32 Days of Halloween VII, Day 7: The Undying Monster!

Day 7 of 32 Days of Halloween we’ve done some fun with anthologies, so this year is no different. Tales From the Darkside was George Romero‘s entry into the TV anthology series. Apparently, since Creepshow was a success, it could have been made into a series–but Warner Brothers owned the rights to that specifically. So if you strip out the comic-y nature of that film but keep the EC Comics feel, you get Tales. It lasted four seasons and I did really enjoy the intro, in which the magic of flipping a camera to negative was still amazing. At some point, I did the same thing with my parents’ video camera while I was filming some piece of parody nonsense.

This is the pilot episode, “Trick or Treat.” Scribed by Romero himself, it was directed by Bob Balaban (Close Encounters) and stars the normally-kindly Barnard Hughes as Gideon and ALF’s dad, Max Wright, as Mr. Kimble. If you don’t recognize Hughes by his voice alone, then you need to go and refresh your knowledge of 80s films.

The first season is available on DVD from Amazon–but I’ll say that the complete series with all four seasons is very reasonably priced, all things considered.

Next, is a classic piece of old-time radio. Based on the short story by George G. Toudouze, “Three Skeleton Key” has been dramatized for radio multiple times, apparently with a different cast each time. I would assume that meant that the two times it appeared on the show Suspense, it had Vincent Price but changed the other two cast members. Finding a list of the people who’ve been in this was a bit hard, but I’m sure it’s out there somewhere. Regardless, here’s Suspense and Price and a metric ton of rats…

And for tonight’s feature, a werewolf film from 1942, The Undying Monster. Starring James Ellison (I Walked With a Zombie), Heather Angel (1932’s Hound of the Baskervilles) and John Howard (Philadelphia Story), it was directed by John Brahm, who directed “Time Enough at Last.” Yes. Enjoy…