Tales From the Darkside (TV Series)

[dcj2112]

I’ve been making my way through the box set and love how so many episodes seem like mini bad movies.

Some of my favorites are about...

A kind old couple who turn out to be cannibals.

A grandfather who dies, but is too stubborn to admit he is dead so she just walks around rotting. A very young Christian Slater plays the grandson.

A hardcore magic fan thinks that most magicians are awful and only one true magician is left. This leads him to egg on the true magician to do a trick he never wanted to do again with unexpected consequences.

Also, I love all the downer endings and some things you really wouldn’t expect from 1980’s TV. Like there is one episode that is a pretty cookie cutter evil doll episode where in this case the doll is a bear. It ends with a real bear ripping apart the house of the female protagonist and her young son. That bear looks p**sed and is definitely going to kill whatever it gets to. The mother is comforting her whimpering son as the bear is right out and tearing into their room. Then the episode abruptly ends like that.

[Svengoolie 3]

Icd say"bigalows last smoke" was the most horrific ep of dark side. It was also a real warning about peolle who decide they can control other people's behavior on any issue. We should have paid attention to it.

[dcj2112]

I just watched The Grither episode. Without spoiling it I’ll say this might be the darkest goddamn Christmas episode I’ve ever seen of anything ever.

[Svengoolie 3]

I just watched The Grither episode. Without spoiling it I’ll say this might be the darkest goddamn Christmas episode I’ve ever seen of anything ever.

I saw it, you're probably right.

[chainsaw midget]

I love the Grither. 

In fact, the whole series is great. 

However I don't recommend binge watching it.  Watch a bunch of the episodes in a row and it really starts to stick out how low budget they were. 

Still, even with a low budget they came up with some wonderful monster designs. 

[Svengoolie 3]

Wasn't there an ep about an early hate speech radio shock jock who ends up in hell and becoming a  demon because he spread so much hate on earth?

[dcj2112]

Yeah I’m trying to space it out a little, but that low budget stuff is tough not to notice.

On the box set the discs have about 7 episodes each. I don’t watch a disc all in one sitting though I do sometimes finish one all in one day. I wouldn’t mind spreading it out more, but then I might lose track of which ones I’ve seen which gets annoying.

When I go through a DVD box set I have a system where after I watch a disc I’ll put it back upside down so I know I watched it. After I finish the whole set then I put all the discs back as they were originally.

Right now I’m watching this series along with One Step Beyond which I have a DVD set of that has most of the episodes though it is missing many of the later shows. Since I switch between the two then go for weeks sometimes just watching movies or streaming stuff it can get tricky to keep track of.

[WingedSerpent]

That one about the bear is called Ursa Minor and its become one of my favorites over the years.  I completely agree with you about the ending.  It totally got me the first time I saw it.

There's one called The Circus that was written by George Romero.  And that's my personal favorite.  Its not the scariest of the series, but I love the story and performances in it.

[dcj2112]

That one about the bear is called Ursa Minor and its become one of my favorites over the years.  I completely agree with you about the ending.  It totally got me the first time I saw it.

There's one called The Circus that was written by George Romero.  And that's my personal favorite.  Its not the scariest of the series, but I love the story and performances in it.

The Circus is a really entertaining episode. It is always nice to see William Hickey is something like this. Also for something so low budget the vampire in that episode looked pretty cool.