Editorials
The Greatest Accomplishment of ‘A Quiet Place’ is Getting Audiences to STFU
One of the best horror movies in years is also one of the best theatrical experiences.
Since movies are both my passion and my job, I go to the movies pretty often. And most of the time, it’s horror movies that I’m paying to see up on the big screen. Unfortunately, there’s a big time downside of supporting horror in theaters, and it’s got nothing to do with the movies themselves. Rather, it has everything to do with the crowds.
Out of all the different types of movies, I’ve found horror movie audiences to be the most disruptive when the lights go out. This is particularly the case when it comes to PG-13 horror movies, which allow anyone 13 or older to buy a ticket. Asking teenagers to sit quietly for upwards of two hours, especially in the era of smart phones, is asking a lot, but it’s not just the teenagers who often chat (and even selfie) their way through movies. The art of being quiet at the movies, sitting still and chewing with your mouth closed, well, it’s a dying one. And all it takes is *one* bad apple to spoil the experience.
From the guy who’s trying to impress his date by showing her that he’s smarter than the movie characters, as well as far too brave and masculine to ever actually be scared, to the woman who not only kept her phone on but has no qualms about answering it during the movie, the theatrical experience has largely been soured over the years. It’s gotten to the point, honestly, where my excitement about going to the movies has been overshadowed by the anxiety I feel about the crowd I’m going to be seated with.
(The closest Alamo Drafthouse is two hours away, so it’s not a viable option for me.)
So you can imagine the dread I felt, despite my excitement to see the movie, when I purchased my ticket to see A Quiet Place, a PG-13 horror movie. Given the plot, I had assumed that a large portion of the movie was completely silent, and my fear was that the silence would be shattered by the rustling of candy wrappers, the chewing of popcorn, and the loud talking of an audience surely unable to sit in complete silence for 90 minutes. My fears increased tenfold when my local theater was PACKED.
But as the lights lowered and the endless trailers finally ended, something incredible and highly unexpected happened. Suddenly, the entire room went silent. You could’ve heard a pin drop and you probably could’ve even heard a mouse fart (and yes, mice do fart). The whole room, at least 75% filled up by people of all ages, became like a library. And if one person ate even one kernel of popcorn during the movie, I sure as hell didn’t hear it.
For years, I have had almost nothing but bad experiences at the movies, many of those at the very same theater I found myself in last night, but my experience with A Quiet Place was quite unlike the rest. It was as if everyone was obeying the rules the characters in the movie itself were forced to abide by in order to stay alive, and it’s clear to me that this was very much by design on the part of director John Krasinski. He may have recently admitted that he’s not a big horror fan, but Krasinski proves with A Quiet Place that he sure as hell knows how to scare an audience. The film is brilliantly orchestrated from shocking start to pitch perfect final shot; Krasinski truly holds you in the palm of his hands for 90 minutes, almost forcing you to shut up and pay attention.
There is very little dialogue throughout A Quiet Place, with the unique concept for the film allowing Krasinski to literally weaponize sound. If the characters in the movie make even the slightest sound, one not drowned out by a louder sound, the terrifying creatures will be drawn to their location and devour them. It’s a set of impossible rules that the characters have spent over a year playing by, and Krasinski essentially makes you part of their world by extension; just like the characters, the people I shared my theater with last night only made a peep when a louder sound than their chewing was guaranteed to drown it out. In that sense, A Quiet Place is a truly interactive horror movie experience.
No, making a sound while watching A Quiet Place in your local theater won’t result in a monster darting over to your location and killing you. But in a room full of people abiding by the film’s rules, I’m thinking you won’t likely be sitting next to someone who’s brave enough to break them. And given the movie is so attention-consuming right off the bat, I can’t imagine anyone not being invested enough to keep their eyes open, their mouth shut, and their hands as far away from wrappers, popcorn, and cell phones as possible.
Perusing Twitter today, looking at the accounts of friends as well as strangers, it seems my experience last night wasn’t an exception but rather the norm. And I can’t even believe I’m saying this, given I’ve been so publicly outspoken about my desire to never again have to watch a movie a crowd, but you need to see A Quiet Place with a crowd.
Buy a ticket. And keep your mouth shut.
I saw it in the theater yesterday. Packed theater, not a peep from anyone.
— K (@peasandkaris) April 6, 2018
Feeling thankful that my audience was actually VERY respectful during A QUIET PLACE. No talking, no cell phones, no nonsense… however, the theater itself kind of annoyed me… (thread)
— Jeff Konopka (@DeadAirJeff) April 6, 2018
#AQuietPlace was not only a fantastic movie, but the movie-going experience was so wild. The entire theater (1/2 full) was so insanely quiet, I often forgot other people were there. I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life.
— Just Kim (@kimfaul) April 6, 2018
Same here! I didn’t hear the usual popcorn crunching & munching. It was tense & downright eerie!! I’ve been to a million movies & this was also a first for me. Unbelievably quiet! We heard the air conditioner coming on & that is just crazy!
— 💀Paul Hibbard💀 (@monstersRreel) April 6, 2018
Big ups to the crowd during my screening “A Quiet Place”. A mainstream, wide horror release where people aren’t laughing, talking, and texting the entire time? That’s unheard of!
— Colton Simpson🦖 (@xCJES) April 6, 2018
A QUIET PLACE has one of those high concepts that bonds an audience. It was rapt silence most of the way. Then a phone blooped in the crowd and a lady stage-whispered “oh you’re dead.” There followed a quick ruffle of chuckles across the theater, snapping back fast into tension.
— Benjamin Kramer (@benjaminkramer) April 6, 2018
A Quiet Place is terrific, a 90 min movie with a solid 40 mins of pure suspense. Great crowd at the cinema too, they didn’t make a sound (except for the screams).
— Tom Connors (@baloobas1) April 2, 2018
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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