Something Weird on TV: Monsters Part One – A Monster He Didn’t Like

“Richard P. Rubinstein never met a monster he didn’t like.” So begins a 1989 profile on Rubinstein and his second stab (no pun intended) at network anthology horror, following on the heels of the successful Tales from the Darkside. Indeed, it was Rubinstein’s frustration at the very success of Darkside that prompted him and his company Laurel Productions to launch Monsters in 1988.

“We received a fair amount of notice, particularly for our emphasis on story and acting,” Rubinstein said of Tales from the Darkside. “Yet as a company, for our theatrical motion pictures such as Creepshow as well as in Tales, we had done a lot of very, very good makeup and special effects.”

The desire to center those special effects was instrumental to the creation of Monsters, the most obvious successor to Tales from the Darkside, which began syndication in October of 1988, just three months after Tales wrapped up. While there are several key similarities between Monsters and its predecessor, there are also some major differences and this focus on special effects is right at the heart of them – as is that title.

Where Tales from the Darkside tackled a wide range of different types of (usually at least horror-adjacent) stories, the episodes of Monsters pretty much always feature, well, a monster or two – from traditional ghoulies like vampires and zombies to much weirder fare. What’s more, while Monsters alternates between comedic episodes and more serious installments, just as Darkside did, even the most straight-faced episode of Monsters tends to be what Rubinstein himself refers to as “a mixture of fun and scare.” Which all probably goes a long way toward explaining why Monsters has such a special place in my heart.

I went into Tales from the Darkside unsure if I had ever actually seen an episode of it before (and ended the run still not convinced that I had). With Monsters, I know damn well I saw episodes of it when it first aired, and I have vivid memories of two of them – two that happen to have been released together on a double-episode VHS tape years later. They’re also a pretty good introduction to what you can expect from Monsters, but they’re both later in the first season, so we’ll get to them in future columns.

While Rubinstein and his production company may have been the driving force behind Monsters, and the reason for its similarity to Tales from the Darkside, the most well-known name associated with the show behind the scenes is probably makeup artist Dick Smith (as famous for his classic Halloween monster masks as for his Oscar-winning movie work), who was brought on as a “special makeup effects consultant” throughout the show’s three-season run.

This dedication to monsters as special effects spectacles first and foremost shows through in pretty much the entire series, which boasts a wide array of (often, though by no means always) fairly cool monsters, brought to life with a variety of different techniques, from simple makeup to animatronics, puppets and rubber suits to stop motion.

Despite this, Monsters actually cost less to produce than the average show at the time, with episodes boasting a budget of only around $200,000. This means that Monsters features somewhat fewer big-name stars or impressive directorial credits than Tales from the Darkside, but it does offer episodes adapted from classic stories by the likes of Frank Belknap Long, Manly Wade Wellman, Lisa Tuttle, Maureen McHugh, Stephen King, and several stories by Robert Bloch, to name a few.

On October 22, 1988, Monsters started off strong with “The Feverman,” a particularly good opening episode helmed by Creepshow 2 director Michael Gornick, who also directed several episodes of Tales from the Darkside. The teleplay is by Neal Marshall Stevens, who, under the pseudonym Benjamin Carr, would go on to write something like forty Full Moon movies of various stripes, as well as the direct-to-video sequel Hellraiser: Deader and the 2001 remake Thirteen Ghosts. None of which should be too surprising, as the tone and aesthetic of Monsters is pretty close to your average Full Moon feature – or to Thirteen Ghosts, for that matter.

Directed by another Tales from the Darkside veteran (who also provided the story on which the episode was based), “Holly’s House” gives us a good early taste of the variety to which the term “monster” will be put before the series is finished. In this case, the monster in question is the life-sized, doll-like mascot of the eponymous children’s TV series, who isn’t as nice as her on-screen persona would suggest.

The parade of Darkside alums continues in “New York Honey” and “The Vampire Hunter,” which is directed once again by Michael Gornick. “My Zombie Lover” is the show’s first all-out comedy episode, featuring an almost entirely Black cast in a world where the dead come back to life and a living young woman and her zombie boyfriend enter into a love affair that is challenged by her prejudiced family. As with Tales from the Darkside, the comedy episodes are often the weakest link in Monsters, but this one, written and directed by David Misch, producer of TV series like Duckman and Jack of All Trades, isn’t bad.

As we close out our first column on Monsters we come to the show’s sixth episode, which also premiers its first “big” guest star. Singer-cum-actor Meat Loaf plays a mad scientist on an island in the Caribbean where revolution is in the air. It seems he’s perfected a serum that keeps the body of a deceased rebel in perfect condition for years at a time, making him a sort of perpetual organ bank for the doctor’s wealthy friends. Unfortunately, a mishap with the serum leads the departed rebel to return in search of his missing parts.

It’s the only episode from writer/director Richard Benner, who also turned in scripts for episodes of Tales from the Darkside and Friday the 13th, not to mention an uncredited pass on the screenplay for My Stepmother is an Alien. When it comes to places to pull the plug (pun intended), it’s not as promising as where we started out, but not to fret – next time, we’ll tackle some classic episodes, including stories from the pens of such titans of the field as Robert Bloch and Manly Wade Wellman.