Editorials
[Prime Cuts] ‘Fade to Black’ Was Horror Fan Obsession Taken to the Extreme
Prime Cuts dives head-first into Amazon Prime’s surprisingly replete genre catalog to unearth some tried-and-true classics, forgotten sleepers, and hidden gems, all in the name of giving you something to watch this weekend. Catch ’em before they’re gone.
Thanks to social media and the Internet as a whole, there’s never been a better time to be a nerdy film freak than now. These days, celebrity obsession is customary, oversharing is a societal requirement, and movie and entertainment blogs rule the world. No matter which platform you choose, one look and you’ll see everyone is sick with the disease of entertainment: people are out-trivia-ing each other on message boards, sharing photos of their extensive VHS and DVD collections on Instagram, and having heated debates on Twitter over the merits of a film that hasn’t even been released yet and won’t be for another year.
With all of that in front of us every day, it’s hard to imagine there was ever a time when being a movie-obsessed geek could be considered anything else than totally necessary. However, Vernon Zimmerman’s Fade to Black reminds us that not only were foamy-mouthed cinephiles once on the fringe of society, but that their fervent obsessions could be viewed as borderline dangerous.
When we’re first introduced to the film’s troubled anti-hero, Eric Binford (Dennis Christopher), he’s sprawled out in bed, the curtains drawn tight to block out the morning sun. He’s nursing a hangover after an all-night binge on his drug of choice: pre-Hayes Code-era movies. The gangsters in Little Caesar argue while Eric sleeps; their noir-heavy lingo a proxy white noise machine.
We soon find out what fuels Eric’s escapist behavior: he lives with his paraplegic Aunt Stella (Eve Brent), a one-time dancer robbed of her abilities in a car wreck which also killed Eric’s father and mother, an actress who was being courted by Hollywood at the time. His aunt resents everything about him; from having to be his ward to the fact that she thinks he’s squandering his life with this movie obsession she doesn’t understand.
The interactions at his job aren’t any better. He works as a delivery boy for a film distribution company and, despite having only worked there for a few weeks, has managed to earn the ire of his boss and his co-workers—his boss wants to fire him; his co-workers want to beat him to a pulp.
Thankfully, Eric has a great defense mechanism: total movie immersion. Using the films he loves as a shield, he never has to be himself or deal with any of life’s consequences. The second he opens his eyes in the morning, it’s “action!”, and throughout the day he gets as many takes as he likes to get his own story right. Instead of normal chit-chat, his verbal interactions with others consist of pertinent movie quotes. And when he’s feeling belittled, he proves his superiority by using trivia on old films as a conversational weapon; he knows the answers that no one else does, which gives him the upper hand. But even when he practices his best Cagney sneer in the bedroom mirror, both Eric and the viewer know this is the closest he’ll ever get to being intimidating—by pretending.
Through a series of disastrous circumstances—including a failed romance with a Marilyn Monroe lookalike and a deal-gone-bad with a shady Hollywood producer—Eric finally snaps. He exacts his revenge on all those who’ve wronged him by recreating scenes from some of his favorite films, using them as a backdrop for the murders he intends to commit.
In the annals of horror’s most memorable killers, Eric makes for an interesting psycho: he’s not interested in the slasher craze, which was in full force at the time Fade to Black was made. He cares only about the purity of the craft—the acting, the lighting, the direction of old Hollywood; when men were men and women were dames. Sure, he references Dracula and The Mummy in some of his more creative kills, but those films are practically G-rated by today’s standards. All of this makes Fade to Black a fun watch in modern times. Within the world of the film, which takes place in 1980, Binford’s obsession with films from the early 1930s seems quirky and quaint; it earns him the contempt from his family and friends—borne of confusion, really—which propels him into his downward spiral. But had Eric existed today—and been obsessed with the New Hollywood films of the ‘70s—would that be cause for concern? Probably not.
Ultimately, Eric is simply a victim of being born in the wrong time. Nowadays, his obsession with niche cinema would be lauded; hell, he’d probably have a very popular blog, too.
One of Fade to Black’s original tag lines was: “Meet Eric Binford, the ultimate movie buff. If you know someone like him… run!” Take a moment to look at your friend group, and start running.
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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