| Tales from the Darkside: The Movie | | Cast : | Deborah Harry, Matthew Lawrence, Christian Slater | | Director : | John Harrison | | Studio : | Paramount Studio | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | May 04, 1990 | | DVD Released Date : | August 19, 2003 | | Language : | French (Dubbed), English (Dubbed), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 27, 2005 | | Summary | A Nice Horror Anthology | Content
 | Exsquisite, a truly CONSTRUCTED film. Not exactly on the same level of perfection as CREEPSHOW, but TFTDS is still a great moovie.
The wrap-around story (which is called just that) concerns a witch (Deborah Harry of BLondie fame, and arguably the most beautiful woman to ever sing rock and roll) who is about to cook and eat a young child. To distract her rather...elaborate...cooking preparation, he reads her stories from a book called--you guessed it--TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE.
The first segment is called "Lot 249", and is adapted from a story by Sir Arthur COnan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series. It concerns a mummy that comes to life to kill a student, chosen by a scheming scholar. The exspostion here is obtrusive and stupid, making this the worst segment. Still slightly enjoyable. Starring Julianne Moore and Steve Buscemi.
The next tale is called "Cat From Hell". It is about a man who hires a hitman to kill a murderous cat. The feeling is claustrophobic, thanks to a nice scripting by George Romero, from a Stephen King idea. The goriest thing I have ever witnessed (through implication and exploitation) is the end scene to this segment, in which the cat burrows through the hitmans throat, staying in his stomach until the man who hired the poor fellow comes back...and from there things get even uglier.
The last story is called "Lover's Vow". this segment has some very high potential, and the creature effects are decent. It is about an artist who witnesses the decapitation of a bartende by a stone gargoyle come to life. In exchange for the artists life, he must never disclose a single detail of that night, not so much as draw a picture of the sinister thing. Nice storytelling here, along with a great premise of the artist's anguish in never being able to tell a beau of what happened. However...the "surprise" ending falls flat on it's ass, it is semi-prdictable and unfullfillng.
In completion the film is very fun, giving us a glimpse into the minds of four very talented people: George Romero, Malcom McDowell, Stephen King, and Srthur Conan Doye. I reccomend this highly. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 09, 2005 | | Summary | Truly Great Horror | Content
| Two television series have kept me up at night with fear of monsters coming to get me, and that would be "Tales from the Crypt" and "Tales from the Darkside". Compared, "Tales from the Darkside" the movie beats the crap out of the two lame "Crypt" movies. This movie stayed with what made the TV series so great, short horror stories that make you want it to be over because you don't think your nerves can take it any more. The first two stories are great, "Cat from Hell" being the scariest story of all. The weakest is "Lover's Vow", it's mainly a love story but it's a nice come down after the edge your seat experience with the first two. The story about a modern Hanzel and Gretel featuring Blondie as the evil witch is very intereting as well and sets up each story perfectly. Good job! |
| Rating | | | Date | February 22, 2005 | | Summary | Great cast, Terrible Movie | Content
| What the hell are fabulous actors Christian Slater, Julianne Moore, Steve Bucemi, Debbie Harry and Matthew Lawrence doing in this piece of trash? Even Are You Afraid of the Dark? is creepier and more captivating than this stinker. This is a collection of lacluster stories that are a waste of time. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 26, 2004 | | Summary | Not really unique, but very well presented! | Content
| Now we've all seen movies like this before, haven't we? A horror movie with three different tales in it. Tales of which usually consist of revenge, love, or some animal out on a rampage. I've watched many movies like this and I actually like them, to be honest. Why? Well, mainly because they aren't restricted. In regular horror movies, the plot is restricted because it had to string together and it had to make sense. In movies like this, you can just tell random tales of horrors, so it allows for much less restriction. Anyway, moving on, I said I've seen many movies like this and I have, but Tales From The Darkside is one I particularly like.
In the movie, we start off with a woman doing grocery shopping. As she is driving home, we are given clues that she is well liked by the community. However, it turns out she has a secret. That secret is that she's the mythical "witch in the woods", except she lives in the city. You all know what kind of witch that is, don't you? It's the kind Hansel and Gretal met. The witch that likes fattening up children so she can eat them. Well, it's the same here, except it's only with a single young boy here. The boy is, of course, bitter about her desire to eat him, so in an attempt to stall her, he decides to tell her three separate stories.
