By Geno McGahee
The intro of TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE is always awesome and scary, but it can lead into episodes that don’t always belong in the dark side. Some are so tame that it’s difficult to categorize them as horror, but making a show like this, it’s probably easy to run out of ideas and if there are a smidge of horror elements involved, then they can live with themselves I guess. In THE TEAR COLLECTOR, we have one of these episodes that are really more of a drama than a horror short, but it’s interesting even if the payoff sucks in the end.
Prudence (Jessica Harper) is emotional and not happy. She cries often and doesn’t have anything really going in her life. Her roommate, Gretchen (Linda Lee Johnson), tries to help, but comes off as insensitive and pushy. I’ve never met a Gretchen I liked, but it’s an old name and most Gretchens I met were pushing 80. They had Bingo dabbers and were angry.
To make her life worse, Prudence walks past a homeless junkie (Eric Bogosian) talking to himself as all homeless people do…in movies at least. Homeless people aren’t always depicted in the best light in film, but I guess the thought is that if they don’t have a house, they don’t have a TV and they can’t see this shit, so fuck them. I get it. It makes sense. But, in their defense, there are plenty of crazy junkie homeless people and they are not nice. This junkie begins yelling at poor Prudence and grabbing her, yelling “you want to help me out, don’t you?” She throws money at the bum and hauls ass, right into Ambrose Cavender (Victor Garber). Ambrose? What pretentious douchebag wrote this? If I ever meet a guy named Ambrose, I’m going to punch him right in the face, unless he’s tough-looking or into MMA. Then it’s all good.
Ambrose is creepy and tells Prudence that her tears are beautiful. She’s been lonely so long that this seems charming, but the guy looks like he walked off the set of TO CATCH A PREDATOR. Beggars can’t be choosers though, and they set up a meeting and this is when the mystery begins and I like mystery. She goes to see this dude and when she shows up, she walks to a locked door. He approaches and tells her that there is “something irresistible about locked doors.” Really? Really Ambrose? Well, people lock the door when they have to take a shit, don’t they? What’s irresistible about that locked door? You tell me.
He has Prudence lie down and starts collecting her tears in a glass container and this guy is very creepy. I wonder if he collects other bodily fluids. I would be creeped out if he said take this glass container, this copy of Jugs and fill the bottle for me because your man juice is beautiful. Damn, the money had better be good for that, and apparently it would be. He paid Prudence 100 bucks for her tears each time she gave them. That was in 1985! In 2018, that has to be at least 500 bucks and he’d probably pay for other fluids, I’m sure. Damn, I picked the wrong occupation. I should have found where this dude lives and brought a bucket.
Ambrose informs her that when her jar is full, she “will be ready,” which really brings the mystery element full force. Ready for what? Is he a monster that needs tears and will turn into such beast when it’s time? Is he really draining her of her life? Is he using this as some weird way to get into her pants? I wanted to know!
The container fills and fills and Prudence begins falling for Ambrose, which is so odd, but then again, a lot of women find strange guys to hook up with. Strange is better than average I guess and crazy people make interesting lovers. So, maybe I shouldn’t criticize her choice here, but remarkably, he has no interest in that. She throws herself at him, but all he wants are her tears and then kick her to the curb. WHAT?! So, she leaves, but she takes her tears with her, prompting poor Ambrose to give a sad face. Now what happens? Guess what… NOTHING happens. He’s not a monster. She’s not dead. He’s just some toolbox that gets his rocks off collecting tears. In fact, he collected so many that he dedicated a room to it, which is what was behind the locked door.
So this tale just kept jerking me along and jerking me along and then when they could not jerk any more, they left me with blue balls. I was so fucking disappointed at the end of this one. I would have been OK if she left and the guy smiled and had fangs. Don’t explain it. I know it don’t make sense, but it makes more sense than nothing. I would have been happy if he looked at the camera, while holding his jars of tears and said “time to make my tear lube…it’s better than KY…that’s for sure.” That would make sense! But this?!
Prudence leaves and almost gets hit by a taxi, leading to some strange geeky guy (John Rothman) to run out and come onto her. She walks away with this dude and I’m totally lost. What did I just watch? It wasn’t badly written, but it made no sense. There was no payoff at the end. Damn. THE TEAR COLLECTOR should have collected other things that were more interesting. The adult magazine collector would at least be fun to watch even if the payoff sucked. I recommend this but just barely.
Rating: 5/10
