Tales From The Darkside: The Movie

Sometimes horror/supernatural/sci-fi story ideas can not be fleshed out into a full length motion picture on their own into a two hour time frame...this is where the anthology film comes into play. They are movies with three to five segments telling stories in little mini movies. George A. Romero, zombie horror master himself, began producing a little show called Tales From The Darkside after he and Stephen King had created the anthology horror film masterpiece known as Creepshow. They wanted to have a series that showcased stories like those featured in Creepshow but changed the title to Tales From The Darkside which ran from 1983 to 1987 which was also the year that Creepshow 2 was released.  

Creepshow's composer John Harrison who directed episodes from Tales From The Darkside directs the movie with one story adapted by George Romero from a Stephen King short story and Tales From The Darkside writer Michael McDowell wrote two of the stories with one (Lot 249) being an adaptation of a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, writer of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Since this is my first time reviewing an anthology film on this blog we will go plot by plot of each segment separately.

Wraparound Story: Main Plot
Seems like little Timmy (a young Matthew Lawrence) is in big trouble. See he got roped into doing his older brother's paper route and now he is being held by a witch (played by the lovely Debbie Harry of Blondie). She's no ugly hag but Betty, a modern day suburban housewife who just happens to want Timmy as the main course for her dinner party. Timmy has been given one of Betty's favorite books a collection of stories called Tales From The Darkside to pass the time and he decides that if he can't escape he'll at least stall the witch as long as he can by telling her three stories until his chance for freedom presents itself.

Story #1: Lot 249
Bellingham (Steve Buscemi) is a graduate student who is not having very good luck lately. He has been cheated out of a scholarship by the rich, handsome and smarmy Lee and framed for theft of an ancient artifact by Lee's beautiful but just as snotty girlfriend Susan (played by a younger Julianne Moore with early 90's hair). About to be expelled from the university, Bellingham is prepared to take revenge but he's not about to sully his own hands. He has in his possession Lot 249: an ancient mummy who with the right ritual can be summoned to life to carry out its master's demands. When Lee is found murdered, Susan's little brother Andy (Christian Slater) who was Lee's friend, remembers hearing strange chanting from his dorm neighbor Bellingham's room and seeing a dark figure shambling from the building. Is Andy imagining things or could the mummy really be under Bellingham's control? If so, can Andy stop it before Susan ends up dead or worse...Andy himself?

Story #2: The Cat From Hell
Pharmaceutical mogul Drogan (William Hickey) is an elderly man with one huge problem and he wants hitman Halston (played by David Johansen aka 80's pop novelty singer Buster Poindexter) to solve it. He's offering to pay $100,000 to Halston if he can kill what has to be the strangest target of his career: a black cat. Halston thinks Drogan may just be off his rocker but Drogan isn't laughing because he thinks the cat is out to kill him after inadvertently causing the deaths of Drogan's sister, butler and their family friend Carolyn. The cat may or may not be evil but Halston isn't about to pass up this much money for what may just be the easiest and most lucrative target of his whole hitman career. Halston has no idea what he is in for because  vengeance hath no fury like a black cat from hell with nine lives to spare while our hitman only has one to lose...

Story #3: Lover's Vow
Down on his luck artist Preston (James Remar) is not having the best of nights. His agent Wyatt has just dropped him like a hot potato and then he watches as a hideous gargoyle creature murders his bartender friend Jerry in a grisly and gruesome fashion. Before he can escape, the creature corners Preston and makes him promise to never reveal what he saw to anyone in exchange for sparing his life. The creature also tells Preston that he can never tell what he looks like nor that he spoke to him and seals the vow by crossing a deep scratch over Preston's heart as the man yells that he will keep this promise. Despite carrying this burden of guilt, things soon go from bad to better when Preston soon meets a beautiful woman named Carola (played by fetching actress Rae Dawn Chong) and ends up falling in love with her.

Soon, Carola becomes pregnant and she and Preston get married. Carola seems to be bringing luck with her love as soon after she tells a friend of hers about Preston's work and he soon has his art in a hip gallery downtown and a resurgence in his creativity. Ten years later, he and Carola now have two children but Preston can not shake that horrifying night and the promise he made to a demon. Which vow will he be able to keep...the one he made to spare his life or the one he made to the love of his life? Can Preston keep the secret from Carola after all these years and all the luck she has brought to him and if he does what sort of price will he pay?

It's a lot harder to tell you the plots of each story without giving any of them away. If you couldn't tell by my description of each plot the last and final story Lover's Vow is my favorite one mostly because it is a combination of two things I love: romance and horror. They save the best for last because not only do I love the story but James Remar and Rae Dawn Chong have great chemistry with one another and the ending is one of my favorite kinds. Cat From Hell is probably my second favorite because it happens to be based on a Stephen King short story and I am a fan of Stephen King if you didn't already know! I also have an appreciation for George A. Romero even if zombies are not my favorite movie creatures but after seeing him direct Creepshow and handle Stephen King's works so marvelously its my third favorite combination after romance with horror and peanut butter with chocolate! Besides the story and direction I also love William Hickey, rest his soul, as the elderly Drogan because you could always find ways to hate and sympathize with any character he played. Acting aside, William Hickey was also a stage actor and a teacher of the arts where Babara Streisand studied underneath him in New York's Greenwich Village so if that's not awesome I don't know what is!

