Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) Review

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) Review

In the early nineties, anthology horror was going as strong as ever, with Tales from the Crypt on TV and Tales from the Darkside on the big screen. Contrary to Crypt, Darkside began as a TV series, created by George Romero, and ran for four seasons. The movie is often cited as “the unofficial Creepshow 3” because though a third Creepshow was made, it didn’t involve Romero or Stephen King and was critically panned, and Tales from the Darkside: The Movie features a segment based on a story by King that was supposed to be in Creepshow 2 but got cut for budgetary reasons.

Like Creepshow, the movie begins with a narrative that bridges the segments, called the Wraparound Story, which follows a woman who seems nice, but is actually executing a sinister plan. I won’t say what it is, because if you haven’t seen the movie, it’s more effective going into it not knowing, but I will say it involves a kid, and he reads three stories to the woman out of the Tales from the Darkside book.  

The first is Lot 249, probably the most star-studded segment of an anthology horror movie ever. There’s Steve Buscemi as a graduate student vying for a scholarship against two students, one of them played by Julianne Moore. They frame him for theft, disqualifying him, but he gets revenge when he unleashes an ancient mummy, and Julianne Moore’s brother, played by Christian Slater, gets subsequent revenge on Steve Buscemi.

This is based on a short story by Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle. At first, it seems like it’ll be a generic story about a mummy coming to life and killing people, and at first, that’s what it is. The effects for the mummy look okay, but it’s shown too much to really be scary. However, it becomes apparent as the segment proceeds that the mummy isn’t the real main threat here. The story has enough twists and turns to be unpredictable and avoid falling into cliché, and has a great, unexpected ending.

Segment two, Cat From Hell, is the one based on the Stephen King short story, and was scripted by George Romero. It’s about a rich, wheelchair-bound old guy who hires a hitman to kill a black cat that’s shown up at his mansion and supposedly killed three of his friends. At first the hitman thinks the old guy is crazy, but he soon discovers the truth about the cat.

This middle story is absolutely hilarious. It’s an incredible little slice of comedy-horror that looks like it’s going in one direction, then goes in a completely different one. This is not a story to be taken seriously. I won’t spoil the best moments, but one of the cat’s dispatching methods is to cling to a person’s face like a facehugger and suffocate them. The ending, like the first segment, is great, and genuinely shocking.

The final segment is Lover’s Vow, and at this point, has a lot to live up to when compared with segments one and two. It follows a down-on-his-luck artist who witnesses the brutal murder of a bartender at the hands on a grotesque gargoyle, who warns the artist if he ever talks about what he saw to anyone, he’ll pay. So the artist says nothing. He moves on with his life, and the ending, as you might be able to guess, has to do with telling someone about that night with the monster, and the consequence of doing so.

This segment is problematic to review, because I don’t want to give away a key element of it. It starts out with some slam-bang gore and action and is awesome, but the creature isn’t that great. I appreciate they used a different kind of monster that isn’t frequently seen in horror, but the monster speaks, and the close-up animatronic doesn’t look very convincing, with the mouth movements failing to match the voice very closely. After this awesome opening, it slows right down, and shows how the artist falls in love, gets a successful career, a family, etc. and it’s not that interesting, until the ending. The endings for all segments of this movie are great, but this might be the best ending of all, because it’s one of those endings that makes the story better after looking back on it. Even though I saw it coming at a certain point long before it happened, that didn’t make it any less satisfying to see it play out.

The wrap-around story adds yet another unexpected twist of an ending to the mix, so you could call this the movie of great endings, but the greatness extends beyond just the endings. I would certainly call this the true successor to Creepshow. In fact, I’d say it’s as good as the first Creepshow, if not better. It has that same mix of horror and humour, and is more ambitious than Creepshow 2 ended up being. 

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie is underrated and a must-see for horror fans. Even if you’re like me and don’t love anthology horror, you’ll still enjoy it. The stories are all great in their own ways, the pacing is excellent, and it’s wholly entertaining.