Editorials
[It Came From the ‘80s] Lovecraftian She-Beast ‘The Unnamable’
With horror industry heavy hitters already in place from the 1970s, the 1980s built upon that with the rise of brilliant minds in makeup and effects artists, as well as advances in technology. Artists like Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., Tom Savini, Stan Winston, and countless other artists that delivered groundbreaking, mind-blowing practical effects that ushered in the pre-CGI Golden Age of Cinema. Which meant a glorious glut of creatures in horror. More than just a technical marvel, the creatures on display in ‘80s horror meant tangible texture that still holds up decades later. Grotesque slimy skin to brutal transformation sequences, there wasn’t anything the artists couldn’t create. It Came From the ‘80s is a series that will pay homage to the monstrous, deadly, and often slimy creatures that made the ‘80s such a fantastic decade in horror.
One of the most influential horror writers of all time is H.P. Lovecraft, and his expansive catalog of stories full of unknowable creatures and monsters. In the golden age of special effects, Lovecraft’s bestiary and the unbridled practical effect-driven creativity of the ‘80s made for a perfect marriage in horror. In the case of Lovecraft’s short story “The Unnamable,” the creature that haunts the dilapidated house on Meadow Hill in Arkham, Massachusetts is indescribable, save for its monstrous size and piercing shriek. The characters never fully see it; it attacks them in a flash and the story ends with their waking in the hospital. The vague description of the creature and the brief story itself meant a wide berth for interpretation when it came to the feature-length adaptation.
First-time feature director Jean-Paul Ouellette wrote the screenplay adapted from Lovecraft’s story, expanding the plot and setting it mostly in the present day. Right off the bat, the film gives far more backstory on the monster than Lovecraft’s original story. This iteration gives the Unnamable a name; Alyda Winthrop, demonic daughter of 18th-century warlock Joshua Winthrop. Cut to centuries later, where Miskatonic University pals spook each other with stories of Alyda. They do what any reasonable horror character does; decide to stay in her house and use it as a means of wooing the ladies. It doesn’t go well, clearly.
Makeup effects artist R. Christopher Biggs (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Silent Night, Deadly Night 2), fresh off his role as special makeup effects supervisor on Critters 2, combined Ouellette’s expansion of the story with the descriptors of the creature from the source short story. The cloven-hooves, the horns, and the piercing shrieks with a not so titanic sized female demon. Though it takes much of the running time to get an actual full glimpse of the creature.
The creature, Alyda, was played by Katrin Alexandre in her only film credit to date. A demonic beast with hooved feet, clawed hands, horns, sharp-toothed maw, and bat-like wings, this creature is clearly female. Despite appearances, though, Alexandre isn’t nude on screen. She was lifecasted from head to toe, and endured a 9-hour makeup application as the rubber prosthetic pieces were glued to every part of her from the waist up. The hairy legs and hooved feet were custom made by Biggs, as a separate piece. There was no easy suite for Alexandre to slip into.
Also integral to the makeup effects team was Biggs’ assistant Camille Calvet, who he’d previously worked with on Critters 2 and Silent Night, Deadly Night 2. Calvet has since gone on to work on films like Kill Bill: Vol 2, Minority Report, and Drag Me to Hell, and won two Emmy Awards for her makeup work on The Stand and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but credits Biggs as a large reason for her success for hiring her in an age where few women were hired for makeup effects. Considering how up close and personal the makeup team needed to get with Alexandre in the creation of the demonic Alyda, hiring Calvet proved doubly invaluable.
While the seams on this creature design do occasionally show, what Biggs and team created is especially impressive considering the budgetary constraints they had to work with. The teams’ shop was literally Biggs’ apartment, and a three-car garage he talked his landlord into letting him use. The small space correlated with the small team Biggs had to work with, too. He even employed his mom in the creation of Alyda’s prosthetics, particularly in the punching of all that horse hair.
The Unnamable was released directly on VHS in June of 1988, and while it did well enough to earn a sequel, this is an ‘80s monster that’s not quite as well known. It’s also a monster that hides in the shadows until the very end, not revealed in full until the climax. Alyda isn’t just an underseen Lovecraftian beast of the ‘80s, but a rare instance where the monster is female. The Unnamable isn’t perfect, but it is obvious in its reverence for Lovecraft’s works.
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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