Tales from the Darkside S03E11&12 (Seasons of Belief, Miss May Dusa)

Wait, wait. Said, Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the Horror anthology podcast, where this season we're taking a look at George A. Romero's nineteen eighties series Tales from the Dark Side sharing the Midnight view with me. Are the culture casts, Chris Statue. Those lights are Twinkling Clark.

And the projection booths Mike White, beware the zither. Oh wait tonight, we are taking a look at two episodes from season three. Those are Seasons of Belief and or Season of Belief and Miss may Dousa Seasons. That was correct the first time. Seasons of Belief is season three, episode eleven, originally aired on December twenty ninth, nineteen eighty six.

That's right, four days after Christmas. Written by Michael McDowell from a short story by Michael Bishop and directed by Michael McDowell, starring E. G. Marshall, Margaret klink Skybirdal and Jenna van Oy. You know six from Blossom.

This is a twisted tale of Chris that you weren't really getting on television in those days. You know what, guys, I'm going to take the lead on this one because this is, in fact my favorite episode of Tells from the Dark Side. Ah fuck yeah, all right that this is an acceptable one to be your favorite. This is a fucking insane episode. Of show, much like on Night Gallery, Big Surprise, the Richard Matheson, John Karen Deine, what the fuck is going on here?

Episode this? If my love of the series hadn't been cemented prior to this, what a crazy fucking thing to see on around Christmas time when I was thirteen years old. Now, it's hard to imagine in a world where every holiday is up for horror grabs. These days, there is nothing sacred that you can't do a horror movie about now, But there was a time where Christmas was still a sacred thing. I remember protests when Silent Night Deadly Night came out just because it was being advertised.

Oh man, if only people had known what they were getting and what people would end up remembering from that series. Garbaach Day has nothing to do with the holidays other than the day of the week nobody celebrates, which should be garbage Day. And prior to that, how many horror Christmas tales were there other than the tales from the Crypt adaptation and Black Christmas, the original Black Christmas. I think maybe one or two others. Mainly right, certainly nothing like we've received in the past twenty or so years, Certainly nothing on national television which just slipped right under the radar and gave us this which just on a level of malevolent parents.

This is a fucked up story to be telling your kids at Christmas, not to mention where it goes and this new mythology it creates. I know that everything in this episode is sloppy, none of it makes any real sense, and it's not helped by weird touches like e. G. Marshall and Margaret Klanks somehow being husband and wife. When he thank you, thank you, he's so old compared to her, and I'm thinking father and daughter.

And then when it was like, no, mom and dad, what. She's in older guys? He's older. Actually that's what we end up with. And we have to go there.

Literally do we have? I guess we have to. But really it's just grandpa, right. You would think in any in any other thing written by any other person nine times out of ten, Yeah. But it's Michael Widow, So it.

Was just dad the episode. He was born nineteen fourteen, she was born nineteen. That's because everybody knows that EG started standing for extra Gordo and they were talking about as fat dong because the idea of this. She's gorgeous and I'm not saying he's not a good looking guy, but he's the lights aren't twinkling, Clark. This is fucking post Christmas vacation, if not like the same year essentially where he's playing the grandpa what what?

So that makes Margaret Klank thirty three here, right, and they have children who are about what seven to eight, So when she was twenty two or twenty three is when they got together. Now, old beggar, he's providing for her. Guys what, I'm not judging anybody in their relationship. They're just waiting there. They're just waiting for who the hell to show off for the tales from the Crypt episode, because this also looks like the same house from that Christmas episode, but for Larry Drake to show up for Santa Claus.

She's a grampy shagger. Joef lover. Yes, okay, granddad. I oh, I'm not not going to judge. Their relationship, but I will say that it only adds to the like I said, the total bizarre quality of the episode, the fact that, okay, they these two are married.

Actually, you know what, it makes sense because she's fucking weird and he's on Christmas. No, it's hey, what do you want to do tonight? Let's completely twist our children's minds. Even if what they're talking about ends up just being a fable, they're telling their kids. Those children are fucked for the rest of Christmases from this story that they told them.

