John’s Horror Corner: Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), a great horror anthology featuring mummies, killer black cats and amorous gargoyles.

MY CALL: An excellent anthology that focuses more on storytelling than shock value—but it still has its moments.  These fun short stories span serious to silly and original to trope-rich.  Well worth a watch!  OTHER HORROR ANTHOLOGIES:  Some other fun, decent and/or clever anthologies include (in order of release date):  Black Sabbath (1963), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), The Uncanny (1977), Creepshow (1982), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985), Creepshow 2 (1987), Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993), Campfire Tales (1997), 3 Extremes (2004), Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Chillerama (2011), Little Deaths (2011), V/H/S (2012), The Theater Bizarre (2012), The ABCs of Death (2013), V/H/S 2 (2013), The Profane Exhibit (2013) and The ABCs of Death 2 (2014).

Having directed several episodes of TV’s Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the Darkside, John Harrison had the right experience to bring these stories to life.  The wraparound story is rather Hansel and Gretel-ish, featuring a young Matthew Lawrence (Boy Meets World, Creature of Darkness) incarcerated in a kitchen-side cell being fattened with cookies.  The young boy distracts his captor (Deborah Harry; Videodrome), who plans on preparing and serving him for a hoity-toity dinner party, by reading twisted stories from a book aptly title “Tales from the Darkside.”  The three stories are not linked themselves, but still find a good synthesis with the wraparound story.

Our first story “Lot 249” features a group of graduate students played by a young Christian Slater (Stranded, El Gringo), Julianne Moore (Carrie, Psycho) and Steve Buscemi (Con Air, Escape from LA)…that alone gives good reason for any movie fan to see this.  Young Buscemi is an archaeological power geek who acquires (somehow) a sarcophagus with a mummy in it.  How he pulled this off without eBay and bypassing customs inspections is beyond me.  So what do you do with a mummy other than maybe sell it to turn a profit?  Well, have no fear of indecision because the mummy comes with instructions—in the form of a scroll in hieroglyphics.  Of course he reads this scroll, after all horror cannot transpire otherwise, and the mummy goes about killing people.  The execution of the story is weak, but it’s cheeky tone makes up for that.

Next is “Cat from Hell,” a new take on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat.  A wealthy geriatric recluse (William Hickey; Puppetmaster) hires a hit man (David Johansen; Campfire Stories, Freejack) to kill his cat for $100,000!  Sound funny?  Well not to our recluse, who explains how the cat had already killed three members of his household.  Of course, our hit man takes the job and it turns out to be considerably harder than he expected.  Enjoy.  This one is zany but told with a straight face.  You’ll giggle, but you’ll also wince.

It gets gory in a really fun way!

“Lover’s Vow” is the most clever story by far, it offers no laughs at all, and it steers clear of the tropes we find in the other two segments.  In this story an artist (James Remar; Horns, The Unborn, The Warriors) sees something that he shouldn’t have and he swears a vow that he would never tell what he saw or describe his mysterious assailant, which is apparently a gargoyle.  Later in the story he meets the love of his life (Rae Dawn Chong) and all the while he keeps from her this secret.  There’s a cool ending.  I never saw it coming, but my girlfriend managed to predict it.

The gargoyle is actually pretty cool.

I first saw this as a child, so this flick has a powerful nostalgia over me.  But the stories are still entertaining to see unfold and I feel this should entertain today’s horror fans who haven’t yet seen it—especially viewers old enough (maybe over 30) to appreciate the practical effects and the before-the-were-stars cameos.

Enjoy.