Tales From the Darkside 318: Auld Acquaintences

Tales From the Darkside 315: My Own Place

Tales From the Darkside 314: My Ghostwriter the Vampire

Tales From the Darkside 313: The Milkman Cometh

Tales From the Darkside 312: Miss May Dusa

Tales From the Darkside 311: Seasons of Belief

Oh my god! This is it! This is the episode I've been looking for all this time!

I'm going to just shut up while we watch it together. Will it be as scary and messed-up as I remember? Let's find out!



Okay, done?

Yeah, I'm messed up too. That was everything I wanted it to be. Who would have guessed that an episode of the oft-disappointing Tales From the Dark Side would totally live up to my memories?

I've got to wonder, though - how does it play for people watching it for the first time? Was it a surprise? A shock? It's obviously stated what's going to happen, but still, I didn't really think it would be like that...

Anyhoo, see you back here next week, as I begin watching the last thirty episodes of the show, because why not?

Tales From the Darkside 310: Deliver Us From Goodness

Okay, finally - a title where I have no idea what the episode is going to be about! Even the opening image, of a plate being set for a fancy dinner party offers no clues. Come on, Tales, surprise me!

It turns out that the show is taking place in the home of a man running for mayor - they've invited a prospective supporter over for dinner! As they get settled in the manager complains about his allergies - will that be important? Then it's time for dinner - the manager explains that in order to get elected, the whole family has to be presentable and positive. This might be problematic in the case of the odd-looking and gawky daughter-

When the mother starts talking about the value of supporting men who would strive for greatness she's suddenly underlit-

Which turns out not to be just a director's flourish, as the other characters comment on it. She plays off the comment, and doesn't even answer questions about heavenly music that plays whenever she speaks. Things get even stranger when the manager complains about the meal, and states that he'd have preferred fried chicken. The wife's wish makes it so, and a buck of KFC drops onto his plate.

Faced with the supernatural, the manager takes his leave in the fastest way possible. Who can blame him? The next day the family still hasn't received a satisfactory answer about the whole 'magical powers' thing. The daughter talks about the salacious adventures of her friends' parents, but her super-classy mother won't be phased. She will, however, use her magical powers to transform her daughter's clothes into that of Cleopatra after a miscommunication.

This, understandably, freaks everyone out, and the father is finally willing to talk openly about the situation - he points out that the mother promised that this sort of thing 'wouldn't happen any more'. What's that kind of thing? Apparently she doesn't even know!

Tales From the Darkside 309: Baker's Dozen

Finally, an episode where the title doesn't give away the game! Unless this is actually about a baker who gives someone a cursed 13th muffin. That can't be it, can it?

Well, it does open in a Bakery, where an elderly man serves up a tray of cookies while lamenting his lot in life - still working while old: tragedy! Fun note - this episode was written by George A. Romero!

As the old man takes a break from complaining a man arrives at the door. It's Rick from Magnum PI, making his second appearance on the show! He's there to see the woman who owns the shop, who's extremely confident about the medicinal qualities of her baked goods. Rick agrees about the magical qualities of her goods, and proposes franchising the business, bringing her incredible cookies to the whole world! The old lady isn't very interested, so naturally Rick does the only logical thing and threatens her with stealing the recipe - he imagines that whatever's in the cookies that makes them so special can be measured and quantified by lab technicians, then replicated somewhere else.

It's like he's never seen an episode of one of these things, isn't it? Not that I think they're going to chop him up and turn him into cookies of course, but he's obviously misunderestimated the literally magical properties of the cookies he loves so well.

The old lady saw Rick coming, of course. She's unimpressed with the idea of partnership, but reconsiders a little when Rick explains that he doesn't want a piece of her business - just her advertising account. He even shows her a mockup of an ad-

Which impresses her for some reason that escapes me. Isn't it supposed to be 'Country Sunshine'? People rarely contrasts the City and the County.

Tales From the Darkside 308: Serpent's Tooth

 

Okay, so based on the title and nothing else, this is going to be an ungrateful child-themed episode? Of course, if it is, it's not like the show would be breaking any new ground. Hell, we had a 'bitterest pill' just a few weeks ago. Alright, so - what's this one about?

