Series
The moderate success of George A. Romero's horror anthology film Creepshow led to initial inquiries about the possibilities of a Creepshow series. Because Warner Brothers owned certain aspects of Creepshow, Laurel Entertainment (which produced the film) opted to take their potential series into a similar, yet separate, direction, including changing the name to Tales from the Darkside. The new name reflected Creepshow's focus, that of a live-action EC-based horror comic book of the 1950s like Tales from the Crypt or The Vault of Horror, though the series would not carry the trappings of a comic as Creepshow did.
Some episodes of the series were written by or adapted from the works of famous authors. Stephen King's short stories "Word Processor of the Gods" and "Sorry, Right Number" were amongst them. Works by Frederik Pohl, Harlan Ellison, Clive Barker, Michael Bishop, Robert Bloch, John Cheever, Michael McDowell and Fredric Brown were also featured.
After wrapping, Tales from the Darkside was succeeded by Monsters in 1988, a similarly-styled syndicated weekly horror anthology also produced by Laurel and longtime Romero associate Richard P. Rubinstein.
The series was followed by Tales from the Darkside: The Movie in 1990. Stephen King also contributed a short story to this film, "The Cat From Hell". The film starred Deborah Harry, Christian Slater, William Hickey, Steve Buscemi, and Julianne Moore (the first three had previously appeared in episodes of the TV series). Tom Savini has called this film "The real Creepshow 3".
The series was originally syndicated weekly by Tribune Broadcasting, with most stations airing it after midnight. After ending production, it was picked up by LBS Communications for barter-based syndication (with the exception of the episode The Apprentice, and a few reruns of earlier episodes) which were distributed by Lorimar-Telepictures. Worldvision Enterprises later became the series' distributor, and the rights currently are held by Worldvision successor CBS Television Distribution. (All three syndicators' logos appear following the closing credits.)
On November 17, 2008, CBS Home Entertainment (distributed by Paramount) announced the first season of Tales from the Darkside would be released on DVD February 10, 2009 complete with audio commentary by producer George Romero on the episode "Trick or Treat".
Read more about this topic: Tales From The Darkside
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