Tales from the Darkside: The Casavin Curse starts one morning as Lieutenant Wright (John Brandon) & psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Webster (Scott Lincoln) are called to a murder scene, Tyler Harrington the lover of the millionaire heiress Gina Casavin (Catherine Parks) has been brutally strangled & stabbed. Gina admits to committing the crime but not remembering it saying it's because of an ancient family curse, her cousin Nicholas (Jospeh Cortese) agrees but is the cops prime suspect as they don't believe Gina could have done it. After some incriminating evidence comes to light Nicholas is taken in & Webster is left alone with Gina at which point he discovers the truth...
Episode 24 from season 2 this Tales from the Darkside story originally aired in the US during July 1986 & brought the second season to a close, directed by Frank de Palma one has to say The Casavin Curse is a neatly effective horror themed story about a sinister gypsy curse. The script by Edithe Swensen certainly finishes the season on a high note, the basic story revolving around a curse isn't the most original this show has ever put on screen but it does work & makes sense, it's horror themed rather than light hearted fantasy & there's a nicely dark twist ending at the end (Then again having said that where else would the twist ending come? The start?). At twenty minutes it's short & manages to tell a decent story with the minimum of fuss & flesh out the character's to a decent degree in such a scant duration.
To this point I would probably say that The Casavin Curse is maybe the most gory & violent Tales from the Darkside episode, there's a blood splattered murder scene with the body complete with huge knife wounds clearly seen in several shots, someones neck is broken on screen & someone is stabbed in the stomach with a knife with a fair amount of blood. The acting is good from a largely unknown cast.
The Casavin Curse is one of the best episode from the second season & feels a lot more like an average Tales from the Crypt (1989 - 1996) episode which is no bad thing. A good end to a mixed second season which has ranged from awful to average to great.
Episode 24 from season 2 this Tales from the Darkside story originally aired in the US during July 1986 & brought the second season to a close, directed by Frank de Palma one has to say The Casavin Curse is a neatly effective horror themed story about a sinister gypsy curse. The script by Edithe Swensen certainly finishes the season on a high note, the basic story revolving around a curse isn't the most original this show has ever put on screen but it does work & makes sense, it's horror themed rather than light hearted fantasy & there's a nicely dark twist ending at the end (Then again having said that where else would the twist ending come? The start?). At twenty minutes it's short & manages to tell a decent story with the minimum of fuss & flesh out the character's to a decent degree in such a scant duration.
To this point I would probably say that The Casavin Curse is maybe the most gory & violent Tales from the Darkside episode, there's a blood splattered murder scene with the body complete with huge knife wounds clearly seen in several shots, someones neck is broken on screen & someone is stabbed in the stomach with a knife with a fair amount of blood. The acting is good from a largely unknown cast.
The Casavin Curse is one of the best episode from the second season & feels a lot more like an average Tales from the Crypt (1989 - 1996) episode which is no bad thing. A good end to a mixed second season which has ranged from awful to average to great.
