Line #43 NightmareFuel/TalesFromTheDarkside


1	'''WARNING: Per wiki policy, [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff all spoilers are unmarked on Nightmare Fuel pages]]. As such, this page will contain ''no spoiler markings of any kind''. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
2	----
3	* The opening introduction music/narration. '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mioevxb2CfA That is all]]'''.
4	* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNMikryqW6A closing credits music/narration]]. Especially that element where TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou.
5	* "Trick or Treat": A hated and spiteful old man with an obsession for documenting and exploiting debts owed to him offers trick-or-treaters the chance to search his house for their parents' mortgages, only to terrify them with animatronic "spirits". Unfortunately for him, the old man finds himself the victim of a particularly frightening trick-or-treater, namely a ''real'' demon.
6	-->'''The Devil:''' You're [[IronicEcho getting warmer]]...
7	* "The New Man": A [[CreepyChild strange boy]] is harassing a recovering alcoholic, claiming to be his son. The alcoholic has no idea who this boy is and desperately tries to find out whether he's real or not and get him out of his life. The boy is actually out there [[KickTheDog ruining the lives of recovering alcoholics]] ForTheEvulz. In the end, our protagonist has returned to alcoholism and lost his family, and the boy is now [[HereWeGoAgain targeting his replacement]].
8	* "Slippage": The episode follows a man who's slowly slipping from reality. He does all he can to remember who he is, but to no avail. When his wife moves on with another man in the end of the episode, we see [[NotQuiteDead the door to their house suddenly fly open and close with nobody seen in the room]].
9	* "Inside the Closet", featuring a monster lurking behind a mysterious, child-sized door in a woman's bedroom. A touch of creepiness at the monster's reveal, but horrifyingly suspenseful [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5SIqxG5lH8 until that point]]. Made all the worse when her landlord dismisses the woman's death to her parents and reveals that the monster in her room was his daughter. Not to mention that the poor girl was not and won't be the last victim.
10	** This raises a very disturbing question; why in the hell is the guy’s daughter a monster?
11	* "[[Recap/TalesFromTheDarksideS1E13AnniversaryDinner Anniversary Dinner]]": A girl ditches her {{Jerkass}} boyfriend and runs to an elderly couple for a place to stay since she has no way of returning to town. The couple treat her like their own child and ask her to stay forever, which she gladly accepts. Then on their anniversary, the two kill the unsuspecting young girl by boiling her alive in their "hot tub" and [[ImAHumanitarian prepare to eat her]] for their [[TitleDrop anniversary dinner]]. The husband later reveals that they never raised children, only ate them. The last shot shows the collection of skulls from all the unsuspecting people they ate.
12	* "[[Recap/TalesFromTheDarksideS1E14SnipSnip Snip, Snip]]": The VillainProtagonist breaks into a mysterious woman's apartment to take her lottery ticket and get himself out of trouble. However, the woman also has connection to the dark arts just like him. She proves to be [[EvilerThanThou more bitter and more powerful than he is]] and kills him. The last shot shows that she [[OffWithHisHead took his head]] and turned it into a model for her hairdressing business, along with all the other men who threatened her.
13	* "[[Recap/TalesFromTheDarksideS1E15AnswerMe Answer Me]]": The malevolent presence in the adjacent room, a sentient telephone, was trying to break through the wall, right where the protagonist's bed is. Just the whole idea of strange, persistent noises coming from a next-door apartment you know is empty and whose occupant recently died violently. And then there's the protagonist's conversation with "the operator"...
14	-->'''Operator:''' ''[CreepyMonotone]'' She strangled herself.
15	* "[[Recap/TalesFromTheDarksideS1E17TheMadnessRoom Madness Room]]": A sleazy couple trick an old husband into ''having a heart attack'' by playing a Ouija board to lead them to a dark ''hidden'' room, only for the husband to ''drop the (only) key to the outside'' into a crack of the room's floorboard... Then a [[FromBadToWorse fire suddenly starts up]], and they're all locked in the hidden room. Cue screaming and coughing. Even better? The '''only''' reason why he did that was that, due to a ghost interfering with the scam, he was led to believe that getting rid of the key would fix everything. Whoops.
