Film Review: TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE- THE MOVIE (1990, John Harrison)

Stars: 4.2 of 5.
Running Time: 93 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Debbie Harry (VIDEODROME, "Blondie"), Matthew Lawrence (BOY MEETS WORLD, MRS. DOUBTFIRE), Christian Slater (HEATHERS, GLEAMING THE CUBE), Steve Buscemi (MYSTERY TRAIN, RESERVOIR DOGS), Julianne Moore (SAFE, PSYCHO '00), William Hickey (ONE CRAZY SUMMER, PRIZZI'S HONOR), David Johansen ("The New York Dolls," SCROOGED, 200 CIGARETTES), James Remar (THE WARRIORS, RENT-A-COP), Rae Dawn Chong (COMMANDO, CHAINDANCE), Mark Margolis (THE WRESTLER, THE COTTON CLUB). Cinematography by Robert Draper (HALLOWEEN 5, DR. GIGGLES). Screenplay amalgamated from work by George A. Romero, Stephen King, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Michael McDowell (BEETLEJUICE, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS). Special makeup effects by Howard Berger, Greg Nicotero, and Robert Kurtzman. Visual effects supervised by Ernest D. Farino (THE THING, THE ABYSS, THE TERMINATOR).
Tag-line: "Brace yourself for some KILLER stories."
Best one-liner: "I've never blown a hit yet, kitty cat."

Well, my anthology horror series has given me an excuse to take this lofty tome off the shelf, dust it off, and flip through its brittle, musty pages once more.

Considered by many, including Tom Savini, to be the real CREEPSHOW 3, it features stories from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen King, and ancient Japanese folklore adapted by the likes of Michael McDowell and George A. Romero. Its director, John Harrison, did the electrifyingly spooky score for the first CREEPSHOW, and the crew features many series regulars. Additionally, many of the cast (i.e., Christian Slater and Debbie Harry) were alumni from the TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE TV show.

Divided into three segments, each part has a thoroughly distinctive feel. "Lot 249," a tale of mummies and revenge, has the visual consistency of an old Republic serial with post-RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK production value. "The Cat from Hell" sees a hitman going after a cursed black cat, has a very Vittorio Storaro-esque texture, and becomes very theatrical, not unlike the "Father's Day" segment from CREEPSHOW:

"Lover's Vow," which sees a struggling artist make a pact with a monster to avoid evisceration, feels most like it's embracing a contemporary style, and it features a thick, 'desolate yet metropolitan' atmosphere. The wraparound story is basically "Hansel & Gretel" meets "Scheherazade" in suburbia. With Debbie Harry.

So, while giving away as little as possible, I shall thumb through the veritable reams of these darkened pages- TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE features immeasurable insights into a number of scholarly disciplines. Prepare to have some thoughts provoked:

The Wrap-around Segment:

PHILOSOPHY: Is Debbie Harry a good actress? I don't know. Can we say for sure? ...Should we say for sure?

How about this: if a radio is playing "Rapture" in the woods and no one's around to hear it, does it still have that schweet rap part?

No wait– I'm sorry I said that, Blondie. Er, I mean, Debbie Harry. Yes, I know Blondie is the name of the band, not you. Sorry.


Lot 249:

ZOOLOGY: TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE affords us an outstanding glimpse of the Slater Factor in its natural habitat. Not until KUFFS in '92 would we see it quite this unrestrained. Look at the following images. Rarely has the Slater Factor been captured with such gleeful, manic precision. And rarely has it been captured holding such a wicked electric knife.





SOCIOLOGY: How is it possible that I'm always rooting for the proletariat... unless the ruling class is Slater?

Look at that sweater. We should hate him. But the eyebrow has won us over. An important lesson. Conversely, Robert Sedgwick and Julianne Moore, in their respective squash court and aerobics attire, garner no such sympathy.

Smart-alecky-ness vs. pomposity. An age-old struggle, and one which is always won by the smart-alecks.

ARCHAEOLOGY: Julianne Moore handles an actual Zuni fetish doll, in an in-joke directed at TRILOGY OF TERROR's slaveringly (inaccurate) bundle of teeth.

Though I must admit, a small, polished stone carving of an animal is infinitely less fun than a 'YAAAAAH YAH YAH NUMMM NUM' yammering little fellow with a predilection for edged weapons.

PHYSICS: Can three heads occupy the space intended for two heads?

This case study shows that it is, in fact, possible.

