In a seemingly normal upper middle class suburban home, Betty (Debbie Harry) is revealed to be a witch holding Timmy (Matthew Lawrence) prisoner. She's preparing to cook him for her dinner party. He tells her three stories from "Tales from the Darkside" to hold off the inevitable. In the first tale, Andy (Christian Slater) is a friend to the underhanded arrogant rich college guy Lee. Lee is using Andy's sister Susan (Julianne Moore) to do his work and steal a scholarship from Edward Bellingham (Steve Buscemi). Edward has purchased Lot 249 which is a mummy he's looking to resell. A hidden parchment helps him take revenge. The first part is solid. The horror could be done scarier and more gruesome. It does have Slater going against Buscemi. It's solid work.

The second story is less compelling. It's a story told by Timmy about an old guy who tells stories. The best thing about the second story is William Hickey but that's about it. A cat is not scary (at least not here) and it's flat. It tries to be funny and fails. The third tale is a great short story. As a cinematic endeavor, it suffers from a flat middle. James Remar plays an artist who is forced to keep quiet about his encounter with a gargoyle. The gargoyle animatronics is not the best. It looks fake which keeps it from being scary. The surprise twist is great but the story needs more tension in the middle. In total, the movie is an up and down affair.

Little Timmy (Matthew Lawrence) is arrested in the kitchen of Betty (Deborah Harry) that is preparing a dinner party for eight guests where Timmy is the main dish. Timmy tells three horror stories to buy time and try to escape:

"Lot 249" – The riches Andy (Christian Slater) and his best friend Lee (Robert Sedgwick) use Andy's sister Susan (Julianne Moore) to trick the nerd Bellingham (Steve Buscemi) and get his place in the university. Bellingham brings a Mummy (Michael Deak) to his room and uses a scroll to revive him and to take revenge against Lee and Susan and later against Andy.

"Cat from Hell" – The millionaire Drogan (William Hickey) hires the hit- man Halston (David Johansen) to kill a cat that has murdered the three other people that lived with him in his mansion. But soon Halston learns that the cat is from hell.

"Lover's Vow" – The washed up artist Preston (James Remar) goes to the bar of his friend Jer to meet his agent Wyatt (Robert Klein) that tells him that does not want to be his agent anymore. Preston drinks booze until Jer closes the bar and they walk through a dark alley. Out of the blue, Jer is attacked and decapitated by a gargoyle and when Preston is going to be attacked, he promises to the gargoyle that he will never tell what has happened that night in the alley. The gargoyle flies away and when Preston is walking back home, he sees a woman, Carola (Rae Dawn Chong), near to the place where Jer was murdered. Preston invites Carola to go to his flat to call a cab and they begin a romance. Ten years later, they are happily married with two children and Preston decides to disclose his secret to his wife with tragic consequences for his family and him.

"Tales from the Darkside: The Movie" follows the format of "Creepshow", with a wraparound story and three segments. The wraparound story is funny with the fate of Timmy. "Lot 249" and "Cat from Hell" are good segments with the debut of Julianne Moore in a feature. But the unforgettable and heartbreaking "Lover's Vow" is among the best horror stories that I have ever seen with the surprising conclusion. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Contos da Escuridão" ("Tales from the Darkside")

A lamentable attempt at resurrecting the flailing bandwagon of horror anthologies, this arrived on the tail end of such '80s "classics" as CREEPSHOW and CAT'S EYE. The first story is an incredibly clichéd tale about a mummy that kills people (like we haven't heard that before). The film is supposedly based on a tale by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but, having read the tale in question, I'm afraid that it's a long way away from the Victorian story. However although the story is rather clichéd there are a couple of enjoyable performances from Christian Slater, in his typical "nice but slightly deranged" role and Steve Buscemi as the spooky student. Also there are a couple of neat death sequences where a man has a coat hanger shoved up his nose and his brain pulled out, and another sequence where Julianne Moore (to make up for her atrocious acting in THE LOST WORLD) gets cut open and flowers stuffed inside her body! In the end though we've seen this kind of thing before so it doesn't hold too many chills.

The second story is much the same. The plot is atrocious - a lame story about a cat killing people (anyone remember THE UNCANNY? I thought not). Although the plot is atrocious, the final ten minutes of the episode are quite entertaining with the hit man battling the cat. The various weapons he uses - knife, lethal injection, and finally pistol all fail to kill the cat which appears to have teleportation skills! Unfortunately the PREDATOR rip-off "cat vision" is rather less impressive. However this battle finally climaxes in an excellent sequence where a cat climbs into the hit man's open mouth and into his stomach! This effect is truly 'stomach churning', blood everywhere, an excellent spectacle which pretty much makes the episode. However apart from this there isn't much to hold your attention apart from a few supposedly atmospheric 'man running about in darkened rooms' scenes.

The third story is quite old-fashioned in the way that all of the loose ends are tied up and it all comes across as rather fitting. The acting is adequate but the episode benefits from some good special effects in the form of the demon, especially when Rae Dawn Chong herself turns into it at the end. This episode is the best as it aims for something more than the tepid chills of the previous efforts - it's a tragic love story. That said, it's still strictly pedestrian in its structure.

The wraparound story too is very average about the witch and the boy. Really there is nothing to get excited about with this film and I was left pretty disappointed. It's good enough on a merely "moving wallpaper" scale, in that it holds your attention, but afterwards there is nothing to consider, it says nothing, it just tries to be clever and isn't. On reflection all of the stories are filmed in the dark which gets quite annoying. There is nothing which lifts this film above average, which is a shame. Consider this a missed opportunity.