Editorials
9 Horror Franchises That Should Be Turned into TV Shows
The film and television industry loves dipping back into previous intellectual properties. And though it’s sometimes depressing, it’s also understandable. If a recognizable name or character has the potential to bring in a larger audience than an original concept, they’re going to try it.
With the explosion of long-form content on TV and streaming outlets, it makes sense that they’d also try to milk those concepts for all they’re worth by turning them into series. It’s not a totally new phenomenon, but the frequency has increased in recent years.
The movies chosen to turn into TV series fall into a few categories: Good or Great (Hannibal, Ash vs. Evil Dead, The Exorcist, Bates Motel, Wolf Creek); Fine (The Dead Zone, From Dusk Till Dawn, Scream); Bad (Damien); Series’ Which Never Had a Chance (Tremors: the Series, Blade: the Series, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven); and Series’ That Are Barely Connected to Their Source Material (Friday the 13th: the Series, Freddy’s Nightmares).
With already announced series’ for The Mist, The Lost Boys, American Gods, and Tremors (again) on their way, perhaps there’s room in the television landscape for a few other horror franchises to become TV’s next big hit. And we’ve got some ideas about that…
Hellraiser
Frankly, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened already. With a deep mythology that runs back centuries, an established presence in the distant future and the 1700s France, and a whole gaggle of visually stunning and disturbing Cenobites just waiting in the wings for their moment to shine, this series has the potential to connect with fans who love the over-the-top weirdness of American Horror Story and the intricate world-building of Game of Thrones. Given that the series has been direct-to-video since the fifth installment, it already feels at home on the small screen.
George A. Romero’s ‘Living Dead’ Series
Though there is an overall sense of zombie fatigue, not to mention the fact that series’ like The Walking Dead and Z Nation have picked clean the bones of what Romero began decades ago, it’s still compelling to consider what kind of intriguing social commentary he could find if given a decent television budget and the hands-off approach of a network like Starz. He could go in a couple of directions, either continuing the anthology-esque nature of the series and having standalone episodes that all take place in the same universe, or he could start to weave together narratives he’s been creating for forty years. Either way, it would be a fitting conclusion to the modern zombie phenomenon to give the man who reinvigorated it the opportunity to finish telling his story.
Saw
Even though another installment of this film is on its way, this is a series that has always begged for the opportunity to stretch its narrative legs. Juggling the personal story of Jigsaw (and his disciples), the people in the traps (and their families or significant others), and the police and FBI, every entry in the series is stuffed with plot machinations. The way the series was produced (with a new film coming out every year at the same time for seven years straight) already operated like a miniature television studio, and the stories would benefit from having a writer’s room to brainstorm all the traps and last-act plot twists.
Resident Evil/Underworld
These wouldn’t be combined into a single show, but they’re grouped here because they have something in common: they would make fun horror-action series’ on Syfy. The network, known primarily for cheesy movies and the occasional brilliant show like Battlestar Galactica and The Expanse, has always gravitated towards action-driven series’ that were out there, but not TOO out there: 12 Monkeys, Dark Matter, Killjoys, Van Helsing. The tone and pacing of movie series’ like Resident Evil and Underworld fit the mold perfectly, with solid genre trappings and just enough silliness and absurdity to appeal to the demographic.
The Purge
No film universe with the expansive and complex background of The Purge should be limited to only taking place for a few hours during one night a year. If the world of The Purge were expanded into a continuing series, the audience would be allowed to see the inner workings of life outside the annual Purge; the political and financial divide, the quiet resentments building up over a year, the psychopaths gleefully counting down the days until the next Purge. And who would know better about whether or not the movies would work in this format than James DeMonaco, the creator of the films, who already considered making it a series. We’re getting a fourth installment of the movie franchise, but there may be a TV show here yet.
The Conjuring
This film series is the most perfectly constructed concept to turn into a TV series: husband and wife supernatural investigators struggle to live a normal, happy life with their family while simultaneously battling demons in the cases they find. It already has the built-in “case of the week” element, and a great gimmick in the “based on a true story” angle. And when the story has the room to breathe that television allows, it will give the creators more time to explore the family dynamic and perhaps start to create a larger mythology for the demon creatures that seem to have targeted Lorraine and Ed. The only downside: television might not be able to afford both Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson every week, and I can’t imagine what two other actors they could find that would embody them so wonderfully.
Re-Animator
Making a successful, sustained horror series is hard enough; adding comedy is even more challenging. No one tried it in earnest for a long time, but then Ash vs. Evil Dead came along and shattered all expectations for serialized horror-comedy on television. Now that the way has been paved, it’s time for Herbert West to get his due. The series could either pick up where the films left off, with Herbert West out of prison and experimenting in secret; or it could totally reboot the story. Starz has Ash vs. Evil Dead, IFC has Stan against Evil; Epix, what are you up to?
V/H/S
Many people say that Black Mirror has already taken the mantle of “the modern Twilight Zone.” While that is partly true, one aspect of Black Mirror that is different from The Twilight Zone is its origins: while Black Mirror is brilliant dark satire, it has a specifically British sensibility. The Twilight Zone was as distinctly American as its creator/host Rod Serling, and much of the commentary of the series was filtered through that lens. All three entries of V/H/S touch on uniquely American perspectives in their entries, giving the found footage and anthology subgenres a geographical specificity; getting a weekly half-hour of segments of varying length, style, and plot (but all still in the “captured footage” arena) might lead to another great renaissance in television anthology storytelling.
Which of these would you love to see? And can you think of any others?
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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