Tales From the Darkside: Volume Four

Video Sewer will now make the vain attempt to set a convivial, conversational (if you will) tone, making the reader hope naively that we are here to stay. We ask you: “Where de advertising money, baby? Where the love?”

I can’t waste this much time every week for you, dear reader. What the hell you think I am?

So we rented a video cassette this week; older readers will remember video cassettes. It was Volume Four of Tales From the Darkside, on Thriller Video.

Tales From the Darkside was a weekly horror serial, a half-hour chill fest shown late nights on 'local TV.' Actually it wasn’t scary at all, except for its ominous title theme and cheesy video-era effects.

Remember solarization?

Volume Four is a quaint affair too; three 23-minute episodes crammed onto one grotty tape, with previews for volumes one through three at the end. At that rate it takes seven cassettes to cover just the first season.

But I ramble: episode one on the cassette is The New Man featuring Vic Tayback as a recovering-alcoholic salesman. Mel ... er Tayback as Alan Coombs struggles when his boss offers him a congratulatory drink. But instead of immediately succumbing to the bottle, Coombs keeps his wits. Too bad, because suddlenly some little brat from a Tang advertisement rushes in, claiming to be his son. Then all hope of any low-rent unease finally goes down the drain as the soon-to-be-standard completely-implausible-and-senseless suprise twist sends you off to bed with a smile.

Uh-oh, we’re nearing the halfway-point of Volume Four as Bud Cort and Carole Kane star in Snip, Snip, an absolutely 'horrifying' (goofy and not the least bit scary) account of an occult-dabbling math teacher who mixes it up with a hair-dresser when his Satan-picked lotto numbers miss the mark. Cort’s performance proves why he has had a hard time topping Harold and Maude. It’s not that he can’t act, it’s just that he seems to actually be a psychotic nebbish. Meanwhile Kane is just totally hot.

You heard me.

Another dumb-ass ending lands this firmly in the Darkside.

Finally Lou (distractingly-familiar) Jacobi stars in the bone-headedly obvious Pain Killer as a long-suffering whiny husband who learns his back pain might be caused by his harridan of a wife. What else would you do but consult the doctor (whom you saw floating around outside your window) to try a contoversial cure. Maybe the end of this one isn’t solidly stupid, but one still wonders what in hell is the point?

These little trips down the Sewer’s memory-hole are fun aren’t they?

(The Editors would like to apologise to Mr. Cort)