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: ONE CRAZY SUMMER (1986, Savage Steve Holland)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 93 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: John Cusack (BETTER OFF DEAD, SAY ANYTHING), Demi Moore (ABOUT LAST NIGHT, STRIPTEASE), Joel Murray (SHAKES THE CLOWN, HATCHET), William Hickey (TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE, PRIZZI'S HONOR), Bobcat Goldthwait (SHAKES THE CLOWN, POLICE ACADEMY 2), Curtis Armstrong (BETTER OFF DEAD, QUIGLEY, RISKY BUSINESS), Bruce Wagner (co-writer of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3 and SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS), Taylor Negron (THE LAST BOY SCOUT, STUART LITTLE), John Matuszak (THE GOONIES, THE ICE PIRATES, CAVEMAN), Donald Li (BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN).
Tag-line: "They're out of school, out on Nantucket, and out of their minds. With this crowd, anything can happen!"
Best one-liner: "Oh, thank you, I think I will have some cookies-aehah!" (said by Bobcat Goldthwait).

Though I am somewhat unnerved by the terrible, tooth-clenching grimace which pulls taut the hideous, ruddy skin of the summer sun's face as depicted on ONE CRAZY SUMMER's one-sheet, I shall suck it up and attempt to soberly discuss the film on this chilly January evening. (Why does the sun have to wear SUNglasses?) For better or for worse, ONE CRAZY SUMMER certainly bears the whacky stamp of its creator: the 'auteur' Savage Steve Holland, who was the brains behind such irreverent flickery as BETTER OFF DEAD and HOW I GOT INTO COLLEGE.

This is the story of aspiring cartoonist Hoops Mcann (John Cusack) and his eponymous one crazy (Nantucket) summer. That's pretty much all you need to know. You'll laugh, you'll cry... you'll wince. This is Savage Steve Holland's style. He throws everything at you (including the kitchen sink) in the hopes that something will stick. That something will strike your funny bone. A lot of it will miss, oh God, so much of it will miss- but, whether by chance, by sheer persistence, or by simply grinding me down into delirious oblivion, he earned himself a few bulls-eyes. And those bulls-eyes, clichéd as they may be, are what I shall discuss.

ONE CRAZY SUMMER abides by many of the unwritten rules and regulations of 1980's cinema. I have no idea if it was from some anonymous cigar-smoke filled room that these filmic laws were handed down, but somebody, somewhere decreed that a certain quota of these had to be fulfilled, and ONE CRAZY SUMMER, like so many others, was ready and willing to comply.

#1. Villainous vanity plates. Sometimes heroes get vanity plates (Stallone's AWESOM50 in COBRA, for one), but villains just got to have 'em.


#2. The 80's rule of pools. If A., a swimming pool exists, then B., someone fully clothed must be pushed into it, arms flailing. If condition A. is not met and condition C., the presence of a cake, is, then again undertake result B.

KER-SPLOOSH

#3. If the criteria and conditions for a "makeover" or "shopping" montage do not exist, then a "fix-'em-up" montage must take their place, and the duration must be uncomfortably long.

Note Demi Moore's stylin' pants (foreground).

#4. If a role demands the an expertise that only Clint Howard can deliver, yet he's just a little too old to pull off the role, then Curtis Armstrong must be cast in his stead.


#5. If A., Bobcat Goldthwait is available, B. this is not a POLICE ACADEMY film, and C., ...uh, aw, fuck it, just let him do that voice-thing, that growl, you know what talking about. The high-pitched, wailing-growl thing. AeeeEEEEehaAAAAaa. Yeah, that.


#6. Something about Mark Metcalf and crazy-eye and a 'stache and lobsters and 80's rich kid villains having even more villainous fathers. I can't remember the rest of this law, but I know Metcalf's 'lobster-hating-lobster-restauranteur' somehow is the logical response to Charles Durning's 'frog-hating-frog-leg-restauranteur' in THE MUPPET MOVIE. And if that wasn't enough, they make him a land developer, too. I think he maybe wandered away from the set of a Golan-Globus flick? He easily could've done the Ed Lauter role in DEATH WISH 3 or the John P. Ryan role in RUNAWAY TRAIN or even the Christopher George role in ENTER THE NINJA, but I digress.



#7. If there's one Asian guy hanging around (this time it's Donald Li from BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA), and it doesn't look like he has too big a part, then he's going to be the payoff of some joke involving nerdiness, Ping-Pong, Godzilla, or some such nonsense.


To be fair, this gag (involving Bobcat Goldthwait in a Godzilla costume running wild all over the aforementioned real-estate developer's scale model at a banquet designed to impress Asian investors) is pretty inspired, and one which was recycled in a third-season episode of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT.

#8. Somebody's gotta be in a band. It doesn't matter who. How about Demi Moore? Yeah, okay, Demi Moore will be in a band.



#9. And just every 80's movie must introduce me to a new hero. Or reintroduce to me to an old one. Here, we've got John Matuszak, ex-NFLer, two time Super Bowl winner, 9th place in the 1978 World's Strongest Man competition, the man behind the makeup as 'Sloth' in the GOONIES, 'Tonda' in CAVEMAN, 'Killjoy' in THE ICE PIRATES, and author of an autobiography entitled CRUISIN' WITH THE 'TOOZ!

I guess it took his role as 'Stain' in ONE CRAZY SUMMER to make me realize that all these great and disparate achievements belonged to a single man. So you can imagine the cruel blow dealt to my burgeoning fandom when I realized that he died of heart failure at the age of 38 (in 1989).

I submit the following images as a testament to his two-minute role as 'Stain,' which is certainly the highlight of ONE CRAZY SUMMER's parade of zaniness. 'Stain' is a purple-spiked-hair motorcycle punk whose entire character is based on the fact that he is a big, big man who loves him some money but hates getting dunked in water. They don't make 'em like this anymore. And when they do, they're always missing the charm and inspired casting choices typified here by Mr. Matuszak:






R.I.P., Tooz.

-Sean Gill

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