I have mentioned this a million times on this blog: the pilot episode of Tales from the Darkside is my personal favorite Halloween special/Halloween episode/Halloween movie/Halloween TV show/etc ever made. All of the links I've posted on my blog have long since been broken. Happy to have found the full episode featured on the great Petrichor & Pumpkins blog.
If you've never seen it, you're in for a treat. This thing still holds up. It's brilliant. And it will leave you thinking about it long after you've watched it. My brother and I still get into debates about the old miser and who was more wrong: The parents for forcing their kids into his house or the old miser for creating the tempting solution to the parents' debt. To me, the old guy is the victim here, and definitely doesn't deserve the fate forced upon him.
The first parent who was offered the option of sending their poor kid into that Haunted House could have told Mr. Hackles where to go. But greed took over, and the parents forced their kids into a terrible situation. Poor Gideon Hackles. He loved Halloween too much. He loved HAUNTING too much (this should speak to all of us). His love for our High Holiday got away from him, and he became slightly obsessed with his props and scares. But as he states in the episode, he never harmed a single hair on a single head (life-long emotional damage harms no hairs, you see).
I always thought of it this way: To be mad at poor Gideon is to be mad at your own credit card when you max'd it out. You're the one who hosed up, not the credit card company by offering you a credit card. Poor Gideon.
I will rest my case with this fact: When the new farmer in town told Mr. Hackles that he wouldn't be sending his kid into his Haunted House Debt-Relief program, Gideon offered an empty threat that he would increase the farmer's monthly debt payments. To which the farmer declared "Go ahead! Take the farm! I'd rather that than let my boy visit you tonight. I'm just surprised the others let their children do it!" To which poor Gideon replies "Most parents MAKE their children do it." And that was it. It is very much implied that by standing up to Gideon that he backs down, and his teeth have no bite.
It's crazy fun to ponder this episode. It's brilliant writing, in fact. And on a personal side note: The ONE time I met George Romero at a horror convention, I was relaxed enough (unlike my meeting with Bruce Campbell) to tell him that of all of his works my personal favorite was Tales from the Darkside's Trick or Treat, which he wrote. He looked puzzled and asked me to repeat that statement. I did. And he said "I'm so sorry, but I have no memory of that." And we both laughed.
Click below for the blog post over at Petrichor & Pumpkins, and definitely watch that sode!