LINGUISTICS: Why does uttering the ancient hieroglyphic curse in English cause the mummy to awaken?... More importantly, who cares!

Young Buscemi utters the malediction.

The Cat From Hell:

GERIATRICS: Is it possible for a human being to have never been young? I swear that William Hickey was like eighty years old for a span of about forty years.

"Bring me its tail, so I can throw it in the fire and watch it burn!"

And it's always the greatest actors, like Harry Dean Stanton, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan ...I could go on. Unless somebody can provide me with evidence to the contrary, I'll have to assume that Hickey sprung forth from the womb as an oldster–

I stand corrected. Though he kinda looks the same, even then (the 1960's).

MUSIC THEORY: Who'd have thought that one day we'd see New York Doll member-turned-Buster Poindexter songster David Johansen stalking a cat with a laser-sighted gun in a suspenseful horror anthology? Not I.


And who'd have thought that he would have such a subtle, classy Dirk Bogardish quality to his acting? Or that he could pull off the whole 'internal monologue externalized' thing like a true professional?

According to Harrison and Romero, Johansen and Hickey drained a great deal of gin in their down-time and held the cast and crew rapt with their constant banter and ridiculous anecdotes. Ah, to have been a fly on the wall on the set of TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE...

Lover's Vow:

ART HISTORY: Balsa wood artists are an angst-driven bunch. Theirs is a fleeting art, one that can be easily smashed in fits of impassioned fury.

To be fair, we see him work with different media, but our first glimpse of him is as he's smashing a balsa construction that looks culled from an 'Odyssey of the Mind' competition.

This is easily the most dramatic segment, as nearly every omnibus requires a straight-up tragedy. And James Remar, one of my faves, has been cast against (villainous) type as a sensitive artiste. I like it. Hell, I'm always rooting for him anyway. [See also: The Slater Factor.]

HISTORY HISTORY: Speaking of factors, the RDC factor is pretty high, too, and it's occasionally wearing a fringe hippie jacket. For the uninitiated, that's the Rae Dawn Chong factor. She was comin' into the home stretch of a pretty mindblowing run of films from '81 to '91. We're talkin' QUEST FOR FIRE, BEAT STREET, Ferrara's FEAR CITY, CHOOSE ME, AMERICAN FLYERS, COMMANDO, THE COLOR PURPLE, SOUL MAN, THE SQUEEZE, THE PRINCIPAL, and Ironside's CHAINDANCE.

This was one of her great last hurrahs, and I can't decide if seeing her romantically paired with James Remar makes me happy or uncomfortable.

CRYPTOZOOLOGY: The monster is great. A detailed latex n' rubber construction, you can only shudder to think of how they'd handle it today, maybe with a CGI creature that resembles DRAGONHEART or something. At best.


ALTERNATE UNIVERSE-OLOGY: A glimpse of James Remar in an eyepatch reveals what it would have been like had Walter Hill directed ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.


In the end, one of the stronger horror anthology films. Not as good as the original CREEPSHOW, but it's leaps and bounds above CREEPSHOW 2. There's not a weak segment or a groan-inducing moment in the bunch, and that's the highest of compliments for an omnibus film. A little over four stars.

-Sean Gill

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Film Review: CREEPSHOW (1982, George A. Romero)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 120 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Hal Holbrook (THE FOG, MAGNUM FORCE), Adrienne Barbeau (SWAMP THING, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK), Leslie Nielsen (FORBIDDEN PLANET, AIRPLANE!), Ted Danson (THREE MEN AND A BABY, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN), Stephen King (director of MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE), Ed Harris (KNIGHTRIDERS, THE RIGHT STUFF), E.G. Marshall (12 ANGRY MEN, TANNER '88), Fritz Weaver (MARATHON MAN, the Savini-directed TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE episode "Inside the Closet"), Carrie Nye (THE GROUP), Gaylen Ross (DAWN OF THE DEAD, MADMAN), Warner Shook (DAWN OF THE DEAD, KNIGHTRIDERS), Tom Savini, Tom Atkins (NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, THE FOG), Christine Forrest (KNIGHTRIDERS, MONKEY SHINES, wife of George Romero). Written by George A. Romero and Stephen King. Music by John Harrison (director of TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE and the DUNE miniseries). Special makeup effects by Tom Savini. Cinematography by Michael Gornick (KNIGHTRIDERS, MARTIN).
Tag-line: "The Most Fun You'll Ever Have... BEING SCARED!"
Best one-liner: "I took care of it. That's why God made fathers, babe. That's why God made fathers."

