Review of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) by Bryan G — 21 Nov 2006

[font=Courier New]Timmy (Matthew Lawrence) is being held captive by a modern day witch (Deborah Harry), who is planning on cooking him for dinner. To distract her from her deed, Timmy reads three stories from a book Betty, the witch, enjoyed when she was a child. The first is about a vengeful college student who resurrects an Egyptian mummy to punish those who screwed him over. The second is about an elderly man who hires a hit man to take care of a murderous feline. The last story is about a man who witnesses a vicious killing by a gargoyle, who promises not to kill the man if he never speaks of what he saw.

When I was younger I loved [i]Tales from the Darkside: The Movie[/i] a lot. I remember watching this and [i]Creepshow[/i] over and over again and not getting sick of them. After watching [i]Creepshow[/i] a while back, and finding that I still loved it, I had my mind set on seeing this film as well. I found it this past Halloween in one of those bargain bins and quickly snatched it up. It wasn?t until recently that I had a chance to watch it.

The movie isn?t all together bad, it just never really seemed to click with me as it did when I was younger. With [i]Creepshow[/i], I looked forward to a lot of my favorite moments and loved noticing new ones. But with [i]Tales from the Darkside: The Movie[/i], all the stories seem so empty and void of anything worth remembering. [/font][font=Courier New]My favorite segment of the film was the wraparound story with Deborah Harry and Matthew Lawrence, rather than any of the stories being told.[/font].

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I will say that the performances in the film are adequate, but some limitations do show. A lot of the actors in the film who I felt weren?t strong with their acting (I.E. Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore) have gone on to prove themselves as actors.

In the end, [i]Tales from the Darkside: The Movie[/i] is an entertaining film. Sure it is flawed, and I didn?t enjoy it as much as I use to. Still, with it being an anthology I feel horror fans should find some merit in the film. And they should be able to enjoy at least one of the stories. Plus the film displays some pretty cool scenes of gore that were still effective today as they were back then.[/font].