You may think Lot 249 is my third favorite but I actually like the wraparound segment a little bit more because not only is young Matthew Lawrence as cute as a button to look at (just as cute as he is now...wowzers is he hot!)  but he can act just as well as his older brother Joseph (call him Joey if you want but he is Joe or Joseph to me now and whoa he's just as hot too!) Even though she is technically the villain, Debbie Harry is fun to watch and you can't deny that she can act as well as she can sing and you can tell she is having fun. Not too much fun where she is overacting or campy, Debbie Harry plays off Matthew Lawrence well and they are the reason the stories are set into motion in the first place.

Now do I have anything good to say about Lot 249 you ask? Well, the acting isn't bad and the twist isn't bad at the end but I don't really sympathize with any of the characters except maybe Christian Slater's Andy. I mean Steve Buscemi and Christian Slater seem to be playing characters the always seem to play and I haven't watched enough of Julianne Moore to know if she is being typecast or not in such an early role but she falls in the same lump with Buscemi and Slater as not particular stirring. As a whole, Tales From The Darkside: The Movie is a good film and as I have never seen the television series, I would say this is a good introduction to its TV counterpart. If you have watched the series and enjoy it and have never seen the movie version, I recommend it. If you have seen neither one, well it's pretty much up to you which one you would rather view first but the movie is certainly my first choice.

 Tales From The Darkside Movie Trailer

Next Blog: I'm going to be talking about a film that will make me the little girl that cried...Wolf

Ghost Story

I first heard about Ghost Story not as a movie but as a horror novel reviewed by Stephen King in his book Danse Macabre. The novel was written in 1979 by Peter Straub, who co-wrote The Talisman with King, and praised as being one of the greatest horror novels written in the late 20th century. I have yet to find a copy of the novel but I have watched the film and it is one of my favorite horror films that is more of a thriller and less of a gory slasher flick. I saw Ghost Story late one night on AMC's Fear Friday movie blocks and was hooked for many reasons which I will discuss but first...

What's The Plot?
In the small, New England town of Milburn, four elderly gentlemen have formed a society where they tell each other ghost stories. The Chowder Society as it is called has four members: lawyer Sear James, Doctor John Jafferty, business owner Ricky Hawthorne and Mayor Edward Wanderley. These four men love scary stories but their scariest story is something that happened fifty years ago and it is beginning to come back and haunt them in terrifying nightmares and Edward soon is found dead after falling from the town bridge.

Since recently one of his sons, David, has died in the same manner, Edward's death is seen as a suicide of grief but his friends and his other son, Don, know something else has to be at work. Entrance into the Chowder Society requires a ghostly tale and Don has one of his own that involves the torrid affair he had with a beautiful yet mysterious  woman named Alma Mobley. Alma's sometimes coldness toward Don made him push her away and she soon became engaged to his late, twin brother David, who Don now suspects was murdered by Alma.

When Doctor Jafferty has a heart attack, appearing to have died from fright, Sears and Ricky now feel it's time to share their secret with Don. Fifty years ago, the four younger men all met and became smitten with the beautiful Eva Galli who awakened a sexual interest in all of them until one heated night something went wrong and they murdered Eva by accident.

So it appears Alma and Eva are the same person but what is she really? Is she a ghost or something much sinister? Whatever the case maybe, she is back for revenge and only two of her murderers remain alive...but for how much longer? Can Don, Ricky and Sears be rid of Eva before they become part of the most terrifying ghost story of them all...their own?

I don't want to divulge too much of the plot even though it is a little different from the book (Stephen King talked about the novel in Danse Macabre in great length) because the movie should be seen as it is that great a film to watch! This goes back to the things that I enjoy about this film:

1. The musical score is beautiful yet chilling.

2. Dick Smith, who did the make-up for The Exorcist and many other films and TV, did the special make-up for the film involving Eva/Alma's most frightening appearances. If Regan scared you as a demon, that says something about how disturbing you may find Eva/Alma.

3. The list of actors in this film is incredible! Veteran actors Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. made their final screen roles in Ghost Story and they will make you appreciate classic films as their acting is top notch (I always knew Fred Astaire could dance but he can act as well...better than some actors of today I might mention!).

Alice Krige is a wonderful actress who I first discovered in Stephen King's Sleepwalkers and she is both beautiful and disturbing as Alma Mobley and Eva Galli. Another cast member of note is Patricia Neal as Ricky's wife (who I adore from Breakfast At Tiffany's) though her role is small, it wouldn't be fair not to mention such a great actress.

When most horror movies of today are blood, sex and gore, Ghost Story is a classic horror film that doesn't need any of that (even though there is a 1981 version of an explicit sex scene, flashes of Alice Krige's breasts and a scene of brief male frontal nudity for you sex hounds out there!). All you need is great storytelling, fabulous actors and some special effects make-up to add to the atmosphere of great music and photography to make Ghost Story a film only seen to believe in its awesomeness.