It's George Romero's TALES OF HOFFMANN. The man combines his two favorite macabre and colorful youthful pursuits: the films of Powell & Pressburger and EC Comics. It's his ode to the morbid entertainments and blood-curdling fantasias that every kid deserves. It's also an ode to Ed Harris freak-dancing, peculiar booze consumption, and the Tom Atkins school of parenting, but more on that stuff in a minute.

CREEPSHOW is great. The tag-line says it all- "The Most Fun You'll Ever Have Being Scared." And I truly defy you not to have a hell of a time while watching this. Just talking about CREEPSHOW makes me want to watch it again. Perhaps I'll invest in a bumper sticker that says "I'd rather be...watching CREEPSHOW."

This is my kind of comic book adaptation: bright colors, Argento lighting, a lurid n' gritty feel: you can see the half-tone newsprint ink splashed on the screen; you can feel the brittle, scratchy pages of the cheap paper stock beneath your fingers.



It recreates that magical page-turning sensation, not knowing what might lay on the next sheet, pretending, in a childish mania, that the ludicrous, mystical mail-in might actually be a working voo-doo doll or X-ray glasses or a ghost-trapped-in-a-can.

And while the visuals are exquisite, the effect is compounded by John Harrison's soundtrack, which is masterful, in a sort of virtuosic, DIY way. Balancing simplistic, atmospheric synth tones; suspenseful, momentum-building piano; purposefully off-key renditions of Americana folk songs (a warped 'Camptown Races' gets some play during "Something to Tide You Over"); and the occasional Satanic chanting, Harrison builds an eerie soundscape that fits EC Comics to a T. His music tells a story- and, interestingly enough, Harrison would end up a storyteller himself, directing many episodes of TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE (and the movie!), some TALES FROM THE CRYPT episodes, and co-writing that CGI Disney film, DINOSAUR.

There are five segments total, and each segment builds to that perfect moment of ecstatic fear; an immaculate horror whereupon the rest of the world falls away and you're left with a pure, sensory experience of absolute, comic book terror.



Some deserve the fate so badly you've been rooting for it to happen for the duration. Others are unfortunate bystanders to the atrocities of a cruel, indifferent universe. Life's one big creepshow, alright.

I'd like to get into the segments without giving too much away, so I'll take a quick look at each, individually:

We begin with a frame story, featuring a young boy, Billy (played by Stephen King's son, Joe), who loves all things creepy. His room is adorned with Godzilla dolls, Dracula posters, plastic monsters, the works. His beer-swilling abusive dad (played by the incomparable Tom Atkins!), decides to ruin the kiddie's evening by trashing his Creepshow comic book and smacking him around a little bit,

which is apparently why God made fathers, babe.

Appearing at Billy's window like a freaky guardian angel is the 'Creep' himself, and our young laddie is not frightened, but comforted.


This is our segue into the film proper, but we do receive some resolution later on- and said resolution may or may not involve a peripheral performance by Tom Savini as the 'garbage man.'

The frame story delivers exactly what is expected of it, and as an added bonus, throws in that extremely enjoyable Atkins performance. And that's what CREEPSHOW's all about. Even a diehard Atkins fan might rattle off their ten favorite things about CREEPSHOW, and then when they're finished, they'll say 'Oh shit- and Tom Atkins!' In other words, there's a lot going on- and when you can forget about Tom Atkins in the shuffle, that shuffle must be pretty damned good.

•FATHER'S DAY
The plot in a nutshell: a hateful douche of a dad comes back from the grave (FINNEGAN'S WAKE-style, from some spilt booze!) with a yen for some cake.



It also has Ed Harris. You know, I learned a lot about Ed Harris in CREEPSHOW.

I learned that he applies the same, patented, crazy-eye intensity to disco-dancing as he does to any other activity.

It must also be noted that Elizabeth Regan really holds her own as well, but Jesus- look at Harris! The steely eye contact, the psychotic head bob, the clapping, the boogying, the pure suavitude with which he turns down the volume! Highest marks, Ed. You never disappoint. Even in a minor role like this. There's not too many people I can say that about.

•THE LONESOME DEATH OF JORDY VERRILL
The plot in a nutshell: King's retread of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space," starring King himself as a meteor-discovering local yokel who ends up with a little more verdure in his life than he bargained for.

