Tales from the Darkside

Two old, rich men like to wager among themselves on trivial matters for huge amounts. One of them, Williams, offers his friend a million dollars for his immortal soul. Blaine accepts but discovers that he is dying of cancer - frightened, he tries to buy his soul back. Williams holds out for more money, until its too late - Blaine dies. Soulless, he comes back for his soul, shocking Williams into a heart attack...and the Devil comes to claim his due from both of them.

Tommy Vale, a barroom bookie finds himself in a curious predicament: a man comes in who cant lose. As the story unravels, he finds out that his opponent is Lacey, a man who went broke gambling with Vale in the past. Now Lacey is back from the dead, with tips from the other side, and is unbeatable. In a final ghoulish wager, Lacey bets that Vale will die at a particular time, and hes never been wrong. But the clock chimes and Vale is still alive. Lacey is forced to depart, and Vale reveals that he set the clock ahead five minutes, then dies right on time.

A young ad-design artist begins to literally ""slip"" out of reality. Slowly but surely he seems to be fading out of existence: first his payroll checks disappear, then his high school not only fails to mail him about their reunion, but has no records of his existence. The artist soon realizes that since hes drifted through life, hes basically ""slipping through the cracks"". Even his mother has no memory of him. At the end, even his wife and best friend (now the womans husband in this new reality) forget he ever existed.

Richard Hagstrom is dismayed with the way life has treated him (a rude son, a shrewish wife). His nephew Jonathan gives him a birthday present: a homemade word processor. Hagstrom soon discovers that anything he types into the processor becomes real, and no one but him knows the difference. He begins with simple experiments, but then wipes out his son from existence. Even his wife is unaware of the changes. As the machine overheats into self-destruction, Hagstrom types in one last story: he makes sure that he and Jonathans mother married and that Jonathan was his son. As the word processor destroys itself, Hagstroms final wish becomes reality.

A couple inadvertently buy a magic lamp that contains a genie. Unfortunately, the genie is anything but amiably. Confined in the lamp for thousands of years and still trapped, he refuses to grant wishes and instead terrorizes the couples with plagues, rains of frogs, etc. The husband finally has himself committed, but a few days later his wife brings him home. Their apartment is now richly decorated and they have plenty of money. The genie is now an amiable and willing wish-granter. The wifes solution to freeing the genie: a can opener.

A fake fortuneteller, Caterina, soon finds that every fortune she tells comes true...but she can only predict gruesome and horrific ends for her customers. She soon discovers that another cursed fortuneteller slipped her a cursed pack of cards, and Caterina can only get rid of them by giving them to another fake. She does so by slipping into another fortunetellers parlor, asking for a fortune, and slipping her the cursed deck. Unfortunately the first fortune the new cursee reads is of Caterinas death...which rapidly comes true.

A warlock and a witch get into a battle over a $10 million lottery ticket when each claims that the spirits gave them the winning number.

Prudence is a young woman who cant stop crying, but finds a peculiar way to make a profit when she meets Ambrose Cavender, a man who collects tears.

Fast-talking politician Bo Gumbs finds himself in serious trouble when he arrives for a meeting and waits at a nearby hotel.

Henry, a greedy developers, stumbles upon a Chinese laundry that offers a unique service - it can ""wash out"" guilt. Henry employs their services but soon finds there is a unpleasant price to pay.

Given one last wish to enliven her days before she is moved into the Tranquil Gardens retirement home, elderly Grandma sees to it that her self-centered family finds out what its like to grow old.

An impressionist, "Mr. Personalities," is brought in by the government to try to help them communicate with an alien. Mr. Personalities is at first stumped but finally makes "contact." The alien departs and Mr. Personalities is depressed...until the alien returns for him.

As Billy is waiting to be executed in the electric chair, he relates the bizarre tale of how he came to be in his predicament at the hands of an attractive woman.

A mean old man harboring an intense hatred for the celebration of Halloween is left alone by his son to hand out candy to the neighborhood children. The old man initially ignores the trick-or-treaters, but later cruelly fills their bags with a mixture of syrup and cleaning fluid. Satisfied, the old man retreats to his armchair to watch television, when a goblin-like creature pays him a visit. The creature relentlessly asks the old man for candy and he eventually shuts himself inside the house to avoid it. He suddenly realizes that he is unable to make phone calls as the goblin continues to stalk him from outside the house. Finally deciding to confront the creature, the old man walks out to the porch, only to discover that the goblin has vanished. He goes back into the house and looks out the window one last time. As he closes the curtain, he is confronted face-to-face by the creature inside the house, who again asks him for candy. Shocked and frightened, he falls to the floor and passe

A hate-style radio host, Mandrake, spews out venom at anyone who calls in. He soon discovers, however, after receiving calls across all of time that he is dead but that the ""Boss,"" has kept him on since he discourages souls and make them more prone to the ""Boss"" influence. Mandrake is unable to leave his broadcast booth and finds himself transforming into a demon as he has to continue broadcasting forever, and ever.

