Tails From the Darkside

Why stop at one horror anthology aimed at the animals in our lives when you can have one good one and then one also-ran one aping the good one?

Three more hair- and fur-raising stories await this Halloween, all loosely adapted from the 1990 original human-starring film. Instead of Christian Slater getting his brains scooped out by an ancient Egyptian mummy we have a service dog who gets his owned turned around at the Natural History Museum. Unbeknownst to his owner Slappy the Shephard is secretly the reincarnation of Anubis, and what seems like a wrong turn into the Egyptian Wing near closing time is really just an excuse to liberate Slappy’s current owner’s organs into some sweet, sweet Canopic jars.

Next we have the Poe adaptation The Black Cat, essentially a point-of-view swapped version of the original segment from 1990. Instead of Buster Poindexter stumbling around a deserted house we inhabit the cat as he stalks his prey and eventually makes his way inside David Johansen’s GI tract before exploding out of his mouth in the last shot. Filmed in Bowel-o-Vision!

Lastly is the retelling of The Gargoyle. In the original bit a scruffy urban artist played by Michael Wincott’s doppelgänger sees a gargoyle in an alley then ends up marrying and procreating with her because she looks like Rae Dawn Chong. Then years later she kills him. As we pick up in this version the gargoyle is on her fifth murder/divorce in as many years and decides to leave human relationships behind, instead shacking up with a chimp named Gordie. All is well until Gordie starts slinging some poo 18 months into their cohabitation; and the gargoyle regretfully goes to kill him as well, only to find that chimpanzees don’t go down as easily as puny humans do. 

With 2.5 weeks left until Halloween will another pitcher pick up the thread and give us Tails From the Hood??? Stay tuned…