Just the fact that her brother shows up in a fucking basically a gilly suit, convincing them that the grither did to show up that would It's bad. Okay, Okay, Now I'm pointing out the things that are bad in the episode because I want you guys to know that they do recognize them. Even though I'm even I adore this one. I just want you to know I was literally not going to drag this episode at all. I want to know this just ahead of time.

Now, because here's the thing. I watch it every year, and every year I see all of these things and my heart still glows while watching it. The other thing in the episode. Recently, I was over on a year in Horror podcast. We're discussing pet cemetery.

The the eighty nine version. I'm glad you had to qualify that. Unfortunately, now in this d age, are you talking about the prequel to the remake sequel movie that one. But my Bloodlines. No, we talked about that too, anyway, Ellie, the daughter in pet Cemetery is named Blaze Berdal, right, And when I was watching this episode, having just watched Pet Cemetery, watching the children's performances and the little girl in particular, I thought, wy, this girl's great.

Thank god, we don't have even the barest whiff of Blaze Birdll in her performance. But this boy is really fucking terrible, guy Burdal. Oh jeez, Oh, the talent doesn't run deep in the Berdal family. Huh uh. Brother, the line that I would have quoted, if I hadn't quoted Christmas vay case, you would have been Grether, Grether Grether, because that is all he says.

The Oh, it's oh, it's. Going to be so much of the little boy from Jurassic Park, where you just want to smack that. Kid Joseph Mazzarro. He Joseph that I feel bad for you saying that about Joseph Mazzarrow because this kid couldn't even hold Joseph Mazzarro's jack strap. This kid is terrible.

This kid is gratingly terrible. And it's not even the dialogue, it's just by the end of it, I'm like, I'm not sure I feel bad that your parents got murdered by this monster. Sorry, Oh, I'm glad they did. What a fucking ending. Okay, let's just yeah.

Like over on this same year, over on Twilight Zone eighty five, this is why Harlan Ellison quit the show because he tried to do a similarly horror themed episode called Knackles, which was a Christmas episode, and at the last second CBS Standards and Practices said, you can't have a horror episode for Christmas, and well, fuck it. I quit. Meanwhile, over on Dark Side, they're doing it right, where everything they've been lying to their children about is true, and this beast shows up and breaks their fucking necks and then just bails. What the fuck? It's pretty great.

Yes, it is those big fucking blue hands that just burst through the windows and come in and I guess crush their heads. Maybe maybe, Oh, it was disappointed. There was no gore. We got a little bit of gore from last episode. We couldn't have like a reverse shot of their head goo flying against the walls, like come on, Tails from the dark Side, Like you're gonna have these giant arms come through the window, but we're just gonna have them go the most pg D.

It's unfortunate. It's unfortunate. Ry No, are you kidding? We didn't need any blood here, Yeah. We did, because it's then it would be the juxtaposition of the red of Christmas time of the blood.

The arms were translucent with red veins and blue veins running through. We had plenty of red there, and they were what their arms as long as pomplers and hands as big as basketballs, And that's exactly what we got. I'm not disagreeing with any of that. I just wanted more gore for a show that, in what two episodes ago, had chunks of a guy on on the shower floor. This is relatively bloodless father alone, you know, absolutely Yeah.

Other than that, it's other than that, This episode is fantastic. I enjoyed this episode immensely. It's everything I wanted from that Tails from the crypt Christmas episode, because I dislike that Tails from the Ripped Christmas episode. I think when we did that, we talked about I'm not a huge fan of it, but this is hilarious. This is funny.

This might be the most mean spirited, funniest episode of this show. It's so fucking mean. But by the end of it, I'm like, all right, no, I totally believe that this family's just like they just got murdered because they were being morons. It's because they had a made a somber relationship and God frowns upon that. The grither, the girther in the Grither is God, the girther is someone very different.

