1.
Tales From The Darkside (The Movie) (1990) - This "horror anthology" film, tells the story of a kidnapped paperboy, who through telling three horror stories to a witch (Debbie Harry...yup, like the Blondie front-woman), who is prep cooking to eat him in a very similar, but modern retelling fashion of the classic story of Hansel and Gretel sans Gretel.
Three additional stories, separate from the boy's own are told in this story collection, which includes Lot 249, which tells the story of a young man and his "mummy" and stars Steve Busemi as well as Julianne Moore and Christian Slater; Cat From Hell, which is a story that tells the tale of Drogan, a well-to-do handicapped elderly man who hires a a hit-man kill a black cat, which he believes is evil and kills; and finally Lover's Vow, a tale about an artist (James Remar), who bears witness to a murder committed by a mythical creature that promises to not kill him if he never tells. He moves on with his life and gets married and has kids, but he's still guilty about the incident.
2.
Tales From The Hood (1995) - An absolute gem, Tales From the Hood - is a trilogy of stories that all take place in South Central, Los Angeles. It kicks off at Simms' Funeral Home, where three young men simply wish to buy weed form the owner, Mr. Simms. Mr. Simms is the storyteller, who weaves the tales the trilogy tells. The 1995 film is co-directed by Spike Lee, who is awesome!
3. Deadtime Stories (1986) - I enjoyed the twisted stylings given to Goldilocks & The Three Bears with the psychotic family meeting the equally disturbed Goldilocks with her very necrotic collection of exes. I also loved Little Red Ridinghood's tale, where the big bad wolf was a drug dealer and Little Red Ridinghood was an attractive teenage girl in a red jogging suit.
However, my favorite story was an original, which was a combination of a few tales such as Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and that type of theme, where three witches resurrect their sister. It was sort of like the precursor to a much more sinister Hocus Pocus.
The story is narrated by a babysitting uncle who is watching his nephew and twisting tales into his own to entertain himself. The only person in the film of note (I guess.) is Scott Valentine from Family Ties, you know, Mallory's Boyfriend Nick, 'ey....
Magoga is my idol! I want to rise from the dead and go kill everything that gets in my way. Actually, in my yearbook this kid signed it and that was his life advice for me, "Kill everything that gets in your way.".
IMDB gives it a 4.2 and I concur.
4.
Trilogy of Terror (1975) - a made for ABC TV classic, featuring the recently late Karen Black, who takes on four, if you count the twins as two, distinct roles in this short story film diverse film characters in the horror trilogy.
The Zuni Fetish Doll in "Amelia" is the best thing I have ever seen EVER! It has a miniature knife and relentlessly pursues Amelia, who is of course, portrayed by the ever great and recently late Karen Black until she meets her demise and turns into the Zuni Fetish Doll itself with its sharp, awesome, little angry teeth. It kind of reminds me of Monkey Shines if it were the spirit of a Zuni Warrior instead. Its got all the persistence of the Monkey Shines monkey, that's for sure!
"Julie", appears shy and innocent. She is drugged and date rap'd by a pervy college student with whom she is forced to carrying on a secret affair, thereafter in a blackmail ploy. He wondered what she looked like "under all of those clothes". She wins! It was all a ploy to poison and kill this scumbag loser. One point for Professor Julie. Karen Black didn't even want to do it until Richard Burton
, who was her husband signed on as the pervy student.
Millecent and Therese, the twins who were really the multiple personalities of one women were classic. The saucy blonde, Therese, used witchcraft against Millicent, the dowdy Debbie Downer and of course ends up screwing herself over, because, NEWS FLASH, she's both of them. Its very clever if you haven't seen it. I suggest it!!! Watch it free below!
