Monsters (1988)
Monsters is a syndicated horror anthology series which originally ran from 1988 to 1991 and reran on the Sci-Fi Channel during the 1990s. As of 2011, Monsters airs on NBC Universal's horror/suspense-themed cable channel Chiller in sporadic weekday marathons. In a similar vein to Tales from the Darkside, Monsters shared the same producer, and in some ways succeeded the show. It differed in some respects nonetheless. While Tales sometimes dabbled in stories of science fiction and fantasy, this series was more strictly horror. As the name implies, each episode of Monsters featured a different monster which the story concerned, from the animatronic puppet of a fictional children's television program to mutated, weapon-wielding lab rats. Similar to Tales, however, the stories in Monsters were rarely very straightforward action plots and often contained some ironic twist in which a character's conceit or greed would do him in, often with gruesome results. Adding to this was a sense of comedy often lost on horror productions which might in some instances lighten the audience's mood but in many cases added to the overall eeriness of the production.
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Episode 1 - Stressed Environment
Release Date: 1990-09-30Mutant rats threaten pesticide wielding scientists in a laboratory.
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Episode 2 - Murray's Monster
Release Date: 1990-10-07A psychiatrist with his own stress from his wife finds a solution when he discovers a sheepish patient has manifested his repressed anger in the form of a giant ape-like monster.
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Episode 3 - Bug House
Release Date: 1990-10-14A man awakes to find himself in a home where the lady of the house has a non-chalant attitude towards the bugs in her home.
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Episode 4 - Cellmates
Release Date: 1990-10-21A young man expecting to be freed from prison by his rich father discoveres he's been placed in the wrong cell.
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Episode 5 - Outpost
Release Date: 1990-10-28A planetary station commander discovers the identity of a monster that operates a mining project on a hostile planet.
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Episode 6 - The Hole
Release Date: 1990-11-04A group of men find their way into a bunker during the Vietnam War, only to find that this hole hides a secret buried in its walls.
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Episode 7 - Small Blessings
Release Date: 1990-11-11A young family tries to cope with having a meat hungry deformed baby.
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Episode 8 - A Shave and a Haircut, Two Bites
Release Date: 1990-11-18Two teenagers think the barber shop across the street may be a secret meeting place for town vampires.
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Episode 9 - The Young and the Headless
Release Date: 1990-11-25The marriage of a couple of doctors become problematic when the woman's presumed-to-be-dead husband returns and she finds herself still allured to the hunk despite her better judgement. After finding success with animating a headless parrot, the two decide to use the numbskull of a third wheel to take their work to another level.
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Episode 10 - The Waiting Game
Release Date: 1990-12-09After a nuclear blowout, only two factions remain. Humans inside of a small locked shelter, and nuclear holocaust vampires. With the two sides only separated by a small digital code on the outside of the shelter.
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Episode 11 - Sin-Sop
Release Date: 1990-12-09A sort of faith healer has set up a kind of distillery for paying customers. What was once the most sinful man is now a living conduit to drain people of their sins.
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Episode 12 - A New Woman
Release Date: 1990-12-16As a rich, elderly man lays dying, his cold-hearted mistress threatens what maybe his last morale act on earth. For her soulless intents, the man's mysterious doctor promises her a haunting that very well may change her outlook.
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Episode 13 - Malcolm
Release Date: 1990-12-23A husband rediscovers a part of himself that he thought he lost long ago when he gave up his music career for his wife.
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Episode 14 - Household Gods
Release Date: 1990-12-30When a recent mother tries to go back to work while maintaining some housework, she finds things going awry. To her disbelief she finds out that her lifestyle is defying the domestic gods.
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Episode 15 - The Space Eaters
Release Date: 1991-01-06Two men encounter a victim who claims his brain was eaten. After confirming the story, they attempt to fight off the alien invader responsible.
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Episode 16 - The Waiting Room
Release Date: 1991-01-13A father brings his son and his new wife to a hotel where he and his wife once stayed. It seems that there is a specific reason for this, one that has to do with a promise he broke to a woman he encountered in a room that exists only in the dark.
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Episode 17 - Leavings
Release Date: 1991-01-21Two police officers are disturbed by recent sightings of people who are missing body parts and others who appear to have been almost put together from other parts. However, the oddest thing is the blasé reaction of their supervisor upon hearing their stories.
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Episode 18 - Desirable Alien
Release Date: 1991-01-27A caseworker for the United States Immigration Service wants to unlock the mystery of her subject's alluring power.
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Episode 19 - A Face for Radio
Release Date: 1991-02-03A smart-mouth host of a late-night radio show is beguiled by a female guest who claims she was abducted by aliens and that they gave her a creature to help rid the planet of evil.
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Episode 20 - Werewolf of Hollywood
Release Date: 1991-02-10A screenwriter it tasked to pen a horror film with the unique premise of a werewolf in the position of an executive. But things starting getting a bit bloody when it seems that it hits a nerve with someone in the studio.
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Episode 21 - Talk Nice to Me
Release Date: 1991-02-17A columnist and lady's man is harassed by a woman via the phone, but he can't figure out who she is, how she seems to know what's going on in his apartment all the time, or how she manages to get into his place without him seeing her.
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Episode 22 - Hostile Takeover
Release Date: 1991-02-24A cut-throat CEO is making good business with the help of voodoo, but doesn't find out until it's too late that it comes with a very high price.
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Episode 23 - The Maker
Release Date: 1991-04-18A bum encounters a man with the power to create anything he desires.
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Episode 24 - The Moving Finger
Release Date: 1991-04-26A man battles a large finger that that rises out of drain of his sink.