I watched this every Christmas Eve. Yeah, this will be part of my rotation. Now, what about you, Mike White. I didn't enjoy it as much as you guys did, but I enjoy hearing you talk about it. Yeah, it just it went on for a long time.

I was surprised that this was full twenty two minutes or whatever, because it's just like, all right, but they managed to keep it up. There are a few times are is okay, this is laggy, but they kept up the whole time. And then yeah, I was really glad when the brother showed up because I thought that was a really nice little twist in there. But yeah, I was all right, you. Want to know what the creature reminded me of Father Malone?

Fucking Boglins, just the ar like the boglin arms just bust it because you never see the head. So you just see these two giant arms pop through the windows and grab their heads. And all I could think the whole time is there's just this boglin on the other side of the window, just a giant face, just that, like the face of the creature from Dune, from the David Lynch Dune, just sitting there just and then it flies and then it just flies away because Merry Christmas, motherfuckers. It flies away by ear power. Really, that's right, that's right, flaps its wings, it's ear wings.

Every time we deserve a sequel to this episode. I kind of agree with you, the grifther. You know what a feature link thing just to a whole feature link thing. Yeah, you know what, the we've done, the crampist thing. We've got it, we understand it.

Okay, cool, give me this grill. I love this idea. I just love the idea of a fucking creature that's so ill tempered that it doesn't want you saying it's name because it's that vain as well. Don't say my name? How dare you?

Yeah? I like it. I like the conceit of this creature. It's fun. And today, how about this a story you tell your children that has a ticking clock on it that depends on them and it only gets worse and Ratchet's up tension.

And I love that they actually for is not great of an actor as he is. I like that they put sky Birdall's terrible performance to good use because you're like, this kid just keeps saying the name. He's insight like in the in the crampst movie, correct me if I'm wrong or memory serves if either one of you have seen it, They don't incur Crampus's wrath intentionally, do they? This is this is the kid is like grither, grither, grither. Like this kid is like, yo, what are you doing shining lasers at airplanes?

Like okay, there's nothing wrong can happen here, Like the FBI shows up at your door the next day, Like this is going on YouTube and posting about Mexican cartels and then expected them to not show up and murder you. Like I just I don't backing a flashlight in the back of a jeep when a t Rex is looming over you. Right, exactly, it's candy man, right, it's beetlejuice. It's trafficking in those similar things. And I like, I like that about this, and I like that it's inexplicable too.

What this is the cold open of an episode of The X Files or a movie. This is the cold open of a movie where you introduce the audience to what the creature is and then the rest of the movie is finally getting to see what it looks like with those arms. Did I tell you my theory that if you took all of the prologs to all of the X Files episodes and just stitched them into one thing you would take it would make a fantastic movie called The End of the War? Oh pretty good. That's what this feels like.

The best episodes of this show feel like a self contained thing, and this feels like a perfectly self contained little thing. And Mike, I get not being as high on this because it does have its flaws, But at the same time, I don't know. I this is, like I said, everything I wanted from that tales from the crypt Christmas episode. So I really, I really, I really resonated with it and the monster's fun Ryther. You'll never forget it now and the song will be in your head forever as well.

All right, got the man? That might be the best part is when he shows up singing it like you guys are some fun man. Parents in the eighties were fucking wild. Oh yeah. Parents in the eighties didn't get Parents in the eighties and nineties were fucking insane.

We had a family friend who put on a mask while we were watching polter Geis and jumped out and scared the shit out of us. That scared me off of horror movies for almost twenty years. Like, man, they wouldn't do that now, you get in trouble. Cps would show up for shit like that now, Like people don't do that. You wouldn't show this on Sunday on national television.

Oh my god, come on, people be up in arms. They'd be up in arms about it. It's okay. I think they should present it as a Christmas special, and they should do it up, make it, make it really scary now and just present it like a new like a ranking on Bass special, A. New Christmas Classic from the People Who by.

