“Man lives, in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But…there is, unseen by most, an underworld. A place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit…a darkside.”
With so many different television series and films arriving on DVD and now turning to Blu-ray, it almost seems as if anything you think of or remember from your youth can be found easily or with a little research. That’s not always necessarily true and it doesn’t become evident to most people until they think of a random movie or show they haven’t seen in a long time and really would like to check out again. Such a thing happened to me when my first DVD player found its way into my hands a little over five years ago. One of the very first DVDs I wanted to get wasn’t available and my patience has grown rather thin, but finally the anticipation and (non) patience paid off as Tales from the Darkside finally found its way home.
The premise of the television series is quite simple in that each thirty-minute episode takes the victims on a journey of horror and trauma from their everyday lives into a much darker version of them. Usually the terror will strike someone who isn’t so nice or maybe they’re arrogant or perhaps they are just downright mean. But one of the best things about this series is that it doesn’t limit the horrible events so that they happen only to the scum of the world. You could be one of the nicest people ever to walk the face of the Earth and do everything right in your life, but the darkside will eventually find you and put you through hell. Think in terms of the Creepshow films or for those who may be a bit younger, imagine an earlier version of Tales from the Crypt. I like the possibility of bad things happening to anyone and everyone, but it just gives me a good feeling inside to see true scumbags get what is coming to them.
Tales from the Darkside started airing in 1983 and since I was born in 1979, I’m thinking that my initial exposure to it didn’t happen until at least the late eighties sometime. Maybe it was reruns I caught or something, but there was always something about the series that just intrigued me beyond all belief. It has a unique darkness and disturbing quality about it yet there it is on television and not kept strictly in theatres or on cable TV. Many nights during my childhood were spent staying up late very sneakily so that Saturday night’s episode of Tales from the Darkside could be enjoyed. Even though sneaking around to stay up late and watch them was thrilling; having the daylights scared out of me upped the thrill factor by tons.
This first season of the series has some truly great episodes from the phenomenal horror specialists like Stephen King, George A. Romero, Haskell Barkin, and Michael McDowell. As the seasons went on, more big names like Clive Barker and Edithe Swensen sat down in the old writing chair and penned a couple of episodes. They all have a bit of cheese to them, but they also manage to deliver some truly frightening situations. And what makes the viewer more uncomfortable then anything else is wondering what they’d do if they were in the shoes of the victims on screen. I mean let’s take “Grandma’s Last Wish” for example. A grandmother is in a nursing home and doesn’t have the best living conditions leading up to her final moments among the living, so she makes a final wish for her uncaring family to experience all the horrible things she deals with on a daily basis. Now I know of numerous cases where senior citizens were neglected by family members due to being a burden on their normal lives and it’s just cruel and inhumane. This should go as a wonderful example to never mistreat the ones you love just because they need a little extra help.
Season one has a host of great stories that are sure to get your blood pumping a little bit and hoping that such occurrences never happen to you. Horror fans are going to love some of my favorites lie “Anniversary Dinner,” “The Word Processor of the Gods” (written by Stephen King), and “Mookie and Pookie.” That third one there is just way ahead of its time and would make a damn good feature-length horror film even today. Free your mind a little bit and ignore the cheap special effects, sometimes awful acting, and over the top situations to simply enjoy scary tales that can crawl deep inside your soul in a short period of time.
Episodes
Disc One:
Trick Or Treat
The New Man
I’ll Give You A Million
Pain Killer
The Odds
Mookie And Pookie
Slippage
Inside The Closet
Disc Two:
The Word Processor Of The Gods
A Case Of The Stubborns
Djinn No Chaser
All A Clone By The Telephone
In The Cards
Anniversary Dinner
Snip Snip
Answer Me
Disc Three:
The Tear Collector
Madness Room
If The Shoes Fit
Levitation
It All Comes Out In The Wash
Bigalow’s Last Smoke
Grandma’s Last Wish
The False Prophet
The episodes are shown in 1.33:1 Full Screen format and look decent enough but so many of them have begun to show their age.
The episodes are heard in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Sound and they sound more then fine because it’s virtually all dialogue. I wouldn’t have minded surround sound, though, for some of the audio effects and the awesome music.
Audio Commentaries – George A. Romero flies solo on commentary for only one episode, “Trick Or Treat.” He does an exciting commentary with a lot of energy where he discusses coming up with the idea for the series with a few others and how they wanted to make it different from Creepshow. He then goes over a few scenes throughout the episode, but mostly talks of the series as a whole. Not bad, but I wish since they got him for one episode that he would have stuck around and done some more.
Trailers – Twin Peaks: The Definitive Gold Box Edition, Jericho The First Season, and Charmed: The Final Season
My excitement really couldn’t be contained when Tales from the Darkside arrived on my doorstep and at last one of my favorite television shows of all time was in my hands. So there is one single episode with commentary and no other special features, but it’s the episodes of this series that are my main concern. While on the topic of special features though, it’s a wonder that Romero sat down for one commentary but no more? I don’t see why he couldn’t have at least done one or two more to get a commentary track on each disc. Other then that, there isn’t much more I could have asked for with such an old series and involving so many different people. You just can’t go wrong here picking up a copy whether you’re a horror fan or not because you’ll be entertained. If you like to be scared then there’s a taste of that for you. Enjoy thrilling stories with the fright then Darkside has you covered as well. Great stuff all around and the long wait is more then worth it.
“The darkside is always there, waiting for us to enter, waiting to enter us. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.”
………………………………………
Paramount presents Tales From The Darkside: The First Season. Created by: Stephen King & George A. Romero. Starring: Various. Running time: 533 minutes on 3 discs. Rating: Not Rated. Released on DVD: February 10, 2009. Available at Amazon.com
