The first story--written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle--is basically about a vengeful mummy revived by an unscrupluous grad student (played by Steve Buscemi), and this mummy seeks the brains of Christian Slater's character and his family. The mummy story is fairly good, if somewhat predictable.

The next story, apparently a joint effort by Steven King and George A. Romero, is about a black cat stalking an old businessman (William Hickey) who hires a hitman (David Johansen, a.k.a. Buster Poindexter from the rock band New York Doll) to kill it. This is not the best story of the three, nor is it close to being the best work by either Romero or King. Nevertheless, Hickey expressing his wishes to see the cat's tail burn in the fireplace is pretty funny, and the cat has a very unusual and gruesome way of killing people.

The third and final part of this anthology is about as good as the mummy story, if not better. A man witnesses a gargoyle committing a crime and must keep it a secret or else he dies. Of course, he eventually tells the secret, but the exact consequences of this are rather surprising.

Overall, "Tales from the Darkside: The Movie" is a decent horror film and perhaps slightly better than the average anthology.

** NOTE: The more dots on the domino, the higher the rating. 11 or 12 dots points to an essential item in a horror video collection. Even the dung beetles would be repelled by a movie rated with one or no dots. **