Tally Madison and McDonald's you deserve a break Today. And stickers when You're hungry make it all Oh man, you just get me excited. The Grither Extended Universe, the GC GEU. That's what I want, all right. Our next episode is Miss may Dousa season three episode number twelve, aired originally on January the eighteenth, nineteen eighty seven, Written and directed by Richard Blackburn.

He co wrote and directed a flick in nineteen seventy one called Leamora, A Child of the Supernatural, and this one stars at Sophia land Geier and Gary Marja Razak. This is a mannequin switcheroo in a pawn shop thing that ends up being a little bit more Greek in origin. Did you think of this one, Mike? I like things that are Greek in origin, so dicky sauce euros. Yeah, there's some good stuff out there, feta cheese.

I'm not sure how to like this though. We were talking about hyperstylized stuff in the last episode that we discussed last couple weeks. Ago, and. Yeah, this one is also hyperstylized, but it's hyperstylized in that really minimalist thing that we've seen before, Remember the one where it was that I can't remember the actress's name who gets involved in the guy's fantasy and like they all end up in his dreams and things. It reminded me of that I didn't really understand the whole Logically, obviously, I understand that this is Medusa and they go to great trouble to point that out, and just the whole thing with the names and all that, I guess I just don't understand her hours and that, yeah, turning people into mannequins rather than stone statues, and then Jimmy James and that fucking song and just playing the fucking sex if I Yeah, I can't say I was too big of a fan of this one.

What'd you think, Chris? It definitely is up there in terms of the more fucked up endings of this show. I'll give it. Oh yeah, Jimmn. This episode is really we talked about the grither being mean spirited.

This is mean spirited and like almost I won't say inexcusable way, but by the end of him, like, do we really have to be this mean to the poor blind man who plays sex phone who happened to meet a Medusa mannequin who's alive, who's not Kim Katrol. It's a strange episode. Every time I look at Sophia Landengeyer, I think it's Kim Katrol. From the wrong angle or right angle, she almost looks like her. She does from when her head's turned three quarters.

She looks like her. I don't know. And again to go back to the mannequin of it all, it's a very sad, sappy, saccharin story that ends really sad and sappy and saccharin. It's fine. I don't know.

This doesn't strike me as tales from the dark Side. It almost reminds you of something from Twilight Zone eighty five. And that's maybe, and maybe that's the If you're hearing me say that, and you've never listened to us talk about that show, and you're not one of us who have sit here and know that the other two have watched all of it, that may not mean anything to you, So to explain what that means. The tone of the episode feels so strange and specifically eighties that it feels like it's set in a specific time and a place, and that takes away from a lot of what could be interesting, and then it feels so insanely set bound, and then everybody looks like they're in the eighties on top of everything else.

It's just I don't know. It's not the worst thing I've seen, but it doesn't feel like Tails from the Dark Side. And that's a pretty big knock against this show, because the show has a pretty high consistency rate in terms of good episodes. What about you fought him alone? My first note was, this is so mid eighties it hurts.

I agree with you, guys. It is very contemporary, both in the style that we're getting and the style of filmmaking going on here. This feels very New. York short film guy, right, it's a very specific style. I will say this again, though.

What the other sort of stylish episode you were speaking of was the John Harrison episode. And I was praising him because I like when a filmmaker jumps in with an eye toward telling a visual story. So I liked that here. I don't necessarily think he's telling a good story or a Tales from the Dark Side story, but it's better than the set bound bullshit. We've been getting.

They go on location here, In some of these shots they go into the subway, and that subway set I think is actually really fucking solidly built. This is this weird two hander though, get to know your goddess kind of thing. And yes, as an audience member, we're way ahead of everything. We already know she's a Medusa, so we don't have to have the spoon fed. It's a huge problem here because this is Tails from the dark Side, and we don't do characters sitting around talking unless there's some other fucking crazy cool shit going on.

This is a one act. I would expect this on stage at some blackout sketch kind of not kind of. It's Ben Grimm from The Fantastic four Old. The only woman who could love him is a woman who's blind. Okay, give me a fucking break in this one, it's practical.

