Episode
Tales from the Darkside: Madness Room
Overview
Cathy Osborne brings her husband up to a previously-unknown room in their house and along with her friend Michael, relates the tale of how the room is the "madness room" from which no one has ever stayed the night...and survived. In reality it's a set up and Cathy and Michael plan to kill Cathy's husband by scaring him to death. They succeed by faking some supernatural activities, but soon find that the curse of the room is all too real...
Details
- Series
- Tales from the Darkside
- Season
- Season 1
- Episode
- Episode 17
- Air date
- 1985-05-05
- Runtime
- 23 min
Episode context
Madness Room is Episode 17 in Season 1 of Tales from the Darkside. It aired on 1985-05-05. The runtime is 23 min.
Previous / Next
Episode 16: The Tear Collector
Prudence is a young woman who can't stop crying, but finds a peculiar way to make a profit when she meets Ambrose Cavender, a man who collects tears.
Episode 18: If the Shoes Fit...
Fast-talking politician Bo Gumbs finds himself in serious trouble when he arrives for a meeting and waits at a nearby hotel.
More episodes from this season
Episode 15: Answer Me
Joan is apartment-sitting for a friend but finds herself tormented by a phone that won't stop ringing.
Episode 19: Levitation
A teenager enraptured with magicians goes to a flee-bitten circus to seek out one of the greater: Kharma. However, Kharma now does cheap magic for the crowds, and none of the great illusions the teenager believes him capable of. When Kharma refuses to do them, the kid heckles him until Kharma relents and uses the boy as a subject for his greatest feat of levitation. However, Kharma dies of a heart attack, and the boy simply keeps on levitating...up into the sky and out of sight.
Episode 14: Snip, Snip
A warlock and a witch get into a battle over a $10 million lottery ticket when each claims that the spirits gave them the winning number.
Episode 20: It All Comes Out in the Wash
Henry, a greedy developers, stumbles upon a Chinese laundry that offers a unique service - it can "wash out" guilt. Henry employs their services but soon finds there is a unpleasant price to pay.
Episode 13: Anniversary Dinner
A young girl fleeing her boyfriend finds herself in a small country home with a genial older couple. They take pity on her and invite her in, and even invite her to their special anniversary dinner. After getting her set up in the hot tub with plenty of wine, they start pouring vegetables in. As she passes out, the girl realizes exactly how the couple will be having her for dinner.
Episode 21: Bigalow's Last Smoke
Mr. Bigalow, a lifelong cigarette smoker, wakes up to find that his windows have bars on them and his door is sealed shut. A mysterious figure appears on Bigalow's television, informing him that he will quit smoking. Bigalow scoffs at this notion and reaches for a morning cigarette. As soon as he lights up, a deafening alarm sounds, demanding that he extinguish the cigarette immediately. Bigalow is subjected to various endurance tests and is further tempted to smoke when thousands of cigarettes materialize in the room, only to disappear. After being driven to the edge of sanity, he wakes up to find that he no longer has a desire to smoke. Believing that the whole ordeal was a dream, Bigalow reaches for a cup of coffee, at which time the mysterious figure reappears on the television screen, insisting that Bigalow now work on his caffeine addiction.
Episode 12: In the Cards
A fake fortuneteller, Caterina, soon finds that every fortune she tells comes true...but she can only predict gruesome and horrific ends for her customers. She soon discovers that another cursed fortuneteller slipped her a cursed pack of cards, and Caterina can only get rid of them by giving them to another fake. She does so by slipping into another fortuneteller's parlor, asking for a fortune, and slipping her the cursed deck. Unfortunately the first fortune the new cursee reads is of Caterina's death...which rapidly comes true.
Episode 22: Grandma's Last Wish
Given one last wish to enliven her days before she is moved into the Tranquil Gardens retirement home, elderly Grandma sees to it that her self-centered family finds out what it's like to grow old.
Episode 11: All a Clone by the Telephone
Leon, a hapless TV writer, buys an answering machine that has a mind of its own - it initially helps him out by providing him with new material, but Leon soon finds that it's taking over his life.
Episode 23: The False Prophet
Cassie Pines is a woman travelling on her own who believes in astrology, tea leaves...everything. She comes into a diner with a most unusual mechanical fortune teller named Horace X. "Horace" is uncanny with his predictions but Cassie soon finds that Horace is demanding and possessive - despite her misgivings she enters the booth one more time...and disappears.