Tales From the Darkside: Season #1

Tales from the Darkside

Season #1

🍸🍸Episode #0: Trick or Treat🍸🍸 – Gideon Hackles is an old, grumpy and cold miser who runs an antique type store shop for a living. Many of the customers he sells to are poor people and many of them owe debts, therefore he treats them… poorly! However, every Halloween season he allows for the children of his debtors to trick or treat in house to find the bill slips of their parents. The lucky kid who can find the hidden debt stack of bill slips will be the lucky one that will set their family debt free. Only one by one this old man is a master of putting off spooks through his store in the form of hidden gadgets and button trickery. A miser taunts his neighbors by daring them to send their children in to find their debt records inside of his “haunted house,” but he gets some unusual late-night visitors. A rich old miser delights in challenging costumed neighborhood children to locate the hidden debt records of their parents, all of whom owe him heavily. If a child manages to find the debt records, that child’s parents will be forgiven for their massive debt. The old man tries to foil the efforts of the children by strategically placing assorted props designed to frighten them out of the house. After each child fails, the old man is visited by an actual witch, whom he takes to be a costumed parent. The witch forces the old man into a search of his own, which leads him literally into a gateway to Hell. As one last child arrives to search for the debt records, he is greeted by the witch, who throws the old man’s riches at him as she flies away into the night.

Town miser Gideon Hackles spends Halloween hiding IOU’s in his house, which he then rigs as haunted and invites local kids to search for the IOU’s so he can scare them. This year, he gets his comeuppance. Gideon Hackles (Barnard Hughes) is a miser, the wealthiest person in the valley. He’s a cruel old man whose favorite season of the year is Halloween. He’s been lending money to the inhabitants of the valley for 67 years, since he earned his first penny when he was much younger. He always wants to collect money and never spends it. For example, he even makes his guests pay for the coffees. He shows them all the IOU’s has been collecting through the years. Hackles loves Halloween so much, that he offers an opportunity to get rid of their debts to those indebted to him who have young children: Every year, children can go trick or treating to his home, enter it and look for the yellowy IOU’s of their parents. If a child is so courageous as to get the IOU, the father of that child will be released from their dues as soon as they destroy the papers. Only children can get into Hackles’ home, decorated accordingly. He hides the IOU’s, but any intelligent person who doesn’t fall for Hackles’ tricks can find them. That night, the first child is Bessie (Eevin Hartsough). Mr. Hackles hides in a room from where he can watch, control all the dummies and elements he’s created to scare the children away and even open and close the front door of his home at his will. Bessie enters the home, while her mother (Nancy Ellen Sutherland) waits outside, twisting her hangs in agony. There is an owl inside and mannequins with distorted faces and Bessie leaves the home terrified. Her mother hugs her and they leave, while Mr. Hackles looks at them smiling.

Timothy “Timmy” Muldoon (Patrick Wilcox) is he second child. His father, Victor, (Eddie Jones) has been teaching him that “spirits do not exist” so that young Timmy can enter the home and find the IOU’s. Timmy is scared inside, because of the noises, open windows, the owl and the crow, but when he is about to leave through the front door he thinks about it again, slams the door shut and repeating the mantra “Spirits do not exist”, enters the home again. He finds some of the IOU’s hidden in a hole in the wall in one of the rooms, but Mr. Hackles shows him a huge face of a monster and Timmy can’t resist it anymore and he leaves in panic. His father hugs him as well, sensing that his son has been really close to getting it. There are two more children (Jessica Rene Carroll and Joshua Miller) who try to get the pieces of paper and then there is another boy, the child of a farmer, Atticus Kimble (Joe Ponazecki) whose first year has been terrible because of the bad harvest. He’s used his farm as collateral, so unless he pays his debts with Hackles, he will lose his farm. However, this father is more sensible. He rejects to let his son Billy (Knowl Johnson) try to get his IOU’s, as he thinks that Hackles wouldn’t offer a way of redeeming the debts so easily. However, the son really wants to try. Hackles says that he never lies and points to the Muldoon father as an example of a father who forces his child to get into the Halloween game of Hackles. Another person appears at Hackles’ front door. He doesn’t want to open the door, as the opportunity is only for children, not for adults. This adult is dressed up really convincingly as a Witch (Frances Chaney), However, when Mr. Hackles goes to shoo her away, the Witch ignores him and levitates. He gets scared and tries to hide within his home, but the Devil (Ed French) traps him in Hell. Atticus and Sarah (Brenda Currin) agree not to let Billy go to the Hackles home. Notwithstanding that, Billy leaves in the night and goes to the Hackles’ dressed in his farmer everyday clothes. When he arrives, he tries to be courageous. This time things go different: It’s the Witch who opens up the door. Billy doesn’t even have to enter the home. The Witch levitates again and many IOU’s, wads of money, coins and jewels are traveling by the air with her. As she leaves in the Full Moon, she throws sacks full of money into Billy’s hands.