Two occultists are offered $50,000 if they can rid a girl of the multiple demons possessing her, but they soon find themselves in over their heads.

Kate wakes up and discovers that for unknown reasons, her life is now running backwards.

Englebert Ames, an astronomer, is watching Haileys Comet and is in for a shock when Sir Edmond Hailey himself arrives - hes been riding ""his"" comet all these years trying to elude Sarah, the woman pursuing him out of obsessed love.

A man is overjoyed to find a nice apartment with all the modern conveniences at an incredibly cheap price. The eccentric landlady asks nothing more than for the man to provide her with plenty of garbage for the disposal unit. The man is puzzled when the walls ooze blood after he attempts to hang a picture with a nail and hammer. He is further disturbed when the floor shakes as he hears an ominous roar bellow throughout the building complex. He soon realizes that the building itself is a living entity that survives on the trash created by the tenants. Angered by the situation, the man fills a garbage bag full of household cleaners with the intent of poisoning the entity. He throws the bag into the disposal unit and the creature begins to roar. Suddenly, the landlady confronts the man with her two sons and they throw the man into the disposal, providing the beast with a full course meal.

A young woman, Christine, returns home to find her mother cold and distant, and living isolated from everyone else. The woman soon discovers that her mother has summoned up...Chrissie - Christine as a young girl, before she moved away and gained a life of her own. Christine soon finds there is no way she can compete with her mothers idealized image of herself.

Stacey is on her way home from college and rides the last car on a train. She is soon perplexed by the bizarre behavior of her fellow passengers, including a woman who knows her name despite the fact theyve never met. Stacey soon discovers that she, and everyone else, are dead and on a one-way trip from which there is no escape.

Dr. Carrol visits the Alcotts and discovers that they are vampire and that wife Marie wants an escape.

A hapless yokel, Arnold, runs into an Army recruiting office and asks for help, claiming to float. It turns out that hes telling the truth, but then Mr. Cooper and his pregnant daughter (pregnant by Arnold) show up and demand he do the right thing - it turns out that the more Arnold lies, the more he floats.

A skeptical journalist travels on assignment to a sideshow. Seated in a small theatre, he is greeted by a perverse caretaker/M.C. who promises (in seemingly generic fashion) to unearth strange, horrible, and presumably fake creatures. The journalist nevertheless feels disgusted when he sees a demonic vampire devour an actual lamb. He chastizes the caretaker for endorsing such horrific ""entertainment"". However, when fully realizing that these are actual CREATURES, the startled journalist attempts to flee the circus and unknowingly retreats into the arms of the vampire. The caretaker subsequently transforms him into a new exhibit, currently on display for the faithful flock of sideshow attendants who DELIGHT in being frightened.

A boy treated poorly by his parents gets the upper hand when an eccentric uncle shows up and tries to convince the parents to finance him to develop his newest invention - a pill that increases brain power and memory. He has a stroke and dies but not before the boy swallows the one and only prototype, and soon puts his parents into the same position he was before.

A little girl, Audrey, discovers she can control her family by manipulating her doll family, the Geezenstacks, within her dollhouse.

A rich art collector buys a stolen painting from a thief. The painting portrays a man before the Spanish Inquisition. The collector, Harte, is soon visited by a mysterious man who begs him to repent of his sins and give up the wrongfully-gained picture. Harte ignores the warnings and finds himself sucked into the painting where he is to be tortured as a sinner and heretic. He recants to the Inquisitor, who lets him go. Once out of the painting, Harte refuses to give it up, and receives a personal visit from the Inquisitor in the real world. The thief returns to take the picture, and Harte is nowhere to be found...in this world.

Ruby Cuzzins, a New Orleans baker, sells ""magic"" cookies and gives unscrupulous Henry adman a sample of her wares. Convinced, Henry tries to get her to go into business with him but gets his comeuppance when she refuses.

