Hi there. First & foremost, TOTALLY appreciate your site and the fans that contribute to it. Gives me hope for humanity… Second of all, maybe someone out there can help me determine what the hell it was that graced my eyeballs when I was a wee one in about 1986.
So I crawl into mom's bed 'cause I can't sleep and there's a chick on T.V……she's in her nighty, in the dark, walking toward a closet….it's got those skinny horizontal slanted panels running up & down the doors that allow you to see light glowing from behind it. She sloooooowwwwwly and suspensefully makes her way to the doors and when she whisks them open, there stands a pissed off, green, GOO-ey goblin with big, bulbous, red googly EYES, and I swear, I about had a heart attack.
I can't remember if the goblin thing sucked her into the closet & slammed the doors or what, but I do know my mom changed the channel to this crappy music video in order to keep me from freaking the F out:
DeBarge gives me the creeps to this day…… Anyway, I present this evidence to help solidify the time frame; it was around 1985 or '86. GREEN GOOGLY CLOSET MONSTER WITH BIG-ASS RED EYES. Help me out, good people.
Love & stuff,
Nikki P.
UNK SEZ: Nikki, based on the big red eyes, I'd say you're talking about an episode of TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE entitled "Inside the Closet" directed by special effects master TOM SAVINI. I found a scene on YouTube that fits your description below and I also found some great still shots and a review at at the fantastic blog FROM BEYOND DEPRAVED over HERE! Make sure you let us know if "Lizzie" is the monster you were looking for!
That's one of my favorite "Tales" episodes. It seems to actually conjure up the magic similar to that of "The Crate" episode in "Creepshow".
OK, so I was totally off about the looks of the closet door…..but this HAS to be it; yous guys are amazing!! LONG LIVE UNK. LONG LIVE KINDERTRAUMA. GIMMEE SOME SUGAR, little goblin dude!
I don't know….I think the Grither kicks this guy's scrawny little ass right out of my first place spot. Seasons of Belief is still what I think of first when I think of Tales From the Darkside. Of course the intro alone probably traumatized me more than any episode ever could!
Lizzie's awesome! I can still remember when first we met. My dad recorded the episode back when it originally aired after a commercial for it aired that afternoon. Seeing how the next day was a school day, I couldn't stay up. But he had it all set and ready for me when I woke up. I watched it right before school, and was terrified the rest of the day!
That, and seeing the pilot episode with the witch (back before the show was called Tales From The Darkside if I remember right. It was just called Trick or Treat), are the reasons why this show will always have a special place in my heart. Â
Best DARKSIDE ever! Although my best friend will tell you it was THE GRITHER, I swear this one stuck with me the longest. Maybe cuz I had a closet like that in my room as a child.
HOLY SHITBALLS The Grither is another one! It tortured me for yeeeeeeeaaarrrrrrrs after viewing. Fucking monster hands!! We gots a love/hate relationship…
Another creepy one was the one where the little girl has a dollhouse full of dolls and whatever happens to the dolls happens to members of her family. I never caught that one as a child: I watched it about a year ago for the first time and was sorta freaked out about it. The music is creepy and the dolls themselves are freaky looking. The titleof that one is escaping my feeble old mind at the moment.
thats the thing with DARKSIDE. For the most part a LOT of the episodes sucked! But since we didnt have cable (and if you go far back enough some of us didnt have VCRs yet!) we just had to grab whatever we could , watching stuff like DARKSIDE and TWILIGHT ZONE. BUT thereWERE a few winners in the DARKSIDE heap. You had to sit thru a lot of bad ones to find the gems though.
UPDATE: THE GEEZENSTACKS was the dollhouse one.
This is one of my favorite DARKSIDE eps as well. The way Fritz Weaver cuddles with "Lizzie" is weirdly sweet.
Wasn't Seth Green in this episode?
The only reason I remember this episode is because they TV station screwed up and started playing the audio from a commercial during Lizzie's rampage: I'm helping Santa out this year and you can too!