Darkroom (1981, Episodes 6-7)

This post is 4th and final in a series describing the episodes of the 1981 anthology horror series Darkroom. Previous installments found here, here and here.

We're now at the final two episodes, and I'm sad to say, there isn't much to recommend about any of the 5 stories found here. These definitely rank as the worst of the series, and accordingly, they'll receive briefer coverage.

SPOILER ALERT! Episode summaries to follow!
EPISODE 6 - Lost in Translation / Guillotine

In "Lost in Translation", professor of archeology Dr. Paul Hudson hires a translator to help him decode an ancient Egyptian scroll, which turns out to contain a recipe for a magic potion thought to give one power.

But after mixing and drinking the potion, we realize there was a mistake made in the translation as Dr. Hudson shrinks to the size of a mouse.

The second story, "Guillotine", spends a long time building up to a ho-hum "surprise" ending.

In 19th century France, a man sentenced to die by guillotine hopes to exploit a loophole in the law that pardons the condemned should the executioner happen to die on the scheduled day of execution. I won't bore you with every laborous detail (this episode just really seems to drag). The prisoner's lover poisons the executioner, but he summons just enough strength to stagger to the guillotine at the scheduled time, only to drop dead on the platform.

But wait--his dying body actually falls upon the lever that activates the guillotine, so the prisoner is executed after all.

EPISODE 7 - Exit Line / Who's There? / The Rarest of Wines

The first story in the final episode, "Exit Line", is simply awful. An actor who feels he's gotten an unfair review from a critic decides the best way to convince the critic that he really is a good actor is to... are you ready for this? ...sneak into her apartment, cut her phone cord, then threaten her with a gun for 10 minutes or so before taking a bow and revealing that he's only ACTING!!! The shocker ending, such as it were, is that the critic nails him over the head with a heavy crystal bottle before he has a chance to explain himself.

Next up is "Who's There?", which doesn't amount to much, despite the reuniting of actors Grant Goodeve and Dianne Kay, who had just finished a five-year run playing brother and sister on Eight Is Enough.

Here they play lovers Steve and Claire. Steve lives just downstairs from Claire and her husband Barry. While Claire is off visiting her mother, Steve comes upstairs to find Barry waiting in the dark with a pistol. He's convinced Claire is cheating on him and plans to murder her when she gets home. When Steve returns to his apartment, we find Claire is not at her mother's, but in his bed. With the doubt planted in his head, Steve begins to suspect Claire may be cheating on him as well. He sends her back upstairs to her apartment, and waiting doom.

Finally comes "The Rarest of Wines". An obnoxious son is unhappy with his share of his mother's inheritance...the family house and its furnishings. He sells everything he can and spends the money on rare and expensive wines.

While drinking one of the wines, his sister translates the Italian label to discover too late that the wine he is drinking is poisonous.

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That wraps up the Darkroom episode summaries. Unfortunately the series has never been available for sale. I would love to see a proper DVD release of this series. In the meantime, bootleg copies can be had if you look under the right rock.

Darkroom (1981, Episode 5)

This post is 3rd in a series describing the episodes of the 1981 anthology horror series Darkroom. Previous installments found here and here.

SPOILER ALERT! Episode summaries to follow!
EPISODE 5 - The Partnership / Daisies / Catnip

Episode 5 is the first of two episodes containing three segments instead of the usual two. The first story, "The Partnership", is one of my favorites.

Not that there's anything particularly unique (or even original) about this simple little story, but it worked for me as a kid and still does today. Based on a story by William F. Nolan, (whose screenwriting credits include Trilogy of Terror and Burnt Offerings), "The Partnership" centers on local chatterbox Tad Miller (Pat Buttram) who strikes up a conversation with a drifter, played by David Carradine, at a roadside diner.

Tad volunteers his life story to the uninterested Carradine, who is just trying to find a ride to the next town. Seems that, among other things, Tad used to operate the local lakeside amusement park, Happyland, which has been closed and shuttered for years. This sparks the drifter's interest. Tad convinces him to go on an after-hours exploration of the ruined amusement park, dangling the promise of giving him a ride out of town if he agrees.

Happyland is a dilapidated wreck of a fun park, boarded up and covered in cobwebs. Tad leads Carradine by lantern light into the old funhouse.

When Carradine cuts himself on a nail, Tad is a little too eager to run back to the truck to fetch a bandage, leaving Carradine alone in the spooky hall of mirrors.

