Editorials
Through the Cracks: April Fool’s Edition – ‘Slaughter High’
As hardcore horror fans, sometimes it feels like you’ve seen it all. There are no surprises left to discover, no classic slasher film waiting around the corner to thrill you and slap a childlike grin on your face. You try to feed the fix by searching through lists of “The Scariest Films You’ve Never Seen” only to come across titles like May, The Descent, and Suspiria. These are, of course, films that us die-hards know and love all too well. That’s where I come in, dear reader. We’ll be taking a deep dive into the bowels of obscure horror from decades past and uncovering titles that might have fallen “Through the Cracks”.
Mild Spoilers for Slaughter High Follow
Now that we’ve gotten our intro out of the way, I have to admit, Slaughter High probably isn’t the most random title we’ll be discussing here. Typically we’ll want to uncover those really obscure titles that few of you may have heard of, and I’m sure quite a few readers are at least aware of this little British/American production. However, it’s April 1st and certainly, you’re in need of something a bit different to throw on your watchlist this April Fool’s other than…well, ya know, April Fool’s Day. Released on Nov 14th, 1986 (the same year as that other April Fool’s horror movie), Slaughter High actually started its life entitled April Fool’s Day, only for Paramount Pictures to buy the title right out from under the filmmakers who were already knee deep in production. Notice I said, “filmmakers” plural. Slaughter High comes to us with no less than three credited writer/directors.
I’ve done some digging to try and clarify whether those three separate names are due to multiple replacements during filming, but apparently, it was all by design. I don’t see how directing duos manage to avoid murdering one another on set, let alone three directors on the same picture. Nonetheless, the trio of first-time filmmakers banged out a screenplay in three weeks and got master producer, Dick Randall (Pieces, Don’t Open til Christmas) to foot the bill. Randell even cameos as the scummy manager to our heroine, B-movie queen, Caroline Munro (Maniac, Captain Kronos).
What did all these creative minds conjure up? It was 86′ and they were working with a minuscule budget. Did you say, “slasher”? Duh. Slaughter High shares a lot in common with one of my previously mentioned faves, Terror Train. Both open with put-upon geeks getting irreparably harmed by the “cool kids” as part of a heinous prank. Flash forward “insert number years later” and surprise! They start getting picked off one by one. The fun twist here is that each victim is murdered in ways that relate back to their overly contrived, vicious April Fool’s prank. So, yeah, there isn’t a whole lot going on beyond the surface. The cast of characters are instantly set up as despicable asshats. The prank they pull on our hapless nerd, Marty, is way above and beyond tricking him to lie down next to a corpse. These kids are mean, and probably should’ve spent the rest of their lives behind bars.
But, this is a slasher flick, so their punishment is meted by inventively nasty kills instead of the judicial system. From exploding intestines, acid baths, and electro shock orgasms – there is a hell of a lot to love for fans of good ol’ latex and Karo. Also, surprisingly, for every pair of bare breasts on display, there’s a set of male butt cheeks to match (even some peen). It’s always nice to see equal opportunity nudity in a horror flick. While the film takes about 45 minutes to really get going, it never lets up once it does. With one gonzo set-piece after the other, the cast is whittled down to our final girl, and the trio of directors manage to deliver a surprisingly chilling finale. The goofball yet oddly catchy score from Friday the 13th’s Harry Manfredini fades away. It’s an eerie silence that stands at odds with the over the top score featured throughout most of the film. We’re left with only the sound of our heroine’s whimpering. It makes for a creepy finale to a mostly silly flick. That’s without having yet mentioned our slasher’s get-up of choice, a rubbery old man mask with oversized jester’s cap complete with tiny bells that jingle with each step. Instant. Shivers.
For those looking to celebrate the holiday and take the plunge with Slaughter High, I feel it important to warn you. Prepare your suspension of disbelief for a thorough pummeling. There are leaps of logic so vast that the grand canyon bows down to this flick (too much? eh). While our surviving group bands together to figure a way out of their predicament, our lead macho douche has this to say, “April Fool’s Day ends at noon. Marty won’t hurt us after mid-day. I’m sure of it.” Say what, Dr. Logic?! Since when do holidays end at noon, and what makes you think a corporeal being who’s orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bring all his tormentors together for mass revenge slaughter would give a shit what time of day it is?
That brings me to another point. For all extensive purposes, Marty appears to be no more than one pissed off dude in a jester’s mask. There doesn’t seem to be anything supernatural at play, except there is a load of stuff that’s just next to impossible and, at the least, impractical for one guy to have pulled off alone. You’ve got a dead body that appears to transport across the school yard without anyone noticing, complete control of all lights and plumbing, and the ability to know exactly how every character will react to any given situation for maximum murderous effect. Again, the script was apparently hashed out in three weeks and it’s far from airtight.
So, if I’ve got all these negative things to say, why would I recommend this as a “hidden gem”? It might have a lot to do with the first time I saw it. It was screening as part of the late-great MonsterVision (seriously, TNT if you want to bring horror back to the network…start there), and I was far too young and stayed up far too late past my bedtime. Slaughter High genuinely freaked me out, especially the quiet terror of the finale. Thankfully, I had the hilarious MonsterVision host, Joe Bob Briggs, to lighten the tension between commercial breaks. If it weren’t for him, I may have never finished the damn thing. When the credits rolled I was wary of the idea of cutting out the lights and trying to sleep, but I also had a huge grin on my face.
Unlike many films that we look back upon fondly through the neon-tinged lenses of nostalgia, this one actually holds up! Yes, it’s certifiably cheese-ball with a side of crackers for dipping. Yes, the actors all look like they’re pushing 40 when they’re meant to be teenagers. Yep, the characters are pretty horrendous, and you’re likely to root for each of their deaths. Above all, though, Slaughter High is exactly the type of film we would have devoured in our younger years when discovering a new horror flick was exciting and new. This film is still great for those died in the wool slasher fans who think they’ve seen it all. It’s no Halloween or Black Christmas, but it’s also head and shoulders above the like of Final Exam or Graduation Day. While it might not be the highest caliber horror show, it’s still the perfect film to start off “Through the Cracks”. I’ve seen it half a dozen times, and every time I watch it I’ve forgotten just how it ends. I do in fact mean that as a compliment. When you get burnt out on all the classics and nothing on Netflix is floating your boat, and you just want a mindless dead “teenager” romp to brighten your day – you can do no better than Slaughter High.
SIDE NOTE: The film is available in its uncut form through most VOD platforms. There were a few barebones versions on DVD here in the states and a sweet looking disc from Arrow in the UK. As of yet, Slaughter High is unavailable on Blu-ray. That said, it was originally released by Vestron back in 86′ and Lionsgate apparently still owns the rights. Fingers crossed the newly launched Vestron Video is planning to drag this joker into HD pretty soon.
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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