16	* "Levitation": The ending has Frank finally convincing his idol to perform a levitation trick on him, only to have the magician suffer a fatal heart attack and accidentally cause Frank to [[AndIMustScream ascend out of control into the sky while unable to do anything to stop it]].
17	* "The False Prophet": Throughout the episode we follow a DumbBlonde who listens to a creepy fortune-telling machine. The episode gets more and more disturbing when the machine comes across as a rapist and a {{Domestic Abuse}}r that refuses to let the girl leave. The machine is soon revealed to be a {{Yandere}} and absorbs the girl inside of it so she will be with him forever. Ironically, she originally came to it so she could search for her true love and the machine tells her that now she has it, [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor but not in the way she dreamed of]].
18	* "Lifebomb": The protagonist gains a special device so he can't die... [[FateWorseThanDeath ever]]. It's revealed in the end that his insurance company ''intended'' to prevent him from dying so they could [[EvilIsPetty save themselves from paying his family]] when he would die.
19	* "[[Recap/TalesFromTheDarksideS2E4ParlourFloorFront Parlour Floor Front]]":
20	** The revelation that Linda was the true villain of the story. She reveals that she killed her own cat, lied about losing an unborn child she claimed to be pregnant with, and [[MoralEventHorizon drives Mars to suicide just to get rid of him]]. She does all this without admitting a shred of regret. HumansAreTheRealMonsters indeed.
21	** Although she [[AssholeVictim deserved it]], Linda's death at the hands of the ghost of her former tenant Mars. After she steals a ring from [[KickTheDog Mars's coffin]], his body disappears from its place. When Linda goes to sleep, she hears Mars screaming for his ring back, and he breaks into her room while she screams in horror. The final shot shows that her ring is gone and that [[NothingIsScarier Linda has been killed out of focus with Mars nowhere to be seen]].
22	* "Halloween Candy" is believed by many to be one of the most disturbing episodes.
23	** A misanthropic old man torments trick-or-treating children and is visited by a rather terrifying goblin [[SweetTooth demanding]] ''[[SweetTooth more]]'' [[SweetTooth candy]].
24	** There's also the fact that [[AndIMustScream the old man is stuck outside of time, around midnight]] [[YearInsideHourOutside yet he can still feel the affects of time passing]] as he claims to feel like he hasn't eaten in days. When he runs out of food, he begins to resort to sustaining himself on Halloween candy.
25	* "Ursa Minor": A little girl blames her new teddy bear for various pranks in her parent's house. They do not believe her -- until giant claw marks on the walls and lumbering sounds at night convince them. The mother destroys the teddy, but forgets one of the most basic rules of the wild -- harm the child, and you must meet [[MamaBear the mother]]...
26	* "Effect and Cause": The protagonist has learned to control the fabric of reality inside of her home. However, the universe starts falling apart within her own house, creating random chaos in her room. Fearing for her life, the protagonist rushes to the door to escape, but the knob breaks off and she sees [[NightmareFace her discarded portrait looking right at her]], which is followed by a horrific scream. Then, the gas line goes off and sparks start shooting from the doorbell, making the entire house explode.
27	* "A New Lease On Life": After ''tons'' of ParanoiaFuel, the protagonist finds out that his new apartment building is alive. The episode ends with him getting EatenAlive by the building, along with the other tenants who didn't cooperate with the building.
28	* "The Shrine": The episode has Christine's mother [[LovingAShadow loving an evil spirit in the form of her daughter when she was younger]]. Young Christine is the embodiment of a CreepyChild, especially her desire to take real Christine's mother away from her to [[NothingIsScarier places unknown]] to be with her forever.
29	* "[[Recap/TalesFromTheDarksideS2E19TheLastCar The Last Car]]":
30	** A woman who just wants to catch a train for her home boards [[TitleDrop the last car]]. She meets a [[CreepyChild playful child]], a [[StepfordSmiler nice old woman]], and an [[TheQuietOne old man]]. She starts to notice strange things occur on the train car. Her reflection disappears, the people with her are afraid of tunnels, and ''the train hasn't stopped'' since she boarded. It turns out that she was taken by a ghost train and is [[AndIMustScream forced to ride the rails forever]], or alternately may have died and wound up on an AfterlifeExpress.
