Review of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) by Dan G — 31 Mar 2009

This horror omnibus gives us 4 tales of surprising unoriginality that will keep you guessing at what the next lame horror cliché is going to be, while offering some amusing 80's star watching. The first one, with Debbie Harry as a maniac housewife about to cook a kid for dinner, is actually the best. It's also the shortest, which is good.

The second, star-wise, is interesting because it features Christian Slater (about to be hot), Steve Buscemi (had a long way to go before becoming hot) and Julianne Moore (had a long LONG way to go before becoming hot). This features some silly nonsense about a mummy being reincarnated, without bothering to tell how such a thing could happen or why Buscemi would have such a thing in his room, or why the ancient knick-knack was stolen etc.

Thirdly, we have the inevitable troublesome cat story. David Johansen (!!??) plays a mobster hired by a wealthy pharmaceutical guy to get rid of a cat that has killed all the people in the house. The reason for the cat's revenge? Because the guy tested pharmaceuticals on cats! (this is what he says, the cat's opinion is never dwelled upon). Of course, after 4 murders, it never occurred to the old codger to hire an exterminator or maybe even move. Some good special effects, though really unexplained.

In the final story, we have a very interesting premise. After a struggling artist sees his friend get killed by a bat demon of some sort, the demon gets the artist to swear he'll never tell anyone about the creature. Which he agrees to. Shortly after, he meets Rae-Down Chong, not necessarily a good thing. Shortly after the meeting, he becomes instantly successful.. So you know where this is headed. So much so, I was predicting the dialog at the very end. Just plain shoddy film-making.

Excreable horror. You can do a lot better.