Editorials
‘The American Scream’ – ’80s Horror Comedy Is a Hidden Holiday Gem
It’s become common for movies once trapped on VHS to make that great leap to Blu-ray. And thanks to boutiques like Culture Shock Releasing, hidden gems like The American Scream are available again after being nearly lost to time. Those uninitiated viewers could be hesitant as they try making sense of this 1988 movie’s poster. Is this a slasher? A holiday travelogue? A teen comedy? The simple answer is “yes to all of the above.” The American Scream is indeed a mélange of familiar beats and elements, but everything is put together so strangely that the final product comes across as unique.
Made with a budget of around $200,000 and shot in just ten days in Camp Nelson, California, The American Scream turned out better than expected. Especially since director and co-writer Mitchell Linden threw the script together in a hurry; he was set to go on his honeymoon when he received the last-minute request to make a new horror movie. That fast turnaround isn’t evident on screen, but not everyone agrees. As critic Brian Orndorf said in his own review back in 2022, the movie “barely comes together as a complete idea” and it lacks coherence. These shortcomings and others notwithstanding, there is still something quite charming about Linden and Phil Hopper’s weird and delirious story.
The American Scream is what National Lampoon’s Vacation might have looked like as a horror movie. However, this movie focuses on its younger characters rather than a bumbling father. That’s not to say the heads of the Benziger family are neither clumsy nor overlooked; Pons Maar and his character’s equally awkward spouse (played by Jennifer Darling) take a backseat as their son and daughter uncover the goings-on in Wilson Creek. The parents could be defined by their fantastic ability to ignore red flags, yet it becomes clear that their ignorance serves more of a purpose than originally suggested.
Image: Ed Simpson lies dead in the snow with his stuffed dog nearby.
While considered a horror movie, The American Scream deals far more in bizarreness than in scariness. There is, however, a decent amount of gore and mayhem to go with all the tourist shenanigans and misunderstandings, especially for a comedy as goofy as this. The carnage promptly begins with the one set-piece fans still talk about to this day; they vividly remember how the teenage characters watched in disbelief as a father murdered his own baby. But like all the other deaths shown in this movie, the little one’s execution is absurd and over the top. It’s not the least bit frightening. The best Linden can do is take the audience by surprise, which he does on multiple occasions.
As a whole, the eighties enjoyed its horror comedies. So The American Scream was certainly not the first of its kind. Movies like Student Bodies, Saturday the 14th and Wacko were all different by design, though. They were made to be irreverent stabs at the genre as opposed to fairly straightforward horror stories with moments of levity stitched in. Linden’s work, on the other hand, sits between stations. The parody quality of those aforementioned movies is unmistakable, whereas The American Scream exercises some semblance of restraint. The threat at hand is taken seriously even as preventive measures become increasingly ridiculous.
A horror comedy tends to single out a subgenre. Slashers, vampires, haunted houses — every hoary setup or situation has been mocked and dissected over the years. The American Scream pokes fun at those unsuspecting characters who leave behind the comfort and safety of cities, then develop a life-threatening case of culture shock. True to form, realization is a piecemeal effort; the hazards of being young in Wilson Creek don’t immediately dawn on siblings Matt and Bridgett Benziger (Matt Borlenghi, Riley Weston) and their best friends (Kevin Kaye, Jeanne Sapienza). Yet like most teens in horror, they perceive something is amiss before the adults do. The audience also has a good guess of what lies ahead for the four characters, although the story still manages to squeeze in one last curveball at the end.
Image: The Benziger family has breakfast at the diner when officer Sam shows up.
The American Scream introduces its sense of unreality with no explanations. Viewers will either sink or swim as the inanity grows with every passing minute. The director’s preference for wacky and inscrutable humor isn’t for everyone, but there’s no denying it adds to the movie’s overall uneasiness. And so often this story relies on a character’s capacity to distinguish between normal and abnormal. Everything always appears ordinary enough until the eye catches an anomaly of some kind. While Linden doesn’t ever come close to achieving sheer terror — fright wasn’t his main objective — he did a hell of a job of making the characters question their sanity at every turn.
This movie keeps everyone on their toes. This includes viewers whose expectations are rarely met. Urbanites becoming entangled in the freaky local culture of the backwaters they visit isn’t a novel concept, yet for the most part, The American Scream is unpredictable. Of course that random nature stems from the abstract and patchy ideas hastily assembled into a story with no firm grip on itself. In addition to the rampant vagueness are those brainsick set-pieces that lead to even more unanswered questions. From an inserted snuff film detailing the murders of George “Buck” Flower‘s character’s family to a sudden scene of baby cannibalism, the script is prone to erratic, not to mention disturbed moments.
The American Scream requires its audience to fill in the gaps when the movie can’t decipher its own story or provide a logical ending. Even before that puzzling conclusion rolls in, the movie presents a parade of offbeat thoughts and images. The plot dots don’t easily connect, but the line they form is marked with dark delights and amusing nonsense. This cozy winter oddity still has a long way to go before it becomes more recognized; most folks don’t know it exists in the first place. However, those who decide to travel with the Benzigers will undoubtedly have a lot to think about upon returning from this hellish odyssey.
You can grab The American Scream on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome.
Image: Someone’s decapitated head is mounted on a rake.
The penultimate season of Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996) aired its first three episodes on October 31, so it’s understandable that at least one of those three stories is set on Halloween.
Sandwiched between “Let the Punishment Fit the Crime” (Russell Mulcahy, Ron Finley) and “Whirlpool” (Mick Garris, A. L. Katz & Gilbert Adler) is the most severe episode of the bunch. Maybe the entire series? William Malone and Dick Beebe’s “Only Skin Deep” traded the show’s typical sense of fun for startling amounts of bleakness and kink.