Let me list the stories and their attributes.
The first one is called "Lot 249" and it is about a college student named Bellingham who hates two particular lovers. No, it's not because of jealousy, but because they have framed him for stealing an artifact. They thought he didn't know, but it becomes apparent that he does, so in an act of revenge, he decides to purchase a mummy. The mummy comes with a scroll that allows it to be resurrected for any desire Bellingham wants. The plot is the usually revenge stuff, but I like how it was done. Bellingham wasn't a raving maniac, but a rather articulate man. He did things rather casually and he always seem to be one step ahead of other people. The other characters are nice, but Susan seemed rather unrealistic. I don't know about everyone else, but if I saw a rotting mummy about to kill me, I wouldn't exactly be calm about it. I must say, though, the ending is terrific. When I first saw this movie, I honestly did not expected that kind of ending.
The second story is called "Cat From Hell". The title sounds corny and you can easily guess the story from there, but the story is presented very well. Drogan is an old, rich man who hires a hitman named Halston in order to kill a cat. The cat is the cause of the deaths of his butler, his sister, and her best friend already and Drogan knows he is next, so he is willing to pay $100,000 for Halston to kill it before it gets him. Halston is rightfully skeptical, so Dragon told him why the cat is killing everyone. It turns out the cat is a form of revenge. Revenge for the 5,000 cats Drogan killed during the 4 years of testing it took for his drug or perhaps...it's actually all the people Drogan has destroyed with his medicine that helps an aging heart (at the cost of a lot of money and the risk of addiction). Now, while the story is rather cliche, I just this particular story. Why? Well, it's because William Hickey's acting is simply incredible and the scene transitions are beautiful. Aside from that, though, the plot could be a little better. For one thing, why does Halston try to kill the cat with a syringe to begin with? He could have easily used his gun right from the beginning. That's seem unrealistically inefficient for a high price hitman. He could have attempted to immediately kill the cat and spend the rest of the time playing pool and drinking while waiting for Drogan to return. Other than that, the story is very good.
The third story is called "Lover's Vow" and I really liked this because it adapts a neat ancient tale. The story is about a struggling artist named Preston who's just got dumped by his agent (well, not exactly his agent). Angry, he decides to get drunk out of his mind, so the bartender named Jer decided to take him home. Well, as Preston was taking a piss, Jer suddenly gets mauled and decapitated by a gargoyle and Preston witnessed everything. Well, the gargoyle decided to let Preston live as long as he keeps the promise that he will never tell what happened that night. Well, Preston's troubles was quickly met with good fortune as he ran away and into the arms of a beautiful woman named "Carola" who falls in love with him. A decade later, it seems like everything turned out alright for Preston. He is married with the woman, he has children, and due to her connections, he has success. However, he is as obsessed with the gargoyle as those first few days he met it, so can he still keep the secret? I really liked this story. While the ending differed from the tale it was adapted from, it was still very good. One thing I have to asked is why did the gargoyle killed Jer? It didn't eat him or anything. It just seemed to do it for no reasons. Of course, you could deduct a number of reasons, but deductions are not a good substitute for plot holes.
Anyway, that was the last story, but much like all other movies similar to Tales From The Darkside, there is always an extra tale. Unfortunately, it's not nearly as good as the ones that were told (Lets just say it's of the Hansel and Gretal type), but hey, what can you expect? I highly recommend this movie! I give it 5 stars! |
| Rating | | | Date | October 18, 2003 | | Summary | sometimes great but not that great | Content
| it starts out as a lady comes home to cook a boy for dinner but the boy tells the lady three storys from the Tales From The Darkside book. the first one is Lot 249 with Christian Slater, Julianne Moore and Steve Buscemi, which this one is the best with of course Slater's character. then the next one is The Cat From Hell with William Hickey and David Johanssen, this one is ok but it sometimes shallows the movie with its annoying and mangling old people. the last one is A Lover's Vow with James Remar and Rae Dawn Chong, it starts off good with Remar but then ends up being a cheesy story with its lame gargoyle effects. |
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