Tales from the Darkside.
I’m a broken record with this, but MY GOD do I love Tales from the Darkside.
It’s hard to get new people into the series, since it was so damn slow and admittedly hit-or-miss. If you didn’t grow up with TFTD and you’re more able to stay objective, it’s just “another one of those anthology shows,” and I guess it is less exciting than, say, Tales from the Crypt.
For people like me, though, Tales from the Darkside was a quiet introduction to horror. I have such fond memories of watching it late at night in my childhood bedroom. Just me, a bag of Wise’s Crazy Calypso chips, and crazy spooky shit on my half-broken television.
…and here’s my favorite episode, Anniversary Dinner.
Many TFTD fanatics rate it as one of the worst, but it’s among the few that I can recall experiencing as a child with crystal clarity.
I wouldn’t say that I was scared of it (it’s one of the least scary TFTD episodes, frankly), but I think it captured the show’s central theme — that there’s a darker underside to the sunny world we’re all living in — as well as any other episode.
Questions for tonight:
1) Were you a fan of Tales from the Darkside? Any favorite episodes?
2) If not TFTD, were you into any of the other horror/sci-fi anthology shows? (For the record, I may have not religiously watched all of them, but I did love all of them, from Tales from the Crypt to The Outer Limits and beyond.)
Movie Night: Spookies!
Just a quickie for tonight, because I’m juggling forty different things and I can’t find any coffee.
I’ve somehow never seen Spookies, a pretty infamous creature feature that debuted in 1986. Tonight, I intend to change that. Maybe you’ll join me?
If you need motivation, I’ll point out that Spookies had some seriously bitchin’ poster art:
I mean, you can’t have a poster like that if you’re not at least a little bit interesting, right?
I have no idea what I’m walking into on this one, but I think it’s safe to say that there will be lots of gore and gross-outs, so if those aren’t your speed… you may wanna skip this one. 🙂
Video Store Horrors.
Behold, the Ghoulies videocassette box. How it frightened and flustered me, yet filled me with so much wonder.
As a wee little kid in our neighborhood’s first video score, I’d spy that toilet monster on a weekly basis, afraid to look at him but always looking at him.
I was there for Disney tapes and nothing but Disney tapes, so even if my mother would’ve let me rent a horror movie at that age, it was the furthest thing from my mind. Still, the boxes always intrigued me, because back in an era when so many horror video releases saw little-to-no time in theaters, the box art needed to be intriguing. Often enough, that was how they made their first impressions.
Since I only had the box art to go on, I assumed that horror movies were so much “worse” (gory, violent, etc.) than they actually were. In the case of Ghoulies, I’ve since seen the movie more than a dozen times, and while it certainly wouldn’t have been suitable for the four-year-old version of me, it’s far from the two straight hours of absolute mental torture that Kid Matt imagined.
So, tonight’s questions for you:
1) Did any VHS boxes put serious fear in your heart as a kid? (Bonus points if that fear was unwarranted.)
2) Did spying horror movies at video stores leave you with any screwy opinions about the genre, or the people who loved it?
3) Last night we talked about the first horror movies we remembered seeing. But do you remember the first one you ever rented?
First Horror Movies?
Tonight’s survey, should you choose to participate:
What were some of the first horror movies you ever saw?
What effects did they have on you?
I’ll have to give this some thought, but mine may have been the original Halloween. As mentioned on one of our recent podcasts, my sister watched it on some long ago night when she was ostensibly babysitting me, but really just existing in the same space.
I have no idea why I decided to join her, but minutes after I did, she retired to her bedroom for another of her classic hourlong phone calls, leaving me on the couch with nothing but dim lighting and Michael Fucking Myers. I was so paralyzed with fear that I couldn’t even turn off the television.
It was an awful feeling, but one I’d pay (and in fact, have paid) good money to feel as an adult.
