It’s Halloween! So, once the little ghouls and ghosts are safely tucked in, once the party is over and the Walking Dead costume is back on the hanger, once the jack-o-lantern candles are blown out and the sugar-high has faded, why not cap off the evening with some horror-themed billiards TV, specifically the “Pool Sharks” episode of the cable show Monsters?
Monsters was a three-season horror anthology show that ran from 1988-1991 on the Sci-Fi Channel. Similar to Tales of the Crypt, each 30-minute Monsters episode focused on a monster, ranging from animated mannequins to weapon-wielding lab rats, and often included elements of black comedy, twist endings, and a variety of special effects, some more convincing than others.
[SPOILER ALERT] The aptly-named Monsters episode “Pool Sharks” aired in December 1988 as part of the show’s first season. The full episode is available below to watch. The episode focuses on two bar patrons, who face off in a pool game. Both have secrets; the fact they are both pool hustlers is but the least of those secrets. One of the patrons is Gabe, an everyman, who enters the bar with his pool cue case in tow and an eye on the vamp at the billiards table. That vamp is the buxom, pale-skinned, black-clad Natasha, who clearly has a taste for men, as evidenced when she later sucks Gabe’s bleeding finger wound.
After some brief flirtations and a lot of hustler subtext, Natasha and Gabe agree to a game of 50-point straight pool, in which the bet is the winner gets to do whatever s/he wants to the other person’s body. Now, the secrets start getting exposed, as Natasha reveals (to the camera) her fangs, and Gabe starts to probe Natasha’s awareness of a man (Gabe’s brother) who disappeared, having last been seen with a beautiful woman in a pool hall.
The game continues, as each person makes a series of successful (albeit, somewhat easy) trick shots (including a four-balls-in-one-shot beauty), while also gradually pulling back their veils and revealing their true intentions. (Gabe’s is to avenge his brother. Natasha’s is to feast on Gabe before the sun rises.) When the game gets tied 49-49, Natasha appears to win on the next shot, but is thwarted by Gabe (and the usual holy cross vampire trope), who goes on to sink the winning shot and then impales Natasha with his special, hidden-blade cue stick.
While the stakes are totally different, it’s clear “Pool Sharks” is borrowing liberally from the 1961 Twilight Zone episode, “A Game of Pool.” In that billiards TV show, a local pool player bets his life against a famous, dead pool hustler. (“Life or death. You beat me, you live; you lose, you die.”) The two episodes are also similarly shot in a black-and-white, dimly-lit noir style, with single-table bars in empty pool rooms, mood jazz playing in the background.
By the way, if you really want to make it a billiards Halloween, then I suggest that after watching “Pool Sharks,” you turn to Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire, a 1987 British vampire musical that revolves around a snooker showdown. One billiards horror movie I would skip, however, is The Understudy: Graveyard Shift II. This low-budget 1988 film is about a macho vampire named Baisez, who slowly seduces the cast and crew of Blood Lover, a movie about a vampire pool hustler, is painfully hard-to-watch.
For a full plot synopsis of “Pool Sharks,” check out: http://taliesinttlg.blogspot.com/2009/07/monsters-pool-sharks-review-tv-episode.html
