Review for Tales From The Darkside: Season 3 Box Set (4 Discs)

In many ways, horror and thriller compendium series make the finest DVD releases. I have sets that include Night Gallery, Thriller (both the Karloff 1950's US series and the Brian Clemens 1970's UK Series, totally unrelated other than genre), Tales from the Unexpected, Armchair Thriller , The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits as well as movies like Creepshow, Tales from the Crypt, Twice-Told Tales and others - and one quality they all share is their endless re-watchability. Despite the cheesy eighties low budget look and feel to 'Tales from the Darkside' it certainly fits the tradition, and whilst wildly variable, occasionally delivers a real gem.


The series grew out of George A. Romero's 'Creepshow' movie and its title, like Creepshow, tried to get as close to an EC comic title as it could without breaking copyright - in this case with 'Crypt' becoming 'the Darkside'.


Running at a mere 24 minutes an episode, leaving a generous 6 minutes for commercials for a 30 minute air-slot, they're wonderfully 'bite-size', making them a perfect length for in-between other DVD snacks. The series delivered twenty plus episodes in series 1 and 2 and, showing no let-up in creativity, delivers another fine series in its third season.


Despite the obvious low-to-no budget attributed to most episodes (you rarely see more than three actors per episode; it's shot on a mix of nasty NTSC video and 16mm; sets are often limited to a single room) necessity clearly became the mother of invention and some wildly imaginative stories are included. Across the 22 episodes is the usual mix of monster creepiness, black humour, twisted endings and leaps of twisted imagination.


With so many episodes to choose from, highlights of the season for me are: 'I Can't Help Saying Goodbye', an absolute master-class in budget minimalism where a creepy child seems to predict untimely death and signals this by insisting on saying 'goodbye' to the victim minutes prior to their death; 'The Geezenstacks' with its genuinely spooky dolls; 'My Ghostwriter - The Vampire' delivers pure camp whilst exploring the process of creative writing; and 'The Enormous Radio' in a very Twilight-Zone-esque episode where a couple discover they can eavesdrop on neighbours via a large radio. Great fun!


The image quality, in original full-screen 1.33:1 thankfully, is sadly pretty poor, possibly slightly worse than previous seasons on one or two episodes. It's very grainy at times and when captions are displayed at either end of a show these can look horribly pixelated on a large TV. This is perhaps best watched on a portable or laptop. It doesn't really translate well to the 40" + plasma or LCD.


Fans of the series will wallow in the nostalgic bliss it will inevitably provide of course, though others will find the series modestly enjoyable too with lots of pleasant surprises on the way, plenty of dark humour and very little repetition. For fans of the genre, along with previous seasons, an essential purchase.