She he has to be blind because it's Medusa. Okay, understood. And then it doesn't factor into the fucking end of the episode. He just gets shot and dies. No, he doesn't just get shot and die.

He he gets shot. He gets shot. She's now frozen, and he says, I don't want to die alone, and then says, are you okay? Are you dead too, Yeah, I'm dying. Please hold me.

This is a Tails from the Dark Side episode. That is the only part of this episode that I'm sorry dark that's enough. If you've limped through this episode and thought, I don't know what this is. This doesn't feel like Tell from the Dark Side of Me. This thing is a fucking sock in the jaw man.

I agree. Like I said, the ending of the episode bails it out, But it bails it out at the thirteenth hour, at the at the fuck ninety ninth yard line. This is like right at the last second, because it really goes for it. I don't understand why, though. You just described the most exciting ending for any piece.

Of fiction, But why does it go there? Why does it go. To this horrible place here at the end of it? I know, yeah, I don't get it. I don't get it.

I don't understand what the episode's getting at, because that's ultimately my question. The Dark Side is always waiting. Don't be blind? How dare you be blind? Is what this feels like.

You know what? Your being blind does not make you immune from the fucked up world of Tailston the Dark Set. Even Twilight's true, this file. Even the original Twilight Zone wouldn't go this file a far. Night Gallery would.

Have gone this far. Actually, you know if he would have begged at the end of a night Gallery though, No. It's the begging really that goes for it. Right, it's this poor blind guy rolling around crying for help the night as the Medusa's just sitting there. It's a pretty it's a pretty impactful ending in an episode that otherwise just kind of has two people sitting there the whole time, talking for twenty minutes.

At one point, she's describing what is clearly a like Pompeii exploding, the Vesuvius exploding, and it's such a stupid narve that it just sounded like the destruction of Aldronto. Me ha ha ha, Yeah, I kinda got those vibes. Yeah, they knew how to write the parts that mattered. The problem is those parts were just like long winded monologust of one character talking about like Rutger howering from Blade Runner. I have seen the moon drops on Orian, I have seen Vesuvius, the blast of Vesuvius from miles away.

Okay, it's just again, like you guys have both already mentioned, we're already so far ahead of her. We're like, no, shit, we don't have to be told that. We know that. Let's have them go out and about and do things, not have it go. This guy unlucky meets her.

Now he's dead. Now she's frozen again the end, and she's not even gonna know what happened to him? Or is she? Does she lose cognizance the moment she turns back to Stone. No, she'll remember, I think, because it's all she'll remember him.

But will she remember him getting shot and dying? Oh? See what I mean? Because that's like the whole thing, that's like the whole premise of the episode. Well, that's my point.

It's even worse because again, isn't the premise of the episode that she is just being frozen at certain times in history by seeing herself in the mirror or seeing her reflection somehow? Is that what it is? Is that's how you freeze the Medusa. I don't know. I didn't understand the rules that I didn't care.

But that, but that's the rules of the Medusa from from Greek pathology. Is they use the shield to reflect it back at her so that she turns to stone. Yeah, and so. Come on, we all know this, all. Right, Sam Worthington.

Oh sorry, So when she sees herself in the mirror, she freezes herself, So I assume the way they're talking about it, she loses consciousness the moment she freezes. So, yes, it is even worse because the next time she wakes up, she'll be like, where's that guy, and it'll be like we are selling dreams. Dreams are for sale, you know. And it's like the far flung future because she keeps talking about it how she's like tripping through time. Essentially, she's a time traveler in every way.

With the machine, she has a mechanism through which she travels through time. That's why we have these monologues about POMPEII and everything else. See. If that's the case, then no matter what ended up happening to him, she wasn't going to It was just going to be another person she experienced until she fucking saw herself in the mirror. Again.

Yeah, that's fine, and so on the impermanence of being, doesn't it. Yeah, a little bit heavy on Sunday Night off to school kids. But that should have been a better title for this episode than Miss May dousa. Yeah, the impermanence of being anything would be better than miss may do. So.

