From MadCap's Couch - Tales from the Darkside: "The Cutty Black Sow"

"Don't...forget...to drink...your Ovaltine..."

So...here we are. Halloween. This entire month, all of Horror Month 2017, has been building to this moment. If I could be permitted to stroke my own ego a bit here (and I will, it is my blog), I think I've saved the very best for very last. "The Cutty Black Sow", besides having an incredibly silly name, is considered by many fans to be the absolute scariest episode of Tales from the Darkside. But is it?

Portrait of a family, their great-grandmother on Death's Door. She asks for the day and, when told it is the 30th of October, she becomes hysterical and proclaims she's going to die on Halloween. Her great grandson, Jamie, awakens in the night and hears her speaking of the monster known as the Cutty Black Sow, a monster who comes on Halloween night to take the souls of a family...unless a certain ritual is performed to shield each member of the family.

...the ritual of which, Granny is very much able to give detailed exposition about despite having a foot in the grave. Convenient!

From MadCap's Couch - Tales from the Darkside: "The Circus"

"Hey, who turned on the lights?!"

Who doesn't love the circus? The jugglers...the elephants...the lion tamer...the traipse artists...the peanuts which are nothing like those disgusting orange abominations that candy corporations try to pass off and are infinitely better than. It's all part of the magic of them.

You might have realized I didn't mention clowns.

Yeah, no. There's no wonder about clowns. Unless it's "I wonder how far this clown will go if we tie him to a rocket and fire it off". There are no clowns in this circus, thankfully. After all, we're here for the scares...but we (and I mean, by that, me) are only willing to go so far here at the Mouth of the Munchkin.

From MadCap's Couch - Tales from the Darkside: "Ursa Minor"

Teddy Ruxpin strikes again!

Portrait of a family, a young couple -Richard and Joan - and their daughter, Susie, living in a happy home...or trying to, at least. Richard's got some problems with drinking and smoking, as well as a bum leg, and Joan is doing her best to make ends meet, working on her masters' degree and trying to make a better life for their daughter.

But there are good moments. Right now, it seems that Richard has gotten her a teddy bear for her birthday...although he doesn't recall giving her the gift in question. As time goes on, strange occurrences take place around Susie. A shattered flowerpot here...some very bear-like pawprints on the wall there...all of which Susie attributes to her teddy bear. At first to Joan's irritation...

Richard, of course, tells her not to worry. It's just a phase that little girls go through, and Susie will soon grow out of it. Nevertheless, he consents to trying to dissuade her from that train of thought with a bear rug. After an argument with Richard and going to bed later in the night (following a waltz into Susie's room where Joan just misses the bear's eyes glowing blood red), Joan wakes up to find Susie in the kitchen...with Teddy, and a bowl of split porridge, and begins to believe that there may indeed be something to her stories about the bear.

After all, Susie couldn't have made porridge on her own...

From MadCap's Couch - "Tales from the Darkside: Anniversary Dinner"

Tales from the Darkside is a lot like other anthology shows like The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits...in that it's an anthology show that uses horror or science fiction elements to tell a story. While most do have a horror edge, they don't really go for masquerading as a morality play like the previously mentioned shows. Sometimes...most of the time, really...Tales would use those elements and tell you a story that was, quite frankly, just plain fucked up.

"Anniversary Dinner" is definitely an episode that is just that in a nutshell. However, it's even more chilling in the fact that it has no supernatural or science fiction elements whatsoever. It's a story that is so grounded in reality that it could be happening in your neck of the woods...or just down a few old country back roads.

From MadCap's Couch - Tales from the Darkside: "Trick Or Treat"

Once upon a time, there was a movie called Creepshow. You might remember it as a horror anthology film in the vein of Tales from the Crypt and other 1950s horror comics. It was a hoot! And take a wild guess who produced it.

Go on, guess!

...Google's cheating, you know.

But yes, it's George Romero. Yes, that George Romero - may he rest in peace. Apparently, some Hollywood types wanted to make a series based on the concept, kind of following in the vein of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. However, because Warner Brothers owned enough of Creepshow for that to not be used, the producers decided to change the title of the series to Tales from the Darkside.

The series ran for four seasons from 1984 to 1988, with a Pilot movie airing in 1983...which is the one we're here to talk about.

"Just try and leave a flaming bag of crap on my doorstep, assholes!"

"Trick or Treat" is the pilot for Tales from the Darkside...and it's pretty good. Very flawed and not making any sense when you really stop and think about it, but it's a spooky little tale that would set the tone of the series...which it often didn't follow. Ironically, despite having a very atmospheric and somewhat chilling title sequence, and being executive produced by George Romero, Tales also did science fiction, comedy, and even a few romance episodes.

But horror is what we're here to talk about, and "Trick or Treat" is definitely a good one. It's the tale of an old man by the name of Gideon Hackles (Bernard Hughes). He is rude, callous, and more worried about his numbers and books than people and souls...even his own. He's the model of a miser to make Ebeneezer Scrooge before his fateful Christmas night look absolutely saintly by comparison.