Independent Films, Film Profiles

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie

Tales from the Darkside is a 1990 movie directed by John Harrison based on the anthology television series Tales from the Darkside. The film, shot in anthology style, depicts a kidnapped paperboy who tells three stories of horror to the suburban witch who is preparing to eat him, a la Hansel and Gretel.Paramount Pictures' (which distributed this movie) television division would later gain distribution rights to the Tales from the Darkside TV series.The original basis of this film was to be at one point the 2nd sequel in the Creepshow franchise. It didn't come to be, and with the popularity of the Tales From the Darkside television series, producers opted to add the title of that show to the film. However, Tom Savini has been quoted as saying that this film is the real "Creepshow 3".The movie opens with a young paperboy (played by Matthew Lawrence) delivering newspapers during his daily rounds. One of the women on his route (played by Deborah Harry) lures him into her house with the promise of cookies, and then captures him. She takes him into her kitchen and informs him that she is going to cook him (in the giant oven in her kitchen) and serve him up at a dinner party. In the style of Scheherazade, the boy stalls the woman by telling her three horror stories.Lot 249 - In the first segment, Michael McDowell adapts Arthur Conan Doyle's short story, "Lot No. 249." A graduate student, Bellingham (played by Steve Buscemi), reanimates a mummy and uses it to take revenge on a pair of crooked college students, Susan (played by Julianne Moore), and Lee (played by Robert Sedgwick) that conspired to cheat Bellingham out of a scholarship. Their actions 'framed' him for theft from a museum, which results in his expulsion from the college. In vengeance for his master, the reanimated corpse kills both in rather gruesome ways. After discovering the cause, Susan's brother Andy (played by Christian Slater) kidnaps Bellingham, and burns the parchment and mummy that was the cause of it all. It is later discovered that Andy had burned the incorrect scroll, as the reanimated corpses of Susan and Lee close in on Andy in his dorm room, controlled by Bellingham.Cat From Hell - In the second tale, George Romero adapts a Stephen King short story (of the same name). It is the story of a wealthy, wheelchair-bound elderly man, Drogan (played by William Hickey), who hires a hitman, Halston (played by David Johansen), for one of the strangest jobs of his career: kill a black cat which Drogan believes is murderously evil. Drogan explains that there were three other occupants of his house before the cat arrived: his sister, Amanda (played by Dolores Sutton),her friend Carolyn (played by Alice Drummond), and the family's butler, Richard Gage (played by Mark Margolis). The cat was adopted by Carolyn and Amanda, who ignore Drogan's claim that he can sense that the cat is evil. Drogan claims that one by one, the cat killed the other three: first it tripped Amanda, causing her to fall down a flight of stairs; then it clamped on to Carolyn's face until she suffocated; and finally, after Gage managed to capture the beast and tried to take it to the vet to put it down, it scratched his face, causing Gage to get into a fatal car crash.Drogan believes that he is being punished because his pharmaceutical company killed 5,000 cats while testing a new drug. Halston doesn't believe the story, but is more than willing to eliminate the cat since Drogan is offering $100,000. Halston soon discovers that the cat is extremely difficult to kill after he tries to kill it several times. Eventually the cat kills the hitman, forcing itself down his throat and into his stomach. Drogan returns and finds the hitman's body; the cat climbs out of the hitman's mouth and jumps at Drogan, which causes him to have a fatal heart attack.Lover's Vow - The third segment is written by Michael MacDowell and based on "Woman in the Snow", one of the episodes in Kwaidan. In the story, a despondent artist named Preston (played by James Remar) witnesses a gruesome murder by a gargoyle-like monster. The monster gets Preston to swear to never speak of what he saw in exchange for the promise of a much better life. True to his word, Preston ends up with a beautiful, loving wife (played by Rae Dawn Chong) and a successful art career. But Preston is still tormented by guilt about his silence, and is reconsidering his bargain.He then tells his wife about that night ten years ago when they met after he had witnessed the killing of a man by a monster which he sculpted to show his wife. After releasing a heartbroken screech, she reveals herself to be the very same creature he'd struck the bargain with, lamenting that he'd broken their bargain. As such, she reverts to her previous form, along with their children. Within the shock and despair of such revelations, Preston allows himself to be killed at 'her' hands, as she escapes through a skylight with their children. The final scene shows that the gargoyle and children have turned to stone upon a building ledge, staring down at Preston's body in remorse.The Epilogue - The Witch is about to cook Timmy and he throws some marbles on the floor. The Witch slips, accidentally stabs herself, Timmy reaches for the keys to the chains, releases himself and pushes the woman into the oven. The story then ends with Timmy breaking the fourth wall and asking: "Don't you just love happy endings?"