By the way, what is with this written and directed by credit for Richard Blackburn. That's a first on Teos and the Dark Side. Yeah, and I also think it'll be the last. Thanks rich I like him, especially the work that he did on Eating Raoul and yeah, Lamour I thought was pretty darn solid as well. I wish that he had been able to write and direct more, had more acting rules in writing directing stuff.

I think he was doing place after this because I spoke with him years and years ago for Eating Raoul. But nice guy, and yeah, I just wish this episode was a little bit better, expected more. Yeah, it's not the worst we've seen from the show. Love the fucking ending. Yeah, the ending is great.

The ending somewhat saves it as as best it can. Really, all right. I remember how many bad tales from the Crypt episodes endings ruin it not out, not just ruined the episode, but negated a good episode. I guess a good ending can help a bad episode. It's not a it's okay, it's okay.

It's not like a bad episode now, No, it's just it's. Honesty more than anything else. A boring episode is maybe the problem, and being boring or just uninteresting is the problem. Because the conceits interesting, they just don't do anything with it. They're like, let's just do a two man show, right, what you do if you could talk to a Greek goddess for five minutes?

Like it's an interesting concept. It's I like all these I like the actors involved. I actually even like the way it's shot. It's just that they don't have anything interesting to say for twenty two minutes. It should be somehow fast paced in a way, like even if they're sitting there at the fucking subway, have trains showing up and people getting on and off.

Give us something, not just a fucking stage play. Yeah, there have been a couple stage play episodes this season, the one with the vampires, that was one. I love that one again, It's just it was a stage play, right, It felt very much like a stage place. Yeah, none wrong with it this one. Yeah, the ending on this sort is just horrific.

Really, Jesus Jesus show calmed down. To jeez, don't let me die alone. Hold me. I don't want to die like somebody hold me God and I him questioning whether or not she was dead either was also just like heartbreaking, right. He's calling up for her?

Oh my God? All right. On the next episode of Midnight Viewing, we're taking a look at the next two episodes from season three. Those are The Milkman Cometh and My Ghost Writer The Vampire. Midnight Viewing The hor Anthology Podcast is a proud member of 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 Stashu.

Surprisingly, I'll keep making the joke. Cranking on ass not a show I do. But The Milkman Cometh does like sound like something we would cover on that show. For the real shows that I work on, you can find them out Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Other than one Thing, which you can find at patreon dot com, slash Culturecastpatreon dot com, slash Projection Booth, which is ranking on Bond which Father Malone who has his own Patreon, Patreon dot com slash Father Malone.

He has joined us on one soon to be two episodes of that to talk about to James Bond and his love of James Bond movies. And yeah, so that was fun and they'll be back soon to talk about which one of my own again, I Forgetmay Dalton License to Kill the hit that's Dalton's first second second, you know we're coming straight for your heart, right? Is it the one that del Toro one? Yeah, the Robert Dave one. Oh so it's uh Felix Lightner right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Oh I can't wait to watch that again.

Yeah. So yeah, so that's that's where you can find all that. What about you, Mike White? Oh, pretty much everything that you just said all the way down to the Patreons. So yeah, come on over listen to some ranking on bass and come on over to weirdmabedia dot com and listen to everything else.

How about you, Father Malone? As for me what they said? Patreon dot com slash fatherm Alone episodes are early in commerce free over there. Also go listen to HP shows Night Mister Walter is a taxi podcast, just started season three over there on that one and his solo show Noise Junkies where he it's his music show. It's fucking fantastic.

Go listen to that He's also put out a new album. Go check out all of HP stuff. Everybody. I want to thank you all for joining us here at midnight viewing. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.

I'm gonna put the Grither song here. Enjoy Why ah Not Escape Me? For please so less times a friend? The gra me for long Face book fa BA. Book fall.

In Too, Can't You Fall. Again? Its natal inter national Total inter