Tales from the Darkside S02E19&20 (The Last Car - A Choice of Dreams)

Well wait. Say Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the horror anthology podcast, where this season we're taking a look at George Romero's nineteen eighties series Tales from the Dark Side, hold on George A. Romero's nineteen eighty series Tails from the Dark sign sharing the Midnight view with me. Are the projection booths, Mike White, you got. A last Car?

That's all the lyrics have come up with so far. That'll do it? And the culture cast Chris Stashue. Abe Vagoda. Last time I checked is in fact dead.

No help me, Help me. I've been tortured forever. Barney, Barney, won't you? Can you hear me? That's what I wanted his brain to say.

Tonight we are taking a look at two episodes from season two. They are The Last Car and The Choice of Dream. The Last Car Season two episode nineteen originally aired on February the twenty third, nineteen eighty six. This one was written by Mike McDowell, directed by John Strissik, and starring in Begonia Plaza, Mary Carver, Lewis Guss, and Scooter Fucking Stevens as an annoying child who won an award for his performance here. This is a story of college students.

Stacey. She boards a train on her way home to things to get four Thanksgiving. There, she finds herself confined in a car with three other passengers, and none of them like tunnels. Wid you think of this one, Mike? At first I was pretty darn bored with this episode, and then I actually went back and rewatched it.

I think I like this one. I think I like this one quite a bit. Actually, it doesn't really have a whole lot of explanation, and I don't think it really needs it. I think it just tells this odd story. You figure stuff out as you go along.

Again, it's not super definitive. But yeah, I figure she's dead and on this train forever. So I was pretty okay with it. What do you think, Chris, What. The fuck was going on?

What the fuck was happening in this episode? I get what was. Happening, but what what? Just on a train? And then and then okay, she's on a train and the train is traveling down the tracks.

Maybe oh no, maybe no, no, maybe about it. It's on the tracks, okay. Trains, the tracks, train traveling on the tracks. Cars, people go in the cars, cars, train cars go on the tracks, cars, train cars go down the tracks, train cars. Go into tunnel.

Tunnel scares people. That's where you lose me, and then people become skeletons at the end, where you've also lost me. So I'm I enjoyed. It for how bizarre it was and for how little it thought it needed to explain itself. I appreciate that.

I feel like it's just and fuck you audience. This is why Landlines kill People, just because it reminded me of the and this is why Landlines Kill People episode, probably because it was written by Michael McDowell. Yeah, this is actually a pretty beloved episode of Telsmith Dark Side by the fans of the show, including myself. I saw on this one when it first aired. I was thirteen at the time.

I was not a fan of the effects on display here our final shot to reveal that our characters are all dead when they're all skeletons there at the end. Given what Tom Savini has brought to this show, given what Ed French is brought to this show, given to what any of the other makeup artists have brought to this show, was absolutely fucking unacceptable to have that final shot But having said that, I love the rest of it. I love that. I have no idea what's going on. Is this some pocket dimension they've fallen into.

Did she just get on the wrong car and now she's traveling some railway through hell? Or is it some railway through some darkened universe. I don't know. I don't care. I just know you don't want to go into the tunnel because the tunnel not only scares people, make it like makes them catatonic, like they're somehow being actually punished, as if the punishment of being trapped in a train car with three other fucking humans isn't punishment enough.

Especially a child. Yeah, it reminded me of the Hey Got a Light from beetle uice, the Hey got a light guy in the fucking waiting room of uhget. Cut down myself. That's what it reminded me of, broadly, the apple, the shrunken apple faces as they would trying to think. Yeah, just I like the concept of the episode.

If the intent is there is no explanation and it's just shit's just happening. Perfect. If that's the intention, perfect, then I like yourself. Father Malone enjoyed the episode. I was just wondering I miss something.

That's what I was getting at. If I miss nothing, then you know what sucks to suck. I got on the wrong train, and sometimes you wander into a pocket dimension where you die. I don't know, probably happens to a lot of people. Hasn't happened to me, but the people that it happens to, people just disappear all the time, and people literally go missing all the time.