31	** The Conductor's [[SlasherSmile horrific smile]] when he announces another "tunnel" is imminent. Said tunnel shows the passengers as they truly are -- corpses: ancient, dusty skeletons.
32	** The woman's final line: "Tunnel.... tunnel.... tunnel..." The dread and despair in her voice shows she understands what this all means... and what it means [[AndIMustScream for her]].
33	* "The Casavin Curse": During the climax, Tina reveals that she turns into a monster before killing unsuspecting lovers unfortunate enough to fall for her. She shows this by revealing her NightmareFace while rising from under her bed covers. While feral, she kills her cousin with a NeckSnap.
34	* ''Tons'' of it can be found in "The Circus":
35	** The ringleader feeds a feral vampire a lamb so it won't be so hungry during the show (where it "only" feeds on things like rats and snakes) and want a more substantial bite... like the audience. Makes you wonder how long it took them to figure that out, and how many accidents happened before it did.
36	** After being disgusted by the monstrous attractions at the circus, the ringleader shows the reporter one last exhibit, the source of fear. We're shown a [[BodyHorror a gruesomely, unidentifiable body pasted on the ground, still alive and breathing]]. The reporter leans in for a closer look, only to spot its one [[IcyBlueEyes good eye]] glaring at him all around the room. Suddenly, a headless zombie jumps him from behind, causing him to be scared to death. The last time we see out protagonist, ''his head'' has been stitched to the formerly headless zombie body, now a sideshow in the circus forever.
37	* "I Can't Help Saying Goodbye". A young girl has the power to sense when people are going to die. She does this by putting her hands to their faces and saying goodbye to them twice. Her mother, her best friend, and brother-in-law die in gruesome ways. Her mother lights a match in the kitchen while the gas stove is on, causing an explosion; her best friend has her scarf get caught in the door, snapping her neck; and her older sister's asthmatic boyfriend throws out his inhaler and doesn't remember where it is, then suffocates from an asthma attack. The ending has her older sister plan to drown her young sister in the pool since she doesn't know how to swim. The young girl looks in the mirror and sees the vision of the water rising up to her neck as she says goodbye to herself. Counts as TearJerker as well.
38	* "The Geezenstacks": A father realizes his daughter's dollhouse can change their family's future when the dolls are played with, yet only he believes in it. Things become strained in the household until near the end... when the dollhouse transports the ''whole'' family into it, like all of its other owners. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Also, the violin music doesn't make things better.]]
39	* "Baker's Dozen":
40	** The advertising agent's wife, who suspects that he's seeing someone else, finds his last voodoo gingerbread man cookie. While he's in the shower, the wife crushes the cookie in a fit of rage...
41	** The ending. The [[BadBoss voodoo baker's]] [[KickTheDog mistreated]] assistant [[TheDogBitesBack gets ahold of the thirteenth voodoo gingerbread cookie]]. Of course, the voodoo spell on him has [[ForcedTransformation reduced him to a rat]]. So he uses the cookie against her in his own rodent fashion. The baker barely has a minute to [[OhCrap realize]] [[ThisIsGonnaSuck what trouble she's in]] before she starts writhing on the floor, clutching her head in pain. We get a shot of the rat nibbling the gingerbread man's head. [[NothingIsScarier We don't see what affect this has on the baker, but her off-screen screams indicate that it's not pretty...]]
42	* The end of "Seasons of Belief", with the Grither's enormous long arms coming smashing into the family's home and killing the parents by squashing their heads.
43	* "The Milkman Cometh": The protagonist and his neighborhood write notes to a man called the milkman, who grants wishes for them at no cost. However, nobody actually sees the milkman and the audience barely gets a look at what he looks like. Unfortunately, if the wisher does not give clarification on what they're wishing for they're met with disastrous results. The protagonist finally confronts the milkman, asking to provide his family with another child. The milkman complies... by ''raping his wife''. When the baby is born, we get a clue on what [[HumanoidAbomination the milkman might look like]].