But Tad isn't detouring to his truck, but to a secret control room, where he triggers a trapdoor that sends Carradine down a chute and through the floor, dropping him into the lake below.

A tentacled sea-creature with two glowing eyes closes in on Carradine as he splashes helplessly in the dark water.

Seems "the partnership" of the title is an arrangement between Tad and the creature. The creature crushes its prey with its tentacles and deposits the corpse on the shore, where Tad loots the corpse of any valuables before turning it over to be eaten by the beast.


The next segment, "Daisies", is only a few minutes long.

A scientist is studying the ability of plants to communicate via electronic impulses. He gives his visiting wife a headset and special microphone to allow her to listen to the flowers in his lab.

The flowers immediately rat out the husband, who has been cheating on her with his lab assistant. She pulls a revolver and murders them both on the spot.

The final segment, "Catnip", is based on a story by Robert Bloch.

Ronny, a veteran turned street thug, crosses paths with a black cat that belongs to a neighborhood witch.


After a few run-ins with the cat and being scolded by the witch, Ronny decides to take revenge by rigging a small explosive to its pet-door.

But the explosive unintentionally kills the witch instead.

The cat starts showing up everywhere Ronny goes, finally following him to his home, where it leaps through the bedroom window and hides under the bed.

In one of the creepiest moments of the series, Ronny peeks under the bed to look for the cat...

...only to be confronted with the twisting, hissing head of the witch!

Not so tough now, are we Ronny?


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The final two episodes will be detailed in next post.

Darkroom (1981, Episodes 3-4)

This post is 2nd in a series describing the episodes of the 1981 anthology horror show Darkroom. (Previous post here).


SPOILER ALERT! Episode summaries to follow!
EPISODE 3 - Needlepoint / Seige of 31 August


In the short segment "Needlepoint", Esther Rolle plays a practioner of voodoo who uses a voodoo doll on a young man (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) whom she blames for her granddaughter's death.

The man strangles her to death, but fails to recover the doll as he flees into the swampland. The woman's dog rips the doll apart, causing the man to contort on the ground in pain, before finally burying the doll like an old bone.

Host James Coburn explains that the man was found asphyxiated, but authorities could find no explanation as to how.

In the second story, "Seige of 31 August", Neil (Ronny Cox) finds himself haunted by memories of his service in Vietnam after buying his son Ben a set of toy soldiers. Neil becomes more withdrawn and paranoid when his son begins talking about the toy soldiers as if they were real people, and strange things begin happening around the farm.

Neil hears strange noises at night, and a mysterious brush fire breaks out near the place where Ben left the soldiers. Convinced he's heard something in the barn, Neil has a full breakdown, dons his old military fatigues, and confronts the now living miniature soldiers in combat.

The special effects in this grand finale, seemingly a combination of optical composites and forced perspective, are quite good. Neil dies in battle, engulfed by a fire.

EPISODE 4 - A Quiet Funeral / Make-Up

In "A Quiet Funeral", based on a short story by Robert Bloch, Marty Vetch, a mobster, double-crosses a cohort, Charlie, by running him off the road, stealing his satchel containing $50,000, and leaving him for dead.

But the joke is on Marty when he tries to attend the funeral in a phony show of sympathy and is attacked by Charlie, who wasn't dead after all.

In "Make-Up", a young Billy Crystal plays Paddy, a down-on-his-luck loser who falls out of favor with Mr. Roland, a mobster (Brian Dennehey) who owes him $100 for a delivery job. But Paddy's luck changes when he purchases an old make-up kit that once belonged to 1930s actor Lamont Tremain, "The Man of A Hundred Faces".

Applying the make-up causes Paddy to take on the appearance and personality of Tremain's film characters. Make-up from the film "Revenge of the Colossus" transforms Paddy into an imposing tough-guy. In this persona, Paddy confronts Mr. Roland to get the money he's owed.

Next he applies make-up from the film "Dane Fortune", wherein Paddy becomes a suave international gambler who promptly wins thousands of dollars from Roland in a poker game.

When Roland's goons show up at his apartment seeking revenge, Paddy escapes by applying a final make-up from a film called "Mr. Invisible".

Paddy disappears entirely, his position betrayed only by the make-up case he's carrying as it hovers down the street.


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Remaining episodes will be detailed in a later post.