A lot of people complain about this segment and like to trash King's acting, but it's kind of got a boneheaded genius to it. [He says at one point, "Spell that kinda luck B-A-D" which recalls the "M-O-O-N, that spells moon" motif in THE STAND, a line oft-repeated by the mentally disabled Tom Cullen. So that's probably where King is taking his inspiration from.]

Plus, he drinks Ripple, and you know how I feel about celebrities and low-end fortified wines.

An other special mention must go to John Colicos, who plays the fiendish, amputation-luvin' doctor in Jordy's nightmare fantasy about what might happen if he 'got that checked out by a professional.'

In the end, King actually brings a tangible pathos to the role, and it's the one segment of the six that sort of leaves you feeling depressed. So in a way, the cartoonish (parodic?) quality of acting that precedes the somber conclusion is necessary to keep us from wanting to kill ourselves.


•SOMETHING TO TIDE YOU OVER
The plot in a nutshell: a cuckolded hubby (Leslie Nielsen) gets his kicks via aquatic torture of Ted Danson.

Look at that velvet track suit. The rocks glass resting on his belly. The yuppie home decor. The smug, self-satisfied attitude.

Leslie Nielsen (R.I.P.) is a great villain, and I wish he'd not been exclusively shackled to third-rate comedies in the latter days of his career.

So Nielsen finds out that his old lady (Gaylen Ross, from DAWN OF THE DEAD in a brief appearance) is stepping out with Ted Danson. He devises a heinous form of punishment that combines fear of drowning, fear of being buried alive, and fear of crabs.



Romero ratchets up the claustrophobia (and some nice class commentary), Nielsen ratchets up the villainy, and the gurgly, seaweed-encrusted payoff is damned satisfying.

•THE CRATE
The plot in a nutshell: A sad sack husband and his harpy wife's lives are irrevocably changed by the discovery of a mysterious crate.

This seems to be the consensus' favorite segment, and I call it the "John Carpenter Special." Sure, Carpy didn't actually have anything to do with it, but it A. stars his then-wife and frequent collaborator Adrienne Barbeau, B. stars THE FOG's Hal Holbrook, C. the crate in question (from an Artic expedition) is emblazoned with the name 'Carpenter.'



As our professorial, hen-pecked hubby, Hal Holbrook is terrific. He's got that forlorn little half-smile and the ruffled, unruly eyebrows. He lives much of his life in fantasy sequences, mainly because–

Adrienne Barbeau is his fire-breathing, drunken, loud-mouthed shrew of a wife.

Before you can say "I'll be wearing your balls for earrings," Barbeau is feasting on the scenery and having perhaps the most fun I've ever seen her have in a role.

She adds bourbon to her milk, for chrissakes! She spouts insults like "You're a regular barnyard exhibit- sheep's eyes, chicken guts, piggy friends... and SHIT for BRAINS!" and generally embarasses poor Hal Holbrook all over the place.

Oh, and that small matter of the thing in the crate... let's just say that when it's finally unveiled, it doesn't disappoint...


•THEY'RE CREEPING UP ON YOU
The plot in a nutshell: a Howard Hughes-ish germophobe billionaire is beseiged by an army of cockroaches.

Starring the irascible E.G. Marshall, this one's a classic "tenant vs. monster(s) in a confined space" tale, but since the tenant in question is a malevolent tycoon, we're- for the first time ever- actively rooting for an army of cockroaches.

Now, I've had enough up-close-and-personal encounters with these hateful creatures to accurately say that at one time I was living a Cronenberg movie, so this one definitely got under my skin a little bit, so to speak. I mean, stuff like this and PHASE IV hits a little close to home.

The practical effect (thousands upon thousands of actual roaches, often emerging from small spaces in unison) is staggering, and David A. Brody's roach wrangling abilities deserve our endless respect. (He also wrangled the roaches for the anthology series MONSTERS, John Schlesinger's THE BELIEVERS, and JOE'S APARTMENT). It enrages me to no end that these days they'd just do some lazy CGI and lay to waste the singularly sickening talents of the roach wranglers!

Also of note, the segment's sterile, retro-futuristic imagery (intruded upon by the creeping roaches), full of magnifying lenses and peculiar devices, almost feels like a partial inspiration for Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL (1985)?


The finale's extremely solid as well– it goes exactly where you think it will...and then about ten steps further!

In closing, five stars. Bravo, George. Bravo, Stephen. But as for me, I'd rather be...watching CREEPSHOW.

-Sean Gill

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