44	* "My Own Place": An investment banker, Sandy, is convinced by an Indian realtor to rent an apartment (albeit with a hole in the bedroom window) for $285 a month, practically a steal for 1987... only for a mysterious Indian man, Ram, to show up in the middle of the night, revealing that he is his roommate. For a while, nothing outwardly creepy happens (excluding the occasional off nightmare Sandy has) as Sandy becomes more and more frustrated with having a roommate... until one day he happens upon the idea of barricading Ram inside the bedroom, and then leaving for the day. When he gets back later at night, it turns out that Ram fell through the window to his death. After trying to confirm if Ram really did fall, Sandy reluctantly goes to bed... whereupon he's bombarded with various nightmarish imagery of Ram's home country, ultimately culminating in the spirits of Ram's relatives grabbing Sandy, and ''throwing him out the window''. And to make matters worse, the episode ends with another yuppie being shown the (now empty) apartment by the realtor, and she notices a bird by the hole in the window, only for it to disappear. The implication of this is that what happened to Sandy probably wasn't the first, nor the last time this occurred...
45	* "The Swap": The ending has Bubba raping his wife while possessing her lover's body. Panning over to the portrait of his mother ''smiling''.
46	-->"You're gonna play house for the rest of your life..." ''[evil laugh]''
47	* "Beetles": The ending has our protagonist die from being swarmed by the insects and killed. When the police come to check it out, we get a close-up of the beetles all over his face and climbing out of his mouth. Apparently, they're ''still'' eating him.
48	* "[[Recap/TalesFromTheDarksideS4E5NoStrings No Strings]]": As if making your former partner's corpse into a puppet wasn't bad enough, the mob don's "old friend" possess a MonsterClown puppet and causes a gunfight between the mob don and his associate. The associate and his girl get killed while the puppet is shot through the head. The mob don survives and confronts the puppet master on how he did that ''trick''. Then his friend's corpse rises behind him, begins choking him, and then a hook lowers down from on high and ''impales'' him, as the puppet master watches in horror. The episode ends with the puppet master, shaken, gathering up his puppet and leaving, as the camera remains on the stage, cutting to a closer shot of both corpses hanging, [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou the corpse of the partner staring dead straight into the camera]].
49	* "Love Hungry": Although the episode is about AnthropomorphicFood and a fat girl trying to stop gaining weight, the episode gets increasingly dark as it continues. First she purchases devices that will prevent her from eating... by imagining the food as people. She hears their screams of pain as they are EatenAlive and begins to talk to them. Then she starts to die from starvation and almost gives into eating. But she stops herself by ''sewing her mouth shut'' with a needle and thread. Her landlord and boyfriend find her corpse and we get a close-up of her disfigured face.
50	* "The Cutty Black Sow": On Halloween, a boy is warned by his dying great-grandmother about the Cutty Black Sow, a Celtic demon that steals the souls of those who die on All Hallow's Eve, and tries to prevent it from getting hers. And guess what? While he saves his grandmother's soul, the creature takes ''his''! No ImprobableInfantSurvival here!
51	* "Hush". A child creates an odd-looking mechanism that was programmed to stop all the noise annoying those he loves. [[GoneHorriblyRight It works too well]]; namely, it takes the life out of the thing that's making the noise. Seeing the machines being robbed of their noise is okay, but what's ''not'' okay is that horrible nozzle and noise of the machine itself. Also, a parrot and the boy's ''mother'' fall before it! ''Painfully.'' The world is certainly a better place when the babysitter makes the machine suck out its own life. [[FromBadToWorse And that's how the]] ''[[SparedByTheAdaptation TV version]]'' [[FromBadToWorse ended.]] [[https://epdf.pub/zenna-henderson-hush99cd73008d71670cdb23e290f6ae3daa30621.html In the original short story by Zenna Henderson]], '''everyone dies''', and the story ends with [[ApocalypseHow the implication]] that the machine is going to make ''everything'' quiet.

Context NightmareFuel / TalesFromTheDarkside