Here's an explanation there. Just on this train car to nowhere. Question mark. It's never even said if the train car actually stopped. Well, it does because I don't think they picked her up, so they will potentially pick up others theoretically.

Again, by then, you're so beaten down by the train that you're not even going to attempt to leave. You're just accepting that you're on that car. Can I just say that One of the reasons that's resonated for me so heavily as a child and continues to these days, that I spent a lot of time riding on subway cars, and there's something inherently creepy about trains, particularly ones that run underground or even commuter rails like above. Once you get into an area where there are no more lights, it becomes a freaky twilight zone experience, and I think they capture that a lot here. I don't think it's directed as well as it could be.

The set is clearly a set. I don't know why they just didn't go fucking rent a train car. It's one location. All they need to do is flash some lights occasionally through the windows. Overall, like the tone of this one like really hit some It feels this feels like it just a really like a great short story, just an impression of horror as opposed to a plot or a structure that sort of delivers some sort of deeper meaning.

You're right, it would work better. I think it would work even better as like a story, like a literary story, where you don't have to have this. Kind of hokey ending where it's like, don't know. Like it's hamstrung by the visuals. Yeah, one hundred.

It's like the I'm probably gonna misquote the title, but the Yellow Wallpaper, you know what I'm talking about. It'd be like, I don't think that that would really work adapted wise into a thing, But I think as a literary piece of a literary work, it nails everything that you need. But the moment you like it's the thing like No Country for Old Men. The ending of. That book works perfectly on the page, Tommy Lee Jones staring at the camera and reciting a monologue not so much.

And that's the same thing here. I wish I didn't have to watch this episode, that I could just read the short story that it's not based on. But the script that Michael McDowell written obviously wrote. I really Lewis Guss. I was very glad to see him show up in this and his magical lunchbox where no matter what you asked for, he had it in there, which I thought was cool.

That was the moment where I was like, Okay, yeah, whatever you ask for, he's going to have in there, and so I guess that's a good thing. Probably one of my favorite heads of the Five Families from The Godfather, that whole selling drugs to the colors. They have no soul anyway, I'm like, okay, yeah, we dig that guy. Hey, we got this annoying kid running around. He changed his outfits from cowboy to army man all the time.

Was that did that? So I was trying to figure out did that have any bearing on anything. Yeah, it's the wishings like that that lunch box, like he can wear whatever he wants to wear. And as far as the old woman, I don't know what her thing is other than maybe infinite wool? Can I also mention here and this is just as someone who is a consumer and enjoyer of it.

One does not eat hummus with the spoon. Hey, you eat your hummus you're away. No, no, you do not eat humus with the spoon. I don't need spoonfuls of hummus? What is this?

I'm not I know. I liked her. She was like, you know, crushed up chickpeas and he just hands with this cup and I was like, boy, the eighties were such a pastoral time when people had no idea what hummus was this? Yes is hummus? Sure?

You know sushi was pretty weird back then. I mean, hey, you know the raw fish, as they say in Zodiac, have you ever tried fish sushi? You know the urchin the urchin. Speaking of the breakfast club there with that mom or jud now was like sushi? What the fuck is the speaking of.

John Hughes movies? Maybe I'll cut this into the other thing. But I listened recently to an interview with Paul Dooley who was saying he was offered sixteen camp straight out, and he was told by his agent, they it's a go, and they met your quote. And he read the script and said, I don't care. I don't like this, don't I don't want to do it.

Tell them my quote, they said, and they came back and said, okay, they double they'll meet that. He went, okay, well triple it. Get to the number where they understand that I don't want to do this movie, and they came back with some ridiculous number and he was like, okay, fine, I'll just fucking do it. And what made me laugh is to think that he read that script and thought, they can't pay me. They you can triple the amount I think I'm worth as an actor, and I will not do this thing, but I still will do this Tail from the dark Side.

