With Pet Sematary already here and It: Chapter 2 on the way, I'm going to gradually make my way through some of my Stephen King blind spots. Today, I explore the eternal question: is Tales From the Darkside: The Movie really even a Stephen King movie?
Stephen King has published more than 250 novels and short stories, sold 350 million copies of his works worldwide and watched as Hollywood churned out over 100 movies and TV shows either directly adapted from or continuing beyond his original creations. Those numbers will only continue to grow. He can't stop writing - it's like breathing for him -and Hollywood can't stop optioning his stories, particularly after It's record-breaking success and Pet Sematary 's recently making back its budget on opening weekend.
As of this writing, King adaptations have grossed over $2 billion worldwide after inflation. Tales From the Darkside: The Movie - a project with a tenuous King connection at best - contributed very little to that effort.
The real Creepshow 3?Released into theaters just over a year after the 1989 Pet Sematary set new box office records for a King adaptation, Tales from the Darkside re-teamed the same producer (Richard Rubinstein) and production company (Laurel Entertainment) and scored an even more impressive cast: Debbie Harry, Buster Poindexter, James Remar, Rae Dawn Chong, Christian Slater, and a pre-Tarantino/Coen Bros. Steve Buscemi as well as pre- Mrs. Doubtfire Matthew Lawrence.
Plus, in her film debut:
Rubinstein and Laurel, a company he co-founded with George Romero, had previously scored a hit with the first Creepshow film. When legal entanglements prevented them from turning Creepshow into a TV series, they created Tales From the Darkside instead. It ran for 4 syndicated seasons, ending in 1988, and was unofficially succeeded by 3 seasons of a more strictly-horror focused series called Monsters.
Somewhere along the way, though, Rubinstein's longtime partnership with Romero ended. A Creepshow 2 came and went. With it, the dream of a horror anthology franchise built around Romero's direction and King's writing died. That didn't stop Rubinstein from keeping that particular marketing hook alive a little longer.
Given such a convoluted production history and misleading marketing, it's no wonder Tales from The Darkside: The Movie is sometimes referred to as "the real Creepshow 3." In reality, however, it's simply an anthology collection cobbled together from Beetlejuice writer Michael McDowell's adaptations of old Arthur Conan Doyle and Lafcadio Hearn stories as well as a new take on Hansel and Gretel. Romero and King's sole contribution is "Cat From Hell," a leftover segment from the original Creepshow 2 script.
Cutting through standard Hollywood PR, Romero laid out the reality of the project in a Fangoria interview, " The Creepshow 2 screenplay originally contained five segments, like the original Creepshow. They were all based on stories written by Steve, two of which were already published; the others were sketches, ideas."
One of the stories, "The Cat From Hell," was published by King in a 1977 issue of Cavalier and Romero adapted it for Creepshow 2. "When Richard [Rubinstein] made Creepshow 2, he only used three of the stories. Then he took one of the other two that were left and put it in Darkside and was able to use both Steve's and my name."
Rubinstein didn't reach out to Romero to make him aware he was doing this nor did he offer any additional payment or profit participation.
Ouch.
Is this a Stephen King movie or not?Only just barely. It more belongs to Richard Rubinstein and Michael McDowell than anyone else.
Is it good, though? Is it at least watchable?
Meh to the first part, sure to the last.
Tales from the Darkside retrospectives typically include mandatory "it scared the shit out of me as a kid" stories. I can see why. Watching it for the first time as an adult, Tales from the Darkside plays very much like the next, far more gruesome step in a young horror hounds gateway into the more extreme corners of the genre. There are sporadic bursts of R-Rated gore sprinkled throughout - some at the mandatory twist ending, others before that - which still play today.
The production values, pacing, and performances are very much in keeping with the era and of the prior TV series - not surprising since the director, John Harrison, had previously helmed multiple episodes of the show.
However, this version of Tales from the Darkside takes full advantage of its R-Rating. It plays the script's little fantasy and horror-tinged stories to expectations...until Harrison suddenly hits the imaginary "holy shit!" button. There is something refreshing about the practical effects on display, and even today the winged gargoyle monster in the third story - the unofficial mascot of the whole film - still looks good.
The Plot & ReviewIn the Hansel and Gretel wraparound sequences, Debbie Harry plays a modern, suburban witch planning to cook a little neighborhood boy (Lawrence) for a dinner party. She's had him locked up in a dungeon just opposite her kitchen pantry for days, offering him cookies to eat and a book of short stories to pass the time. She claims the book - Tales from the Darkside - is an old childhood favorite, though she hardly remembers the details of the stories. To stave off the inevitable, the kid frantically reads her three stories from the book.
Cue three mini-movies, each with a twist ending.
In the first, a frustrated college student (Buscemi) unleashes an ancient mummy on his more fortunate classmates (Slater, Moore). In the next, a hitman (Poindexter) takes his strangest job yet: killing an eccentric millionaire's (evil) cat. Finally, a starving artist (Remar) bumps into a secretive monster one second and a gorgeous woman (Chong) the next and suddenly gets everything he's always wanted. Because that always ends well.
However, whenever we return to Harry she seems - at best - passively interested in what's happening. It's not that she's not actually listening; she's just not overly engaged with any of it, either cooking the boy or listening to another story.
I ultimately share her lack of passion for the material. Director John Harrison does plenty to give each individual segment its own distinct look. The practical monsters and gore provide sporadic highlights. The now-famous cast adds a certain extra historical curiosity.
Yet, in the realm of horror anthologies, there are better-crafted stories to be found elsewhere. (King's segment about the evil cat is particularly overloaded with exposition.) These films typically boil down to the one or two segments which people most remember over the years, but none of the Tales from the Darkside segments particularly stand out to me as revelatory. The creatures and effects? Yes. The stories? Not so much. Instead, they work together to form something watchable, if not always overly memorable.
THE BOTTOM LINEShould Tales from the Darkside: The Movie come with some Stephen King box set or bundle sale, it's not a bad throw-in. Or if you're a completist making your way through officiall and unofficial Creepshow installments, this is arguably better than Creepshow 2 and definitely better than Creepshow 3.
Next Up: What should I watch next: Cujo, The Graveyard Shift, or the 1979 Salem's Lot?
Grew up obsessing over movies and TV shows. Worked in a video store. Minored in film at college because my college didn't offer a film major. Worked in academia for a while. Have been freelance writing and running this blog since 2013. View all posts by Kelly Konda