Remember the good old days when you used to watch something like “Tales From the Dark Side” and all it took to get you excited was something as dumb as a green puppet hand at the end? Man were we easily amused back then. Well I guess times have changed, because I was very pissed when I finally found the VHS volume of “Tales From the Drakside” that included the episode of Clive Barker’s “The Yattering and Jack.” I had been searching for it for years only to find out Phil Focodaro played the friggen’ Yattering. Now normally I would be tickled pink that a midget played my demon, but man did I feel ripped off that my Yattering was just Phil with some horns glued on his head. Sorry Phil, I loved you in everything else, especially as “Creeps” little Dracula, which was probably one of your best roles, but not here. What did I expect anyway? It’s not like Tales ever offered anything more than that in the first place, but I had such high hopes for the Yattering and I was just a tad pissed with the episode. What a friggen’ rip.
Just like all the other volumes, Volume Five of “Tales From the Dark Side” includes 5 episodes of the series. This volume would not have been that bad if it were not for the Yattering rip-off or the lame ass Haley’s Comet episode, which was this volume’s mandatory episode that sucks. “The Milkman” was a good episode about a washed up writer who asks his milkman for stuff with his milk order and receives it. As you can guess, nobody ever sees the milkman, knows who he is, but everybody in the whole neighborhood has no problem receiving free goods from him. The Milkman delivers everything, including money, writing ideas ,and even babies when our main character’s wife mysteriously gets pregnant after the doctors told he she could never do so again. Of course the gifts seem to come with a price that include drinking problems, death, and a surprise ending.
The other episodes include a young Seth Green with an asshole stepfather, a monster in the closet and under the bed, and also the very mysterious buzzsaw that comes out of his floor for no reason. Seth’s step dad sees him as sort of a pussy because he’d rather stuff pandas than toy guns for Christmas, and he is kind of a mamma’s boy. They also went all out in this episode buying every electronic toy that came out that year to fill Seth’s room with so they could all move on their on during the scene when the monsters come out of his closet. You know those little stuffed monkey’s that beat on drums that you would always see outside a KB Toys in the mall? At the end of the episode we see who is really the pussy, Seth or his dad, and if you have half a brain you should be able to figure out who it is. I’ll give you a hint; the one who survives also had a stepmother who was an alien.
The last story involves another writer who strikes a deal with a fat guy to become a successful writer as long as he sacrifices animals. The sacrifices start off small, and of course get bigger, ending with a human one. Nothing real spectacular to talk about here, and I really just wanted to bitch about Phil being the Yattering so I don’t have anything else to say.