How bad was that first draft of sixteen Candles? Even more racist, more rape you know? Yeah? Yeah, long duck Dong was probably played by is that sixteen Candles right? Yeah?

He was probably just played by Mickey Rooney. Straight from his straight from his appearance as an Italian and night Gallery. Oh oh God, anything else about this? One chance? All right?

Our next episode is a choice of dream Season two, episode twenty, aired originally on February sixteenth, nineteen eighty six. That's not Correct aired originally on March first, nineteen eighty six. Written by James Houghton from a story by Edward F. Shaver. Interestingly, James Houghton is the son of Buck Houghton, the original producer for The Twilight.

Directed by Gerald Katz, this one stars Abe Lagoda, David Chandler, and Uncle June dominic Ke, and a is a. Ernest Dickerson's the DP on this one. This is the story of a brink of death mob boss Correlli. He's offered a chance cheating death through science. They keep your brain alive and keep your peaceful dreams, your dreams peaceful forever.

But then again, this is Tales from the dark Side. Would you think Chris. Connelingus and psychiatry brought us to this? That's what I can think of. Anytime you get a Pagoda and then Dominant Keynes, it's we got the Godfather, we got the Sopranos, we got Barney Miller.

Yeah, I think this episode like so many other of these. Was it Joe Albertson? Is that his name? Jack Albertson. This reminded me of that episode with Bobby Darren where it's I'm gonna come and do the thing and get away for good and nobody will ever be able to punish me, and it's hey, fuck, oh, that's not how this works, and.

You'll get your just desserts. You may not realize it, but someone's gonna long con you. And this is one of those long con episodes. We have the initial guy who says what everybody wishes they could say to a mob's you have fun in hell asshole, and then we get the other guy, who is much more disarming but is effectively doing the same things. Have fun in hell asshole.

I'm just not gonna make it obvious. I love the setup. I love a vagoda. A Vagoda's great. He's being particularly nasty and mean here, which I appreciate.

I don't think it's the most original idea though. That's probably the big thing I would hold again. I feel like we, like I said, we've seen this before, but the performances are solid and getting to see all the actors that we've already mentioned and fan girled over. I think is reason enough to check out the episode. How about you, Mike, Yeah, I remember this episode when it was the protective suit that would keep you alive forever, and that was the punishment for the guy who had too much money.

Yeah, so I'm sensing a theme here. When you have too much money, or you're just corrupt, or you have too much power, somebody's going to come in and sell you something to protect you or fulfill your dreams in some sort of way. Yeah, it's so trophy. But you know, to your point, the actors in this are pretty Darren high caliber. It's weird how dismissive the doctor is also with the other guy who is the Michaelson, the guy with the card that comes in to sell him the stuff, because he's just as mean as the doctor is.

But yeah, I wish I would have seen a little bit more of the torture stuff and some of the bad dreams that he has that are coming up, and the whole thing with the cop who is beating him. That was right, the dominic Chan is playing Oh no, he's playing the father. Yeah. Yeah, at first I thought he was playing the cop that beat him and stuff. But yeah, it's like it felt like there should have been one more aspect to those dreams, so it'd be like, maybe the cop shows up in the dreams, and then there's the ex wife and then there's the father.

Just everybody's on his ass. Yeah, as far as we're going to torch you forever type of episode, I thought this one was pretty good. Agreed. I really liked this one mainly because of what y'all said, which is got to got to here and just playing everything so naturally everyone is so good across the board. I do agree.

I think this episode had it begun with one of those nightmares fully played out there, you go give us the stakes right at the beginning, because that's what we're getting right at the end. I think that could have been good. I liked the little moments in between, the little human character moments. He's been diagnosed with cancer and they're looking for this guy with the card and somebody brings him a big stack of mail and he's forget the mail, What are you doing right now? It reminded me of Dennis Farina in Midnight Run Sydney.

Calm yourself, Go sit down, have a fucking sandwich, just do something little common moments like that. And then this is we see a lot of Deal with the Devil episodes, and I maintain that those can always be innovated, no matter how many times you want to tell us that story. The rich old Prick story is running out of steam and rich old Prick no matter what you dress it up as. Because we've seen the mob boss story. We saw twice.

