't anything special and they do very, very little with it. I'm sure anthology fans will want to check this out but like most films in this genre, it's simply too hard to really do because of the wide range of quality from story to story. The first two stories here are just way too weak and the third is certainly the best but really wouldn't be able to stand up to some better entries from other movies.

Understand what you ask? Why this movie to me just does not have the feel of the television series it is named from and does seem to have more of a Creepshow feel to it. None of the three stories seems like it would ever have played on the television show with the introduction story of the little boy being held by the crazy woman probably being the most like it came from the show. The first story seems straight out of the HBO series "Tales from the Crypt" with the second one having more of the "Creepshow feel and the final one almost having more of a Twilight Zone quality to it. The first story has one guy killing people with the help of a mummy, not really much to it, but it does have the most stars in it as you will recognize quite a few of the people featured in it. The second one is my favorite, but not really going to garner to much mention as a hit-man is requested by a rather eccentric old man to exterminate a rather strange target. The target in question is that of a cat. The final story is about a man who witnesses a strange killing and is told to keep it a secret, his life seems to be going well, but he is still haunted by what he saw that evening. This story is really to tame with the exception of the beginning and the end. Then of course the story of the boy and his captor is wrapped up. It has a few ups and is far from awful, it just is not that good either as the show had much better stories.

This was one of the first things I caught when we first got cable, I believe HBO showed this crap 2-5 times a week back then. This movie is so hideously bad, no scares, no atmosphere, no talent actors, cheap monster effects, Z grade stories. I remember the one about the gargoyle and that is the most pathetic story I ever saw. It was really a parody of interracial marriage and how it invariably ends in disaster. This movie is just garbage from beginning to end, none of the magic of Creepshow and Creepshow 2.

In director John Harrison's adaptation from the 80s TV series, four horror stories are told (one of them as a wraparound story) with different results, although the movie leaves the audience with a feeling of pure worthy entertainment. The wraparound story stars ex-Blondie singer Deborah Harry as Betty, the typical next door woman, the only difference is that she hides her cannibalistic habits a a secret. Matthew Lawrence is Timmy, a kid who was kidnapped by Betty in order to be her dinner tonight. Timmy begins to tell her stories from the "Tales from the Darkside" book in order to gain time while he plans his escape. The stories Timmy tells are the other three stories in the movie. First one, "Lot 249", stars Steve Buscemi as Bellingham, a misfit in a yuppie university. Bullied by Andy (Christian Slater), Lee (Robert Sedgwick) and Susan (Julianne Moore), he works as assistant in the Museum. When he receives Lot 249, troubles will begin as he revives an ancient mummy to do his will. Second one stars William Hickey and David Johansen in a tale of a devilish cat that seems to haunt Hickey's character. Johansen plays a professional assassin hired to kill the feline. In last one, writer Michael McDowell develops a love story loosely based on a Japanese tale. James Remar stars as Preston, a failed artist who is having the worst day of his life, as he watches his best friend being brutally killed by a mysterious beast who makes him promise that he won't tell anyone about it; everything looks worse until he meets Carola (Rae Dawn Chong), and his life changes for good. What would happen if he reveal the secret of the monster? The four stories have very good performances, particularly those of Buscemi and Hickey. The downside is that while the three main stories present a very adult horror style with very gory scenes, brief nudity and foul language, the wraparound story looks tame and more similar to kid's horror like "Goosebumps". That doesn't mean that it's a bad tale, is just that it seems out of place in the film, but still the movie is good enough to keep the attention of the viewer. Very good movie that it's almost forgotten today. The very good acting and the good SFX (although outdated for today's standards) create a very rewarding movie that surely will give entertainment. 7/10