Editorials
This Scene Almost Earned ‘Poltergeist’ an R Rating
It is common knowledge now that Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist, which celebrates its 35th anniversary today, almost single-handedly brought about the advent of the PG-13 rating. With the “help” of later-released violent PG-rated films like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins, the Motion Picture Association of America decided that there needed to be another rating in between a PG and an R. There had to be films that weren’t restricted to teenagers but still too intense for younger children. After all, watching a man peel off his own face isn’t exactly family-friendly material.
It’s safe to assume that nearly everyone reading this has seen Poltergeist, but if you haven’t be warned that spoilers will follow.
Poltergeist has several terrifying scenes peppered throughout its 114-minute runtime, but the most memorable of which is the sequence in which Marty (Martin Casella) hallucinates peeling his face off in the mirror (fun fact: the hands peeling off his face belong to none other than Steven Spielberg himself).
I remember seeing Poltergeist for the first time back when I was about 11 or 12. My dad rented it for me from Blockbuster and I distinctly remember seeing the words “with face peeling scene” in the description on the back of the box. Of course, I didn’t really understand what that meant, but I (and my father) figured it was fine. Little did I know that this is what I would be in for.
As you can imagine, this scene was fairly traumatizing for me, a child who had never seen a truly gory horror film at that point (I wasn’t allowed to watch R-rated movies until I was 15 or so). But I’m okay now so it’s all good. In all honesty though, how did this manage to get by with a PG rating? Hooper and Spielberg appealed the R rating, that’s how. It’s unclear just what went on in that meeting, but the face peeling scene had to be the main point of contention between the MPAA and the filmmakers. My guess? Spielberg and Hooper used the argument that because the face peeling wasn’t actually real it shouldn’t be taken so seriously. The sequence is, after all, merely a hallucination. It was just a trick played on Marty by the titular villain, and that somehow makes it less intense in the context of the film. Of course I have no idea if that was the argument that Spielberg and Hooper posed (and it’s not even that convincing), but it would make sense. It’s no different than Sin City getting an R rating because the majority of blood in the film isn’t red (the more red blood featured in a film, the more likely it is to get a harsher rating). Nevertheless, Spielberg and Hooper won the appeal and Poltergeist was granted a PG rating.
It should come as no surprise that TV screenings left out a few of the more graphic images presented in the film, the most notable of which was the face-peeling scene (they also cut out the maggots crawling out of the steak for some reason). I can only assume that this was the same cut that was in the “safe” VHS version of Poltergeist that Blockbuster was renting out, but suffice it to say that I’m very happy my dad grabbed the unedited one. You can see the difference in the clip below.
It doesn’t exactly have the same effect as the uncut version but, for the most part, it still gets the job done. Hooper and Spielberg must have known that they may run into trouble with the uncut scene though. After all, why film an alternate scene at all? They filmed this alternate take to use in case they had to remove the scene entirely. At least it still managed to get used so filming it wasn’t a total waste.
Which version of Poltergeist did you see first (if you’ve seen both of them)? Do you remember the first time you saw the famous face peeling scene? Share your memories in the comments below and help celebrate Poltergeist‘s 35th anniversary! Also, enjoy Family Guy‘s rather funny homage to Poltergeist, which puts a nice little spin on the face peeling scene.
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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