Many horror anthology series come and go, but Tales From the Darkside is one of the most prolific of the lot; it was nearly resurrected in the early 2010s courtesy of Joe Hill, the mind behind horror novels like NOS4A2, and the son of none other than Stephen King himself.
The anthology genre has recently exploded in big ways for horror with series like American Horror Story, but the 1980s were also a golden period for the style of storytelling on television. One of the more noteworthy anthology series to crop up during that time was Tales From the Darkside, which would go on to accrue nearly 100 episodes and launch a feature film adaptation. Tales From the Darkside has always been a bit of a cult classic in comparison to other bigger anthology hits like The Twilight Zone or Tales From the Crypt, but there have still been efforts to bring it to a modern audience.
Originally designed as a television version of the Creepshow film series, Tales From the Darkside was created by George Romero and managed to assemble some impressive talent both in front of and behind the camera. The series pulled from the works of notable genre visionaries like Clive Barker, Robert Block, Harlan Ellison, and Stephen King even penned some entries. The series was dormant after the movie’s release in 1990, but over a decade later, there were rumblings to revive the property.
How Joe Hill Tried To Reboot Tales From The Darkside
Back in 2013, it was announced that Joe Hill would be leading a Tales From the Darkside reboot alongside Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci for the CW Network. Hill was candid about how he had a great respect for the original, but wanted to help the show evolve in exciting ways. Hill felt that in modern times, it’s not enough for an anthology show to just be that; he wanted to add connectivity to his series. The episodes would function as standalone stories, but as more of the season took place, there would be links that indicate that the reboot is actually a much bigger story. This was a really exciting angle for the series, which had an X-Files style approach to the anthology series.
The Tales From the Darkside pilot was shot for the CW in 2015, but they ultimately chose not to go forward with the show. This likely had to do with the network’s increased interest in superhero properties and less of a focus on the horror genre. Other networks expressed interest in the Darkside pilot, but none of them followed through and picked it up. It was disappointing that Joe Hill’s creative vision for the series didn’t come to life on television, but in 2016, he was presented with a different opportunity to tell these stories.
IDW Publishing approached Joe Hill to publish his unproduced Tales From the Darkside scripts into a graphic novel. Hill’s graphic novel compiles the scripts for what would have been the first three episodes of his reboot series into comic form; they give an impressive indication of the scope that his series would have occupied. The comic versions of Joe Hill’s Tales From the Darkside universe are still better than nothing, and Hill has gone on to work on the new Creepshow series. Perhaps in the future, he’ll be given another shot for his original vision.