“Only Skin Deep” is, apart from the Crypt Keeper’s intro and outro, noticeably unfunny. There are no considerable attempts at making the viewer laugh. Come to think of it, if those bookends had been replaced, and there was more of a sci-fi element in the story, HBO could have easily squeezed this tale into that successor anthology, Perversions of Science (1997). In Crypt, though, “Only Skin Deep” is much too grim for an audience that had become accustomed to campiness and levity.
What makes “Only Skin Deep” feel dark, among other things, is its protagonist. Showing up to a Halloween party where he’s not welcome, and where his former girlfriend (Diane DiLasco) is attending, Carl Schlag (Peter Onorati) first comes across as your standard bitter ex. You soon realize it’s much worse than that, once Carl threatens Linda (“You know, silly me, thinking I gave you what you deserved. If I’d have done that, I’d have killed you”). Now, I haven’t forgotten that Tales from the Crypt was teeming with vile men who did women harm. Yet Carl’s brand of misogynistic menace hits differently—it borders on being too realistic for this kind of series.
Mike Vosburg’s EC-style comic cover for “Only Skin Deep”, as seen in the Tales from the Crypt episode.
Despite donning a party mask for much of the episode, Carl can’t ever mask his true nature. The invitation did say “come as you are”, after all. That inability to change and be better, however, is why Carl ends up in such a karmic predicament. His outburst of anger at the party attracts the attention of one loner partygoer named Molly (Sherrie Rose, who was also in Season Four’s “On a Deadman’s Chest”). Her bone-white, featureless “mask” and body-bag costume don’t initially register as too strange, especially on a night like this. But at a party chock-full of colorful, cartoonish, and lighthearted ensembles, it does look out of place.
Darkness attracts darkness as Carl ditches the party and accompanies the mysterious Molly to her place. Which, by the way, should have been an immediate red flag. But perhaps she’s so hot, he doesn’t seem to mind the serial killer aesthetic. Resembling a warehouse that has been converted into living spaces, but never then decorated to remove the cold, industrial look, Molly’s home (or lair) is as gloomy as this whole episode feels. It’s like the set of a grungy music video, albeit a tad cleaner. The environments in a typical Crypt episode tend to be small, overfilled, and broken-in. Warm, regardless of any weird goings-on. All that empty space in Molly’s hovel, on the other hand, elicits a creepy feeling that Carl was unwise to ignore.
Tales from the Crypt featured more sex than it didn’t, but hands down, “Only Skin Deep” boasts the steamiest scene in the show’s history. Pushing it over the line, in addition to Onorati showing bare buns and the camera never turning down one of his pelvic thrusts, is the twisted dirty talk. Carl stays in the moment, whereas Molly unleashes charged lines like “the hurt, the anger, give it to me” and “take it out on my flesh like you want to”. It’s all quite kinky, as well as tied into the story’s theme of pain.
How else “Only Skin Deep” differs from other episodes is its twists. Or rather, its lack thereof. Nothing comes as a great surprise here, particularly because the deuteragonist’s ulterior motives are so obvious. By no means is Molly a wolf in sheep’s clothing; her face is a fright mask, she practically reeks of death, and she lives in what can best be described as a serial killer’s hideout. That last-act revelation of Molly’s mask really being her face is also nothing shocking. Cleverness is certainly not this episode’s strength.
A page from “…Only Skin Deep!”, as seen in EC Comics’ Tales from the Crypt.
While “Only Skin Deep” isn’t the most universally loved episode of Tales from the Crypt, it’s an interesting preview of William Malone’s future as a director. Most notably, he went on to helm House on Haunted Hill (1999) and FeardotCom (2002), the former of which was co-written by Dick Beebe, this episode’s writer. Dark Castle Entertainment, that genre house founded by Crypt producers Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis, and Gilbert Adler, was instrumental in bringing out Malone’s gruesome, over-the-top vision in House on Haunted Hill. However, FeardotCom and Malone’s Masters of Horror episode, “Fair-Haired Child”, are the most stylistically compatible with “Only Skin Deep”.
As one might guess, this episode is nothing like its source material. The “…Only Skin Deep!” found in the pages of EC Comics is set during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and save for its last couple of pages, is pretty sweet in nature. There, a man named Herbert is enamored with a woman he met five years prior to the present-day story. Every year, he has come down to Mardi Gras to see Suzanne, who’s always dressed as a hag-faced witch. Well, this time, Herbert plans on popping the question and marrying someone who is, for the most part, a total stranger. Suzanne accepts his proposal, but with one condition: they stay in costume until they’re officially hitched. You can probably see where this is going…
Once they are married, Suzanne remains incognito, even when she and Herbert have consummated their vows. A semi-predictive nightmare then rattles Herbert; he dreamt that Suzanne’s real face was as wizened as her mask. Finally, in his haste to find out the truth, Herbert winds up killing his new wife. Faceless and well on her way to bleeding out, the dying Suzanne manages to say she never wore a mask.
For more traditional EC-style ghastliness, your best bet is reading the comic. It’s wickedly sad. For something less conventional, as far as Tales from the Crypt goes, the role-reversing adaptation is worth watching. It’s not the best this show had to offer, although Malone’s visual style, plus the sexual abandon, does set the episode apart. If nothing else, “Only Skin Deep” leaves an impression that, even years later, shows no signs of fading.
Season Six of Tales from the Crypt can be streamed on Shudder, starting on June 5.
Tales from Tales from the Crypt celebrates the show’s Shudder premiere by singling out one episode from each season. So don’t even think about changing that dial, boys and ghouls. More spot-“frights” are to come.
Carl discovers Molly’s collection of human ‘masks’ in the Tales from the Crypt episode, “Only Skin Deep”.
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