Tales from the Darkside Episode Rating Graph

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

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.

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 little boy, Timmy, tries to convince his skeptical parents that there is a horrible monster beneath his bed - they learn too late that he is telling the truth.

Janice, a young mother, swears to a social worker, Trudy, that her husband Robert kidnapped their son Bobby six months ago and she hasn't seen either of them since. Trudy agrees to find the father and son, but discovers that everything isn't what she was led to believe.

A young girl fleeing her boyfriend finds herself in a small country home with a genial older couple. They take pity on her and invite her in, and even invite her to their special anniversary dinner. After getting her set up in the hot tub with plenty of wine, they start pouring vegetables in. As she passes out, the girl realizes exactly how the couple will be having her for dinner.

Katie receives a mysterious phone call from a woman warning about her husband's death...but he isn't 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 won't do any good, then collapses in despair.

In the backwoods, a family patriarch dies...only to come back, unaware that he's dead. The townspeople are up in arms, but the old man is too stubborn to admit he's dead, despite his rigor mortis, lack of appetite, and bad smell. His grandson Jody eventually goes to an old voodoo woman for a solution. Rather than magic, she provides him with a simple solution: pepper. Jody puts it in his grandpa's handkerchief. When the old man sneezes, his nose falls off, which finally convinces him to go lie down and give up life for good.

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

Mr. Bigalow, a lifelong cigarette smoker, wakes up to find that his windows have bars on them and his door is sealed shut. A mysterious figure appears on Bigalow's television, informing him that he will quit smoking. Bigalow scoffs at this notion and reaches for a morning cigarette. As soon as he lights up, a deafening alarm sounds, demanding that he extinguish the cigarette immediately. Bigalow is subjected to various endurance tests and is further tempted to smoke when thousands of cigarettes materialize in the room, only to disappear. After being driven to the edge of sanity, he wakes up to find that he no longer has a desire to smoke. Believing that the whole ordeal was a dream, Biaglow reaches for a cup of coffee, at which time the mysterious figure reappears on the television screen, insisting that Bigalow now work on his caffeine addiction.

Tommy Vale, a barroom bookie finds himself in a curious predicament: a man comes in who can't 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 he's 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 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.

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 Jonathan's mother married and that Jonathan was his son. As the word processor destroys itself, Hagstrom's final wish becomes reality.

On her deathbed, Jamie's great grandmother tells him the tale of a Celtic demon, the Cutty Black Sow, that comes to claim the soul of anyone dying that night, and Jamie vows to protect her soul from the beast.

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.

A famous director is surprised when he is approached by a mysterious investor who wants him to finish up a ""Fugitive""-like series that he had done twenty years ago that was cancelled before the final episodes were shown. ""Mr. Smith"" wants the director to put together the old cast and finish it out, for his ""foreign viewers"". The star, Van Conway, is a drunk but Mr. Smith mysteriously manages to sober him up. They finish up the series, where the viewers find out that the amnesiac lead character was being hunted by his jealous brother. Mr. Smith, satisfied at the symmetry, departs. It's left to Conway to explain what he believes is the truth: Smith is from a planet twenty light-years away. The aliens, which were part of a dual-planet system, became enraptured by the show and so sent their emissary to Earth to finish it so they could see the conclusion.

A young girl develops a talent for seeing the fate of those about to die and develops the habit of saying ""Goodbye"" to them when she does, and her family grows increasingly upset as a result.

Salesman Chester checks into a motel and makes an off-hand pass at a woman. She rejects him, but soon another, jealous woman shows up to haunt him.

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

Harvey goes to Dr. Roebuck with back pains and Roebuck prescribes a miraculous cure. It's not until later that Harvey finds the price he must pay...

Hack writer Peter, writing worse and worse vampire stories, buys a coffin for inspiration and finds it occupied by Count Draco. Peter manages to protect himself, and the two strike a deal: Draco will supply new inspiration based on his life experiences, and Peter will write the books. Peter becomes wealthy, but refuses to share the proceeds. With the aid of Peter's secretary, Draco manages to get the drop on the writer and kill him, and the vampire and secretary strike up a new arrangement.

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

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 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 fortuneteller's parlor, asking for a fortune, and slipping her the cursed deck. Unfortunately the first fortune the new cursee reads is of Caterina's 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.

A student takes a room with an abrupt, somewhat rude anthropology professor. He instructs her never to open the small door in the back of her closet. Hearing strange noises, she eventually opens the door and finds the chamber beyond occupied by a small, hairless-monkey sort of a creature. It kills her and goes after the professor...only to reveal that it is his deformed daughter, which he lovingly dotes on.

A group of people find themselves trapped in a scenario with Otto, only to discover that he is a stagehand and they are a theater group all trapped in his dream.

Two long-lived witches, Elizabeth and Mary, vie once more over an amulet in the modern day that they agreed to share hundreds of years ago.

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

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

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 observer's 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 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 wife's solution to freeing the genie: a can opener.

Prudence is a young woman who can't 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.

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.

Joan is apartment-sitting for a friend but finds herself tormented by a phone that won't stop ringing.

Much to his parents' frustration, a spoiled young boy, Seymour, is declared the High Lama by a group of monks.

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

Screenwriter Tom Dash unwittingly makes a deal with the Devil and finds he must get out of it by finding a new victim or offer up his soul.

Anna Belle's plot to murder her husband to gain his money backfires with unpleasant results.

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 it's like to grow old.

A hapless yokel, Arnold, runs into an Army recruiting office and asks for help, claiming to float. It turns out that he's 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.

The ghost of a feminist torments the woman who buys her home.

A crooked tycoon makes a deal with the Devil in return for power and wealth.

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 mother's idealized image of herself.

The family of a dead preacher show up for a reading of the will but discovers he left them nothing specific. Rather, he warns them on his video-taped will that he will send them a sign.

Audrey Webster is concerned about her reclusive mother, but when she pursues the matter discovers exactly why her mother stays away from others, and what awaits Audrey on her own upcoming wedding night.

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

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

A babysitter is called in to take care of a sick boy. As a game, the two make up a pretend creature out of household parts, one that eats sounds. The creature comes to life, sucking the sound and the life out of everything in the house. The two try to evade it, but the boy's uncontrollable coughing gives him away. The creature then becomes sensitive enough to the girl's heartbeat to find and kill her too, then goes out into the world for more ""food"".

A kibbitzing mother, Pearl, warns her unlistening family but her warnings start to come true.

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