Editorials
UPDATE: Letter From the Editor: Mr. Disgusting’s Quote-Filled Rage!
UPDATE: December 22, 2010. I was informed that MPI was kind enough to remove the quote from the ‘Hatchet II’ box. From France to Spain, and even Japan, Bloody Disgusting has contributing writers all over the world. We love to bring you the first word on upcoming movies straight of out film markets and festivals, which is why we have so many global staffers. While I don’t always agree with their reviews, our motto is that everyone is entitled to their opinion – one of the main reasons we love to push the user reviews on the site. On BD we have the opportunity to bring you a variety of opinions, from various contributors to you guys; there’s a forum for conversation. But what happens when a writer’s quote ends up on a DVD/Blu-ray box without my approval? Read on for the answer.
Again, I support my writers, and their opinions. Ryan Daley hated Splice; I loved it. Keenan loved Rob Zombie’s Halloween; I hated it. It’s all fine and dandy. On the site we ALL have a place to voice our opinion and that’s what makes it special.
But when a Bloody Disgusting quote ends up on a poster, DVD or Blu-ray box, I demand a level of control.
We didn’t build Bloody Disgusting up on whoring ourselves out for favors and special placement. We built it up on our integrity, something that’s so incredibly hard to control the larger you get. While I can go on and on about the various sections on BD, other sites, and news reporting, I want to remain focused on what’s got me steaming from my ears.
This past week two quotes came to my attention:
“An exciting and gory romp into the world of the undead.” Toby Weidmann’s quote on the cover of IFC Midnight’s DVD release of The Horde.
“One of the best slasher films EVER.” Micah’s quote on the cover of Dark Sky Films’ Hatchet II.
Over the past ten years I have taken extreme pride in keeping quotes at bay. There’s nothing that repulses me more than a quote whore, or a site that keeps giving studios quotes so their name will be all over the marketplace. What better way to destroy your name than to put it on a load of sh*t? I demand control over what goes on a poster, DVD or Blu-ray box. While there are a few here or there that slip by me, typical protocol is to ask the owner/editor-in-chief for APPROVAL before sticking our name on promotional materials. It’s just the right thing to do.
Neither Dark Sky/MPI nor IFC asked me for permission.
Colleagues around me say, “It’s free exposure man, be happy!” NO, no, no, no, no, no and NO. I’m NOT happy, I’m goddamn embarrassed. I’m red in the face. While I can write my own reviews for both of these films here on the site, I have no way of standing at every single store in the country pleading my case: “‘The Horde’ sucks ass. It’s a piece of sh*t. It’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It should be banished for eternity,” or maybe, “While I enjoy the kills in ‘Hatchet II’, its exposition heavy and boring. It is definitely, without shadow of a doubt NOT one of the best slasher films ever.”
Again, I respect my writer’s own opinions, but when a quote lands on a cover it reflects the entire website as a whole. I expect the courtesy of approval, I expect that we’ll be asked if it’s OK to use the site’s name to sell their movie. If I think the movie is a piece of crap, I’m gonna say “no.” I turn down quotes left and right. The most important aspect of keeping it minimal, and keeping it to a certain standard, is that when we DO stick our name of a movie, you as a regular Bloody Disgusting reader know we support it through thick and thin and thus can take it for what it’s worth. It adds weight to the claim. It should evoke an emotion in you without you having to say “here we go again.”
The last thing I want from you guys is to think we’d put our names on anything that’s offered to us. F*ck, if this pisses people off and we never see our name on anything ever again, I’m 100% OK with that. I have integrity. I have pride. And I’ll stick to my mother f*cking guns. I’m proud of what I’ve done here on Bloody Disgusting and I’ll be damned if some crappy DVD release is going to ruin our rep.
Some of you may enjoy both Hatchet 2 and The Horde, and that’s totally cool, I’d just really appreciate the courtesy of being asked if I want our site’s name on the DVD/Blu-ray cover.
End of story.
Just for fun, off the top of my head here are some quotes I’m proud of: Marebito, Shutter, Splinter, Lady Vengeance, Burning Bright, The Collector, Joshua, Them, Inside, Frontier(s), and Dance of the Dead.
Here are some quotes that will embarrass me until I’m six feet under: Otis, Diary of the Dead, Mother of Tears, Halloween, Nightmare Man and Borderland.
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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