We just mentioned them on Night Gallery. We had a Mickey Rooney and we had a Bobby Darren. So that I'm glad that's going away, particularly the old school, but they were all dying off at time anyway, although I miss a character collapsing and saying, don't just stand there, get me a bottle of scotch. Good people yelling that. I do think that I don't know.

I love this ending when I was a kid. I don't necessarily need to hear that guy say welcome to hell. Att you know, nail meat head. Yeah, it's yeah, pretty obvious, what's going on here? Yeah?

And then that last oh no kind of time, Yeah, all right, I've seen this before. Is Hey, how come you never plugged me? I thought that was a nice casual conversation. That relationship between those two guys was really great. And the other thing about this sort of rich old prick thing is we can like those characters and maybe want them to get away with this, but what we have here is him killing his best friend like after in a really tender moment that it really primed the pump for that fucking ending.

I wish they had slewed us in earlier to ram home how horrible it is going to be for him for eternity to experience those dreams, because he fucking deserves it more than most villains we've seen. He's a He's a real sack. A shitt is a real sackish. I like that they paint him. I wouldn't say broadly evil.

He's painted very specifically evil, and he does a lot of specifically evil things that I feel like the show is held back on. He just shoots a guy point blank in the head. Oh yeah, just like Murders and dude, he's you get to be the boss now bang. Going out at the top, dickhead, Like. Wow, this is where's where you've been holding back tails in the dark side last couple episodes.

This is what I wanted I wanted, God, what was the guy from Ghostbusters? Who's your friend with the dry nose? The guy getting murdered by the teddy Bear. I wanted more, give me that tails from the dark Side, give me a Bagota shooting a guy point blank and then having his brain ripped out and just thrown in a jar. Yeah, and if you need to take a break, give us the last car.

Don't give us the fucking Little Girl replacement episode. Yeah exactly. Yeah. Not everything needs to have the characters fucking torn apart in the last sort of scene or banished to hell, but they don'e thiscessarily need to be insulting from beginning to end. I'm not saying this one is in any way insulting.

I like this one a lot. I recommend this one's out of hand, but not as good as we've been getting this season in proving. Yeah, I will agree with that as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, i'd I'd be inclined to agree. I'd inclined to agree.

I think this season's had more downs than I wouldn't say more downs than ups, but it's had more downs than. I was expecting from how consistent this show is. I think we're I think we're banning a thousand? Is that something? Wow?

That means we hit every single ball right home? Huh, And that's not what I meant. I don't know baseball all right. On the next episode of Midnight, we're gonna be taking them back at the next two episodes from season two. Those are Strange Love and The Unhappy Medium.

Midnight Viewing is a proud member of a weirding Way Media group. Our theme song was composed by HP with an assist by Donald Rubinstein. Until next time? What are you working on? Where can people find it?

Chris Daeshu. You can find everything that I work on over at weirding Way. Meet The show and all the other things I work on can be found other than the show ranking on bond, which can be found at mine and Mike's respective patreons Patreon dot com slash Culturecast or patreon dot com slash Projection Booth, but more importantly, support Father Malone's patreon over at patreon dot com slash Father Malone. How about you, Mike? What this one time?

Kay? This one time you can ask me about my business and I would tell you that everything that I do can be found over at Readingwaymedia. Dot com other than that exception that Chris already talked about. And speaking of Patreon, why don't you go on over to Father Malone's Patreon, which helps support this show, helps make everything go. Father Malone is possibly working harder than I am because he puts out more shows than I do.

He's working harder than both of us. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, you know what, Yeah, they're very generous. If you do go to the Patreon, you get episodes early in commercial, free and bonus content, and if money's tight, you can do us a solid by just giving us a five star war view, subscribing, liking, sharing, telling somebody else to listen. Thanks for joining us here at midnight viewing until next time.

Try to enjoy the daylight. I don't know. I wanted to scare them there