We open in an apartment, where a mother prepares a meal while an idle child reads a book and listens to his walkman. Gosh, I miss walkmans. The meal preparation involves an oddly graphic depiction of a plucked chicken being chopped in half. Is that something which could get on television these days? I mean, it's already dead, but PETA's pretty powerful...

My musings are interrupted by the punk-costumed daughter who comes walking down the stairs, looking for her lipstick. The mother has hidden it, hoping that she can convince her daughter to stop tramping about in slutty clothes. They have a generic fight about these issues, and the daughter, being 21, storms out while threatening to leave for good.

The son calls her on her nagging, and she offers the standard 'you're going to miss my nagging when it's gone'. Foreshadowing?

Tales From the Darkside 307: Heretic

The episode opens in a rich man's loft - his employee has brought him the latest container of purloined antiquity. It seems the rich man is a dealer in such things, especially the rare and macabre. At first the contents seem like a disappointment, but then, beneath a false bottom, he discovers a rendering of a satanic ritual!

The rich man is pleased with the quality of the piece, and anticipates turning it over for a large sum of money. Hearing about that prospect, the worker asks for a little raise in his percentage. The rich man, naturally, isn't interested in that idea, and instead tells the worker that the only way he'll ever be successful is if he figures out some way to screw someone over and take their action. Which is completely advice you want to give someone in this situation.

Tales From the Darkside 306: Black Widows

Aren't these things supposed to have twists? At least that's how they've been constructed up until this point. Either it's just a creepy thing going on, in which case the show is a little open about it, or there's a twist at the end. You've got your 'Word Processors of the Gods' and you've got your 'Anniversary Dinners'. This episode, on the other hand, seems like it's trying to be subtle about its twist, except that the title and a bizarre effect give it away.

Here's the setup - a mother and daughter share a trailer in the local park. Much to the daughter's consternation, the mother refuses to ever go out and see the world, preferring instead to let the world 'come to her'. Much like a spider living in its web. The spider thing continues with the daughter carefully taking one out of the house rather than killing it, and then the mother telling an encyclopedia salesman who drops by later not to kill one, since spiders in the house are 'good luck'. A sentiment I can't disagree with, largely because I don't like flies.

Despite this admonishment, the salesman goes ahead and kills the spider anyhow, and when the mother finds out, this happens:

So yes, we can clearly bid subtlety a fond farewell.

Tales From the Darkside 305: The Geezenstacks

Tales From the Darkside 304: Florence Bravo

Tales From the Darkside 303: The Bitterest Pill

Tales From the Darkside 302: I Can't Help Saying Goodbye

Tales From the Darkside 301: The Circus

It's a spooky circus this week, one run by beloved character actor William Hickey! And being visited by less beloved character actor Kevin O'Connor. That's right, I said it, O'Connor - what are you going to do about it? You want to be beloved? Then you should have been the drunk in The Producers!

Kevin plays a skeptical reporter who arrives at the circus ready to write a scathing review of the spectacle. He's somewhat famous for hating things, you see, and doesn't believe that anything exists which can shock him. He's actually sought out the circus of the bizarre over the years - and who could blame him? The flyers advertise a real-life werewolf, vampire, and mummy!

The reporter describes it as little more than a pathetic cash grab, and William responds that he asks for only enough money to pay for the feeding of his acts. I wonder... do they enjoy... reporter?

Wait, I may have the twist wrong - Kevin announces that he had trouble finding the circus, as it's hidden away at the end of a country road - he even hit a run and ran his car into a tree! Could it be that the reporter is a ghost, and little does he know it, but he's about to become the circus's latest attraction: The Living Ghost!

Tales From the Darkside 224: Casavin Curse

Okay, never let it be said that Tales from the Dark Side doesn't know how to open an episode with a creepy image.

Lying on the rumpled, bloodstained sheets was a bottle of champagne, so we know that whatever this this traumatized woman went through started as a celebration, and quickly turned horrible. But just how horrible? Check this out:

Yep, it's a dead boyfriend leaning on a table next to a number of open pillbottles. Is the woman heavily medicated, or did they like to party a little too much? I'm like thirty seconds in, there's been no dialogue, and we've already learned a lot. Can a simple crazy person really do that kind of damage? Just primo filmmaking, guys.

