During the mid to late 80’s genre fans were treated to some solid horror and sci-fi television with the popularity of the Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead producer Richard Rubinstein and George Romero collaboration Tales from the Darkside. Following Darkside we got hour-long series Friday the 13th: The Series and the subpar Freddy’s Nightmares to squeeze in a TV scare after 9pm on a weekend night.
Tale's from the Darkside producer Rubinstein returned with another half-hour horror show in Monsters, which ran for three seasons. Thanks to the folks at Entertainment One, Monsters: The Complete Series is making its debut on DVD in a nifty nine disc box set that is sure to make fans of this show very happy. All 72 episodes from the three seasons are included on this box-set and to my knowledge are in their uncut format as they were shown originally on network TV.
The Feverman and Holly’s House episodes do a nice job in getting Monster’s in particularly ghoulish gear. The Feverman shows off some fun make-up with a morbidly obese demon terrorizing a group of folks in a basement. In Holly’s House is another enjoyable episode on the first season that crosses the children’s TV show (Ala Pee Wee’s Playhouse) with the horror of Chucky from Child’s Play. This time around the killer doll is the animatronic puppet named Holly.
On the second season, The Face is another stand-out that center’s around the misfortune of a small-time crook and his hand that has become its own evil entity. Shades of a much tamer Basket Case and some crazy make-up FX similar to that of Screaming Mad George on The Face make it worth a look.
The episodes look fine overall and are definitely better than what you may have scene from Paramount in their releases of Friday The 13th: The Series. I’d almost say that if you own the Tales from the Darkside series on DVD the video and audio quality is on par with that, which is not bad. One of my only issues with this set is that there aren't any extra features, like say commentaries or even a small featurette. On the bright side, there is a ton of content here and it is packaged nicely so as not to stack too many episodes on one disc (nine discs total).
Monsters: The Complete Series should definitely be a part of any fan of TV horror's collection. Entertainment One has done a fine job in packaging this underrated slice of 80’s TV history. Recommended
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