With the recent appearance of Mitch McConnell at the Senate, someone posted a photo from “A Case of the Stubborns,” which was the 10th episode of the first season of Tales from the Darkside.
The series is an anthology show created by George A. Romero that ran for about four seasons in syndication airing at different times and dates. I remember catching a scene from this episode on a Saturday or Sunday evening and being confused. The episode is based on a short story by Robert Bloch is set in an unspecified time possibly in the late 19th Century or early 20th Century before people had access to telephones and modern practices of embalming and funerals.
Eddie Bracken plays Titus Tolliver. When the episode opens, his character is believed to have died late the night before from natural causes. Dr. Snodgrass (Bill McCutcheon) was called to pronounce him dead. But as his grandson, Jody (Christian Slater when he was 14-15) and his Ma (Barbara Eda-Young) are praying for his soul over breakfast when they hear some noise from upstairs. And Titus walks down the stairs to join his family as it’s just another regular day. He’s obviously a corpse judging by his skin which is starting to decompose. Despite Jody and Ma trying to convince Titus he died the night before he doesn’t believe them acting all ornery.
Snodgrass and rhe local pastor Peabody (Brent Spiner in an early role) both pay Titus a visit but he isn’t believing them either. And as time progresses, his body decomposes more and skin changes color. There’s dialogue that suggests it’s set during the warmer months which would cause his body to decompose more. And even as his body parts fall off, Titus still doesn’t believe it.
It was the part where Titus’ skin changed and Jody tells him he has something on his face as things fall off that I remember seeing as a kid. Darkside was one of many sci-fi/horror/fantasy anthologies during this time that push the limits. A revival of The Twilight Zone in the mid-1980s examined darker themes. On HBO, there was The Hitchhiker which had the freedom of violence/gore, profanity, nudity and sexual content. And Monsters grew out of Darkside which focused exclusively on horror.
While it’s great to see Slater and Spiner in earlier roles, it’s Bracken who steals the show. Doesn’t Titus notices his own skin or go to look in a mirror while he continues to deny with a fiesty demeanor he isn’t dead. Sometimes people get so set in their ways, they refuse to admit anything they don’t agree with.
This is also a nice twist on the horror trope of premature burials. Throughout history they have been histories of people assumed dead. Historians have debated that Annie Hill Carter Lee, mother of Robert E. Lee, was presumed dead and placed in a casket before she awoke from a medically induced trance. Before embalming become so popular, most people were buried within a day of their deaths. This is how wakes originated with people spending time with the body to make sure it doesn’t wake up. And of course, coffins were buried with a rope attached to a bell for a person to ring if they were buried prematurely.
This is how the characters seem to act more confused than totally terrified. Could Dr. Snodgrass have been wrong? How do you tell a loved one decomposing that they need to go take the eternal sleep in a coffin in the freshly dug hole at the nearby cemetery?
Zane Says 