On Christmas Eve, a couple decide to preoccupy their restless children by telling them a fable concerning a massive, winged creature called ""The Grither"". The children initially balk at the story, which describes the creature as a proud, hateful beast who becomes enraged when it hears its name being spoken aloud. Although it lives at the North Pole, its humongous ears allow it to hear its name being spoken from anywhere in the world, and the parents assure the children that The Grither is well on its way to their house to kill them. The children become progressively more frightened as the story continues, eventually to the point of utter hysteria. Finally, in an effort to calm their children, the parents reveal that the story is make believe. At that moment, the huge arms of The Grither smash through the windows of the house and break the necks of the parents as the children look on in horror.

A man, Garry, hears from his neighbor a bizarre tale of how the unseen neighborhood milkman grants wishes to anyone who leaves their request in the empty bottles to be picked up. Garry tries it for himself and soon finds his every wish granted. His final wish is for a daughter, and his curiosity is too great and he tries to confront the milkman. Garry gets a glimpse of a deformed mutant creature before it disapepars and then realizes exactly how the ""milkman"" will fulfill his wish - by impregnating his wife.

Laura, a desperate woman, tries to get an apartment by herself but is forced to take in Ram, an immigrant from Calcutta. When Ram dies partly due to her involvement, Laura finds that she has inherited an entire family of ghostly Hindus.

Robert, a lonely divorced man, fixated on a mannequin, but the question soon becomes - is the mannequin alive?

A shoemakers apprentice discovers a strange power when he finds he can step into other peoples lives simply by putting on their shoes.

When Harry Carson has a heart attack, an angel and a devil fight for who will get his soul and its up to Harry to make the right choice.

An Egyptologist working on a sarcophogus ignores a curse and meets a horrific fate when he ignores it.

Despite the discouragement of his friend, a middle-aged photographer, Algernon, tries to captures spirits on film.

A mobster who has finally defeated his old rival hires a reluctant puppeteer to string up his rival and make it dance for him. The mobster is unaware that puppet and puppeteer both have agendas of their own...

A normal, everyday, plain-as-day man, Jack Polo, lives a normal, everyday life...despite the fact that strange poltergeist-like events occur around him. He seems oblivious to everything bad around him. We soon realize that a small demon, a Yattering, has been sent to torment him because his mother was a witch. The Yatterings boss tells him he can do anything he wants as long as he doesnt touch Jack. Jacks daughter comes to visit, and she is surprised at both the host of strange occurrences (including an animated Christmas turkey) that occur, and her fathers increasingly strident attempts to deny anything amiss. His motto: ""Que Sara Sara"". Finally, driven out of its mind with desperation, the Yattering touches Jack...which makes him his willing servant. Jack knew of the demons plans all along, and that he hoped to trick it into touching him. Now he is safe from Hells revenge, and has a new servant in the process.

Katie receives a mysterious phone call from a woman warning about her husbands death...but he isnt dead yet. Katie ignores the phone call, and her husband dies. At the funeral, a despairing Katie calls up herself...and finds herself talking to...herself. She tries to warn her past self, despite knowing that it wont do any good, then collapses in despair.

Betsy, an overweight woman, receives an anonymous package with an earpiece that will supposedly help her diet. It transmits the ""voices"" of her food as is being eaten, but Betsy still has problems and the next gift is a pair of glasses that let her ""see"" her food as well...

Jane is hired by a Puritan museum but ends up mysteriously going back in time where she is forced to work as a near slave in the past.

An aged inventor and his wife come into possession of a box marked ""Do not open this box."" The wife opens it and finds it empty. The next day a man comes to claim the box and the lady makes up a story about losing the box. The man begins giving them nice things in exchange for eventually getting the box back. The couple begin living the sweet life thanks to the stranger but when they finally give the box back, the man tells them that it contained a human soul - since the box was opened the soul has escaped and now the man needs a replacement.

An alien is sent to Earth to study the nature and behavior of human beings. The alien, who resembles a normal Earth female, meticulously studies photographs of still life from large cities, simultaneously fascinated with and disgusted by the disarray and degeneration depicted in the pictures. The alien joins a therapeutic support group in an effort to better understand the seemingly contradictory humans. As she develops personal relationships with each group member, she begins to further understand the origin of and reasons for the behavior of humans, albeit from an outside observers vantage point. The other members of the group see the alien as distant and detached, a condition that they assume is rooted in a self-denial complex. As the alien speaks at one of the group meetings, she suddenly realizes that she has been experiencing the exact same feelings as the humans that she has been studying. She has become human-like through assimilation, trapped within the emotional shell of ano

A mother tries to get a reprieve from her noisy drums-practicing son by making a deal with an ammonia-seeking alien.