To stall a witch plotting to eat him, a boy reads her horror tales dealing with a collegian's resurrection of a mummy, a murderous cat, and an artist's pact with a gargoyle.To stall a witch plotting to eat him, a boy reads her horror tales dealing with a collegian's resurrection of a mummy, a murderous cat, and an artist's pact with a gargoyle.To stall a witch plotting to eat him, a boy reads her horror tales dealing with a collegian's resurrection of a mummy, a murderous cat, and an artist's pact with a gargoyle.
- Awards
- 1 win total
Debbie Harry
- Betty (segment "The Wraparound Story")
- (as Deborah Harry)
Storyline
Did you know
- Trivia"Tales from the Darkside: The Movie" is considered by many fans and Tom Savini himself to be the 'official' "Creepshow 3". Following the success of Stephen King and George A. Romero's Creepshow (1982), Laurel Entertainment (Creepshow & Creepshow 2 (1987)'s production company) toyed with the idea of a Creepshow television series. After several negotiations and changes (due to rights holders etc.), the decision was made to change the title for the series to "Tales from the Darkside" (to be helmed by none other than Creepshow director and Creepshow 2 screenwriter, George A. Romero). After the series' great success, just roughly three short years after Creepshow 2 hit theatres, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie came to fruition in 1990 as the successor to the original two Creepshow installments, sharing many of the same crew as the Creepshow installments.
- GoofsIn preparing to cook Timmy, Betty remarks that she could never do long division and asks aloud how much is 75 divided by 12. When Timmy answers and asks why, she indicates that she is trying to determine his cooking time. But if she is, she must multiply 75 by 12. (The answer is 900, or 15 hours.)
- SoundtracksTales from the Darkside (Original Theme)
Composed by Donald Rubinstein (as Donald A. Rubinstein) and Erica Lindsay
Featured review
Tales from the Darkside mixes together three individual stories, all "narrated" by a kid in a "wraparound" story he's telling to a woman (Deborah Harry) preparing to cook him. As with Arabian Nights, Timmy is trying to stay alive by telling stories. The first story is the best of the three: "Lot 249" features Christian Slater as well as pre-fame Steve Buscemi and Julianne Moore in a mummy story. The pacing is good, the story works, and the acting is well above what one expects in a cheap horror story. The second story, "Cat From Hell" is an adaptation of a Stephen King short story about a cat that has killed its way through most of a family. An old man (William Hickey) hires a hit man (David Johansen) to kill his cat and the story goes from there. This is yet another example of a Stephen King story that works very well on paper but has gotten mangled horribly in translation to screen. Part of the problem is the special effects involving the cat look dreadful now - but I don't think they were even state of the art in 1990. Regardless, I don't quite know how you could film a fight between a man and a cat and not have the result end up looking ridiculous. "Cat From Hell" didn't really try very hard. The third story, "Lover's Vow", concerns a man who witnesses a friend murdered by some kind of gargoyle-type creature. The gargoyle promises to spare him his life in return for the man's pledge to never tell anybody about the encounter. It's an interesting premise that is tested when the man later hooks up with a young woman played by Rae Dawn Chong. Ultimately the story doesn't make all that much sense, and again the story is hurt by relatively weak special effects. The wraparound story works very well, as does "Lot 249", but ultimately that doesn't feel like enough to redeem the weakness of the other two segments. "Cat From Hell" in particular is a failure. But I would recommend watching the movie if only to see early-career work from Buscemi and Moore in "Lot 249".
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $3,500,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $16,324,573
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $5,028,096
- May 6, 1990
- Gross worldwide
- $16,324,573
- Runtime1 hour 33 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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What is the Canadian French language plot outline for Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)?
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