Something Weird on TV: Tales from the Darkside Finale – Endings & Exigencies

“The Cutty Black Sow” is the first episode on the final disc of our final season of Stories from the dark side. It is also the last written by Michael McDowell, this time adapted from a story by Stoker winner Thomas F. Monteleone. Ironically, given that you’ll be reading this in December and the last few months have been bad with Christmas episodes, this is another Halloween-themed entry – and arguably the best of the series.

For those who have followed it from the start, you will find that despite the fondness with which Tales from the Darkside is collectively remembered and its importance in the cultural zeitgeist, it actually contains very few episodes that I would consider classics. However, this is one of them. Not quite on the same level as, say, “Inside the Closet” or “Seasons of Belief,” it’s right up there with that, and it’s one of the few episodes of the series that evokes real atmosphere.

It’s worth noting that Michael McDowell is the main thread of all three of these episodes, which are probably the three best in the entire series. However, McDowell is not behind the camera. That’s Richard Glass, a person with literally no other credits from any IMDb other than this one episode, which makes the atmosphere on display here all the more impressive. It also features a pretty good central performance from a child actor with the unlikely name of Huckleberry Fox. And there is a jump scare involving the mask Rocktober blood.

Unfortunately, Michael McDowell, who Stephen King once called “the best writer of paperback originals in America today,” died in 1999 at the relatively young age of 49. And so, while “Cutty Black Sow” is far from his last work – he was going to do screenplays for it The nightmare Before Christmas and thinnernot to mention episodes of Stories from the Crypt, Samplesand more – it’s getting closer to the end of his career than it probably should.

“Do Not Open This Box” stars Academy Award winner Eileen Heckart as the greedy, shrew wife of a humble inventor who (of course) gets her comeuppance after opening the titular box. It’s a fine episode on the face of it, but more interesting than what happens in front of the camera is what (or rather, Who) is behind it. Actor Bob Balaban co-wrote the episode and another much more famous actor directed it: none other than Jodie Foster himself.

It’s far from Foster’s only directorial outing. In addition to a handful of movies, she has also directed several other TV series episodes, including recent episodes of Black mirror and Stories from the loop. At the time, however, this was her directorial debut – not to mention one of the episodes collected in the misleadingly named video release, Stephen King’s Golden Tales. (In hindsight it seems very odd that the an episode King actually wrote, is not in it.)

Then Stephen McHattie (Pontypole) plays a father who has kidnapped his son because he believes (correctly, as it turns out) that his son is turning into a werewolf. The twist is one that can be seen from miles away, if you’re already used to this kind of story, but the build-up is handled well. Something else interesting happens in this episode as well.

The third (and final) series installment directed by Tom Savini, who previously helmed both “Halloween Candy” and “Inside the Closet”, this one endears me to additional monsters! In particular, there’s a grotesque model that the son in question works on for most of the episode, and then there’s one of the series’ more memorable shots – something that seems to be a nod to Horror show (there’s a poster for that movie hanging prominently on the wall too), and happens in a sort of throwaway dream sequence where the boy sees a hideous face outside his window calling his name.

The episode as a whole isn’t on the same level as classics like “Inside the Closet” or “The Cutty Black Sow,” but it’s still top shelf material when it comes to this series and feels like a real treat that’s so close coming. heels from that earlier episode. Plus, the makeup effects are fun, as you’d expect from something with Savini’s name on it.

Unfortunately, because I’ve spent so much time talking about these three episodes, I’ll have to make short shrift for the foreseeable future. “Going Native” is a science fiction story about an alien who joins a therapy group to learn about Earthlings, written and directed by Canadian science fiction author Andrew Weiner, who also directed the Season 2 episode “Distant Signals” on the same theme wrote. This is followed by an improbable one-two punch about inventions that seemingly eat up sound.

“Hush” is about a babysitter who is threatened by her young charge’s latest invention, which is basically a vacuum cleaner that’s supposed to suck up noise, but instead does something more, well, menacing. It is followed by ‘Barter’, which features an unusual salesman named Klaatzu who has a way for a housewife to block out the sound of her son’s drumming. The episode, intended as a parody of I love Lucyis one of the lowest rated episodes of the entire series on IMDb, with a user review headline reading “not funny, boring, just bad.”

The last ever episode of Stories from the dark side – and as such the finale of our coverage of it – first aired on July 24, 1988, and features Vic Tayback (who also appeared in the first regular season episode of the series) as an unscrupulous wrestling promoter who pits wrestler Basher Malone (also the title of the episode) against a demonic opponent named Trog. It’s another comedic episode played to broad laughs, and while we could have asked for a better place to end the series, there are worse ones too.

That’s it for tonight and, indeed, for Stories from the dark side. Something Weird on TV will return in the new year, though, where we’ll see the most obvious follow-up to it Dark side‘s cloak, the 1988 TV series Samples. Until then, try to enjoy the daylight…

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