Ghost Story Trailer

Next Blog: A break from the horror genre to talk about a film by one of my favorite directors. Whether you have seen it or not...Jerry Maguire

Carrie: Movie/Book Review

It has been awhile since I posted a movie blog review but I wanted to take enough time to get together my thoughts and ideas together on how I was going to write about one of my favorite films and books of all time. So here it is...

Carrie was Stephen King's first published novel and it was the first of his novels that I read and I have became a Stephen King fan ever since! I found the tie-in novel to the film version that was released in 1976 (the novel published in 1974) at my aunt's garage sale because it belonged to one of my older cousins. I was 11 or maybe 12 when I read it and then saw the movie when TNT still had its MonsterVision late on Saturday nights and completely took to the film. Why did it grab my attention so much? Maybe it is because the main character is a tormented young girl mostly mocked and the target of humiliation by her fellow peers and I can relate to that part of the main plot to Carrie.

The only difference between the titular Carrie White and myself is that Carrie possesses telekinesis, a latent but very potent ability to control and move objects by pure thought in situations that cause anger and distress. As you could guess having a power like this while in high school might not be such a good idea when one is tormented constantly and unlike me, Carrie not only suffers at school but at home as well. My home life compared to Carrie White's is more or less a basket of roses as she is abused by her overtly Christian Fundamentalist mother, Margaret, who sees everything as a sin...which includes her own daughter as she was the result of her own husband raping her in their otherwise "sexless" marriage.

The story and movie are driven by an incident of Carrie's everyday abuse when she starts her first period at 17 and having never been told of menstruation by her mother thinks she is dying. Her fellow female classmates decide not to sympathize but torment her instead and throw tampons and sanitary napkins at Carrie as she is in hysterics. The gym teacher stops the girls, lead by the very cruel Chris Hargensen, and later punishes them with detention in a boot camp style environment and most of the girls develop remorse for their actions...except for Chris who refuses and is banned from attending the prom.

One very remorseful girl, Sue Snell, is ashamed of her actions and decides to make up for not only the most recent incident but the years of torment Carrie has experienced by setting the girl up with her own boyfriend to take her to the senior prom. Tommy Ross, Sue's handsome, athletic yet academic boyfriend goes along with the plan out of his love for Sue and escorts Carrie to the prom where it seems that Carrie is actually beginning to fit in. She arrives in a gorgeous homemade dress and has even fixed up her appearance to look not only completely different but beautiful enough that Tommy starts to fall in love with Carrie as well. It seems like Carrie will finally have that one perfect night but she doesn't realize that Chris and her delinquent boyfriend, Billy Nolan, have one more little nasty prank in mind for the girl who has always been the butt of the joke and the class outcast. Even if you have never seen Carrie or read it, you know that a bucket of pig blood becomes the last straw and soon, a town and the people in it will pay a price for one girl's torment, one girl's hatred and one girl's kindness

This is the basic plot of the film and novel even though the style of the book is written more or less as a flashback set in the frame of a fictional documents such as interviews and excerpts from magazines and books documenting the night of Carrie's destruction, dubbed "Black Prom". Since so much is going on in the book, the reader will have to pay attention but Stephen King segues very nice and smooth between what is the present and what is the past with helpful headings for the "fictional" documents and the normal narrative goes in his delicious style of the omnipotent third person.

The 1974 novel and the 1976 film get a meshing of sorts in the 2002 remake (same plot and fictional interviews) where the effects are better but most of the acting is bland and the modern references are just horrendous. Now, I actually own the 2002 remake and it is only because I have that much appreciation for the novel that made me fall in love with Stephen King. Also I relate to its main character so much that I could watch anyone play Carrie whether they are as fabulous as Sissy Spacek (1976) or as hard trying as Angela Bettis (2002). There was of course a sequel to the 1976 film in 1999 titled The Rage: Carrie 2 but besides the reference to Carrie White directly, a cameo by Amy Irving as Sue Snell and more telekinetic outcast girl with religious mother, I view it as film of its own merit and don't know if you could really call it canonical even if parts of it fit with the original film plot more than the novel.

I'll eventually review The Rage: Carrie 2 in one of my future blogs but I wanted to focus mostly on the original Carrie because of its great sentimental and personal value. True, I don't have Carrie's telekinetic gifts or over bearingly religious mother and I am no longer in high school but I still bear the same emotional scars almost like a stain of pig's blood you can never get out. No matter how much time passes even though the stain may fade, it never dies...sin never dies whether it is your own or those brought upon you by others. I hate to end something on such a serious note but...thank you, Stephen King for not giving up on this novel so that it could be made in to one of my favorite films of all time.

On a less serious note: there is a little bit of comedy in the films and just enough horror to enjoy the movie if you think I'm trying to make it overly dramatic or anything. In fact...it's bloody good fun.

Next blog: The Brothers Grimm