User Reviews

Tales from the Darkside: The Satanic Piano starts as music composer Pete Bancroft (Michael Warren) is having a hard time with his record company & is having a hard time composing music. Then out of the blue Pete receives a call from the mysterious Wilson Farber (Philip Roth) who claims to have a revolutionary new instrument that will solve all of his problems, Pete discovers that Wilson has made a strange looking electronic keyboard which can read the thoughts of a musician & turn them into music. Wilson says Pete can have it which he jumps at, but Pete soon discovers that Wilson is a Satan worshipping musical inventor who has sinister plans for Pete & his daughter Justine (Lisa Bonet)...

Episode 6 from season 2 this Tales from the Darkside story was written, scored & directed by John Harrison & is a decent enough horror themed episode. I suppose the whole idea of a satanic soul stealing piano is fairly original even though villain of the piece Wilson's motives aren't quite made crystal clear. There's also a nod towards 80's synthesiser music not having any soul & that classical piano does with the synthesiser music in the end defeating the satanic piano & Wilson. I guess the Devil is a Mozart fan! At twenty odd minutes it's short & sweet, it moves along at a decent pace, it actually has a horror based story although I couldn't & indeed wouldn't say it was scary because it isn't.

Again the cast is very small with only four people in it & again the locations are kept to a minimum with a mere two. Anyone familiar with the excellent Day of the Dead (1985) will notice that most of the synthesiser music in The Satanic Piano is slightly altered music cues from that which isn't a surprise since Harrirson composed the music for Day of the Dead as well as this. In fact there is one piece of music near the start which is exactly the same as used in Day of the Dead. Musician & actress Lisa Bonet does OK while actor Michael Warren is maybe best known for his long running role in Hill Street Blues (1981 - 1987).

The Satanic Piano is another OK episode of Tales from the Darkside, it still probably isn't gory or intense enough for hardcore horror fans & the story is just a little bit odd & weird though. Worth watching if you can catch it on telly for free.

To me Tales from the Darkside has always varied in quality from episode to episode. I haven't seen too many great episodes but more than my share of mediocre ones. But I think The Satanic Piano is a pretty solid little episode, using the redemption story in regards to a pianist-entertainer obsessed with his waning status as a money-making talent in the music business, as his daughter's talent starts to develop and blossom into something special. Because pianist-composer, Pete Bancroft (Michael Warren), is so all-consumed with and self-absorbed about his own career, he's neglecting his daughter who mentions she wants him to help her develop a piece reflecting her love for him. Lisa Bonet of The Cosby Show & Angel Heart is Bancroft's daughter, Justine, and it'll take her near death thanks to a certain piano created by a manic Satanist (and former manager of a Devil-worshipping rock band) named Farber (played under lots of sweat by Philip Roth, conveying an insane desire to capture the soul of music in its purist, most beautiful form, "stolen" and "bled" from Justine) in order to realize what should be the most important part of his life.

I think this episode benefits from the oft-used theme of almost losing someone you love before understanding how important he/she is to you. It takes Bancroft seeing his daughter being drained by a machine (that can read thoughts, play "true" music you have an intention of creating but somehow can't pin down, and literally take "the soul" of music from individuals)--with Farber mockingly informing him that her musical soul will soon be in his possession--for him to disregard his own ambitions and quest to re-secure the fame that seems to be leaving him. And he will indeed sacrifice his career (he disrupts the machine and interferes with its removal of Justine's musical soul); hence, the redemption part of the story. If the music featured in this episode has a familiar ring to fans of Romero's Day of the Dead (1985), that is because (the director of this episode) John Harrison composes both. Harrison has a "Pittsburgh" connection with Romero, and his relationship with the horror maestro/auteur has benefited both. Harrison is a jack-of-all-trades, serving as composer, director, producer, and even actor (he was the snuff director in the criminally underseen "Effects" (it has Pittsburgh connections with the likes of Savini and Pilato)). I think his direction isn't too bad here. There's not a lot you can accomplish in about twenty-two minutes, but I think Harrison gets the job done reasonably well. Roth certainly has that sleazy quality where you do believe he'd do absolutely anything to create a machine that has the very essence of what makes music so universal and magical. Bonet is still a kid at this time, and she hadn't quite yet embraced her naughty side; her part is rather nondescript (I've never been fond of her as an actress anyway; although, I do think she's sexy when she enters her twenties). I think Warren has a good part, though, and is able to project what can happen to someone who squandered the passion of true talent in favor of yearning for solid gold and platinum hanging on his walls. He had no musical soul because he sold it for fame and can no longer find it; the ending tells us he can now be there for his daughter who still has hers.

Struggling composer Peter Bancroft (a fine and engaging performance by Michael Warren) receives a unique new piano made by the strange Wilson Farber (deliciously played to the slimy and sinister hilt by Philip Roth) that enables Bancroft to play music like never before. But Bancroft soon discovers that his newfound talent comes at a hefty price. Writer/director John Harrison not only relates the offbeat and intriguing premise at a steady pace, but also nicely addresses the difficulty artists have about precisely capturing their creative impulses in their work. The sound acting from the capable cast rates as another significant asset: Lisa Bonet contributes a sturdy and sympathetic portrayal as Bancroft's sweet, yet neglected daughter Justine while Felice Orlandi does well as Brancroft's honest manager Tony. Genuinely surprising atypical (sort of) upbeat ending, too. A worthwhile show.