I really wanted to like Tales from the Darkside. I watched Creepshow a while back and rather liked it, and while I was checking out some info on that film, I read that Darkside was a sort of spiritual sequel to the Creepshow series. Far more than Creepshow 3 anyways, which is not held in very high regard. And while I can kind of see some shared DNA between the two (Darkside definitely has some of that Weird Tales/comic-booky feel - at least as far as content goes), Darkside is just not as well made. The effects are worse, it just feels kind of cheap, and there isn't enough of the playful vibe that made Creepshow so enjoyable. It's never mean-spirited per se, it's just kind of dull.
Our wrap around story is about a young boy who is about to be cooked for dinner for some sort of evil dinner party. He's being kept in a dungeon/cell hidden in a woman's (Deborah Harry!) pantry, and to keep him busy while she preps the rest of the meal, she's given him a book of stories. While she readies the oven, he tries to stall her by reading three tales from the book.
Briefly, you get: (1) "Lot 249" - a mummy story set at a university - a nerdy guy (Steve Buscemi) has a mummy delivered to him (?) and raises it from the dead... and it takes revenge on those who have wronged him (including Christian Slater and Julianne Moore). (2) "The Cat From Hell" - an old wealthy man brings a hitman to his estate to have him kill a bad kitty - and not just in the peeing outside of the box/chewing on electrical cords sense - this feisty feline has already claimed three lives and is thirsty for more human blood. (3) "Lover's Vow" - A love story about a guy who encounters a gargoyle who tears off his friend's head but lets him survive, provided he *never* tells anyone about it. He then meets a mysterious lady (Rae Dawn Chong) and they fall in love... and then some (predictable) horror stuff happens.
Other than the fun inherent in seeing some "before they were famous" faces, there just isn't all that much to get worked up about in Tales from the Darkside. The film never has much of a sense of energy to it - things pick up a bit when it hits the requisite horror shots (the mummy pulls out a guy's brain, the cat smothers someone), but in between those moments everything just kind of drags.
I'm not sure if it's just not well-directed, or if they didn't have much of a budget to work with, but it never feels very cinematic. Director John Harrison directed several episodes of the Tales TV show, and honestly these feel a lot more like episodes than a feature film. There isn't really any consistency between the stories either. One of the great things about Creepshow was the way the stories could look different, but all of the horror moments were punctuated in a similar way. Likewise, there were some fun framing moments at the beginning and end of every story. Tales just never finds a central identity - some of it feels like it's trying to be scary, and some of it feels like it's supposed to be comedic (but it's hard to tell if the film is in on the joke).
I guess "The Cat from Hell" was my favorite. There was something pretty amusing about hearing stories about this murderous cat, and then seeing this cute little kitty run into frame, meowing like a little scamp. (I have a bad cat myself, so at least appreciated some of his shenanigans.) This story also has far and away the best effects in the film. The last story ("Lover's Vow") is the most ambitious, but also the weakest. It's just painfully obvious from the outset where it's going, and it just feels like it's treading water to get to its inevitable conclusion. This story is also the film's strongest attempt at straight up drama, but because of the nature of the anthology film, you don't really get enough time to care about the characters.
Overall, I just wasn't into Tales from the Darkside. Maybe I'm just not an anthology guy - it seems like this film is relatively well-liked. But besides a cute cat, the stories didn't grab me in any way - they weren't particularly interesting or scary. They are just kind of boring. Sad.
I would not recommend this film.
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