🍸🍸Episode #1: The New Man🍸🍸 – A recovering alcoholic is disturbed to find a young boy who shows up at his office claiming to be his son Jerry. The man is further angered when the boy shows up at his house. While the other family members carry on as if Jerry is a regular member of the family, the man insists that has never seen the boy before in his life. The man’s wife assumes that he has begun drinking again and is harboring delusions brought on by his inebriated state. The family, disgusted by the father’s unwillingness to acknowledge Jerry as his son, ultimately leaves him. Driven back to drinking by the ordeal, the previous sober father ends up in a state of emotional ruin. In the final scene, Jerry visits another man, claiming to be HIS son, as the nightmarish pattern continues. A reformed alcoholic is visited by his young son Jerry; but he doesn’t have a son called Jerry. Alan Coombs (Vic Tayback) has recently started working at an office. He’s been quite successful after recovering from alcoholism. When his colleague Brad (Jon Jacobs) offers him a drink, he just says no and his colleague drinks both glasses of staff. Jerry (Chris Hebert) appears and asks Brad whether Al Coombs is here. When Jerry talks to Al, he calls him “Dad”. Al takes Jerry to the police station as he hasn’t seen him ever before. Back home, Sharon Coombs (Kelly Jean Peters) is preparing dinner and talking to her eldest son Petey (Billy Jacoby-Jayne). The police call on her, as they’ve got her son Jerry there. Al is frustrated when Sharon starts telling him how he could have done that to his kid. Jerry talks about the colleague who smelled like having he had been drinking alcohol. Al remembers Petey, but not Jerry. Sharon threatens Al when both of their children have gone to their rooms to sleep. Al can’t remember Jerry at all and Sharon tells him that she’s not going to put up with his alcoholic behavior again, that she will leave him for good with the children. That night, Al goes to present his excuses to Petey, but it’s Jerry in his room. The following morning, at the breakfast table, only Sharon and Jerry are present. Petey has asked his mother to spend the night at a friend’s and that’s why he isn’t there. Al asks Jerry when his birthday is and where he was given birth (at a local hospital nearby). When Alan goes to the office, as usual, he’s got an unkempt look to him. He’s a bit late, but his colleague tells him that Alan went home two days ago and that his successful business has been canceled as the lady who wanted to buy the property liked Al best. Sharon phones Al in his office, to say that she’s leaving him as she can’t put up with all that misery again. Al knows that he’s lost his job… again. He goes home and finds it empty. He has a vision of Sharon and Jerry talking about how Al betrayed them because of his alcoholism. After the vision, Al starts tearing the place to pieces. He finds a bottle of whiskey and finally drinks it up. The following morning, he is in a terrible bad shape on a dirty bed in an empty room. Later, another day, Brad offers a drink to the most successful realty seller of the office, but the new worker, Roger Johnson (Paul Jenkins) refuses it. So, Brad drinks both drinks again. When Brad is leaving, Jerry enters again and asks to talk to his father, Roger Johnson. Roger can’t recognize Jerry as his son as well.

🍸🍸Episode #2: I’ll Give You a Million🍸🍸 – 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 it’s 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. 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, but his friend refuses. Wily millionaire Duncan Williams engages his longtime acquaintance Jack Blaine in a cat and mouse game… by offering Jack one million dollars for his mortal soul. Jack Blaine (George O. Petrie) and Duncan Williams (Keenan Wynn) are business associates who have been working together for many years, in businesses which are not completely clean, for example prostitution and drugs. They are celebrating in their limo when one of them offers to buy the other’s soul in exchange for a million dollars. They are playing Billiards and Jack is losing a lot of money, so Duncan offers Jack a million dollars in exchange for the rights to his eternal soul. Jack laughs it off, as he doesn’t believe in the soul. He has reminiscences concerning his childhood at Sunday school. Duncan says that he’s being a chicken, so Jack says he’ll sell it. Only Richards (Michael Freeman), the butler, is witness to the proposition. The following day, Jack is not feeling well, but he goes to Duncan’s mansion to sign the contract that sells his soul for that said million dollars. Duncan only wants to have some security that Jack won’t kill him. They sign the contract. Soon afterwards, after having signed the contract and cashed the check, Jack discovers that he’s so ill that he’s got only one or two months left. He offers Duncan to give him back his million dollars and to give him a further million dollars if he breaks the contract. Duncan laughs, as this is the easiest million dollars he has ever earned. However, soon afterwards Jenny (Catherine Battistone) phones Duncan to tell him that Jack is dead. Duncan’s sorry that his plot to get a million dollars has not worked well. Duncan dismisses Richards and that night he’s alone at his mansion. That night it’s stormy and pit black. Jack visits him – already dead – to give him his soul. Jack begs Duncan to accept his soul and fulfill the contract. Duncan rejects it, terrified. Suddenly the Devil appears (Bradley “Brad” Fisher), before Duncan can collect Jack’s soul. The contract said that if Duncan died before he could collect Jack’s soul, the contract would be void and null. Duncan has a heart attack right there, so the Devil picks both souls up: Jack and Duncan’s. The Devil then burns something into Duncan’s chest and then leaves. Duncan lies dead on the bed with the words PAID IN FULL branded on his chest.