Gina, that's the bloody woman's name, is woken by her maid knocking on the locked door to her bedroom. It seems that Mister Casavin will be home soon and Tyler, the dead guy, should be out of there by then. Is Gina cheating on her husband? I'm going to assume yes. Hearing Gina's screams, the maid unlocks the door and lets herself in. Gina announces that this is happened before, and that she's cursed - she needs to be locked away!

Tales From the Darkside 223: Fear of Floating

Open on: an Army recruitment office. One located in a small dusty midwestern town, where absolutely no one wants to join the Army. It's so boring and sweltering hot that the two recruiters on duty, a male-female team, have taken to playing board games to pass the time. Even that can't occupy in their minds enough, however – it's been three weeks since anyone knocked on their door and they're close to the breaking point.

The knock on the door finally comes, and a young punk comes in asking if he can hide out in the recruitment office. He has no interest in joining the Army, he just wants protection from the people hunting him like "a runaway slave". Arnold, that's his name, spins a tale about fleeing from the circus, where he'd been held captive as their main attraction: the human balloon.

What does that mean exactly? He takes off his leaded boots and demonstrates:

Yes, he can fly. Or, more accurately, float, since he drifts lazily towards the ceiling without any clear means of self propulsion. The recruiters are blown away – believing that getting a floaty man into the Army will be a coup that could very well make their careers. His life requires saving first, however – not just from the people chasing him, but from the ceiling fan he almost drifts into. All he suffers is a grazed hand, but it was a close call. Although I'm not sure how fatal a ceiling fan could actually be especially one spinning as slowly as the one in this episode is.

Tales From the Darkside 222: The Unhappy Medium

The episode opens with a family gathered around a giant old time-y television. You know the kind I mean, where images were actually projected onto a plastic screen? Ugly as sin, weren't they?

On the television is a televangelist, a popular figure for fictional commentary in the 80s. No one really cares about them now though, since all religion in America has gotten so political they're basically interchangeable with every other right wing commentator. But hey, we're not here to talk about the erosion of American discourse, we're here to watch an episode of Tales from the Dark Side!

This one is about those closest to that televangelist: his sister, niece, and assistant, who are all gathered to watch the man's video will. The niece is none too happy about the prospect – she wasn't fond of her uncle's brand of for-profit Christianity, which ensured that they lived in a mansion while most people starved. The sister is more accepting of their lifestyle, after all, she's the Tammy Faye Baker of the piece, acting as the sidekick in his broadcasts.

They put in the video will, in which the televangelist uses the freedom of knowing that he'll be dead by the time people watch this to do all the telling off he didn't have the guts to life. He was sickened by his sister's greed, his assistant's opportunism, and his niece's liberal purity. Rather than waste time with the legal niceties of who actually gets control of his assets, the televangelist simply uses his video will to announce that he plans to contact them… From beyond the grave! This would seem like a hollow threat, except that all of the electricity in the room goes nuts right after he says it.

Desperate to find a copy of the will – I guess the lawyer doesn't have one – sister starts tearing the office apart. Meanwhile the niece and assistant debate their failed relationship as well as which of their organizations does a better job of helping people – his church or her charity. The show sketches out their history clearly enough: she grew up rich, he grew up poor, so while she tossed money aside he was determined to earn it so he could deserve her. All pretty standard stuff, but at least they're putting in an effort.

Tales From the Darkside 221: Strange Love

This week's episode is about classy people. How can we know this? Who else but classy people smoke a cigarette in this manner:

Like I said, classy. Also, he's wearing a tuxedo while hanging out in his apartment while his (presumable) wife dances on the balcony in a gown. Pure class. Then she falls off the side, which is admittedly less classy. This development leads to the involvement of Doctor Carrol, perhaps the only doctor in town who's sitting in a private office in the middle of the night.

Two questions about this image. 1: What year is this taking place? He's got a cabinet full of glass medicine bottles, and his phone is ancient. 2: Are the classy guy and his wife vampires? Because he's wearing a cape over a tuxedo, which is basically code for 'I'm a vampire'.