Editorials
In 2018, the Trend of Horror Films Being Labeled “Not Horror Films” Continued… But Why?
*Keep up with our ongoing end of the year coverage here*
2018 has been a banner year for horror. Some amazing films have been released and enjoyed by many, horror has owned the box office at several different points throughout the year, and we are seeing an immense output of talent and creativity from new voices and established filmmakers alike. In short, we are living a new horror renaissance. And it rules.
At the same time, we are continually seeing reactions to some of these films decrying their status as genre cinema. It’s a phenomenon that began gathering steam in 2017 with Get Out and It, and really seemed to reach full gear this year with masterpieces such as Hereditary, A Quiet Place and even Suspiria.
And no, I’m not going to sit here and debate whether or not these films are horror films. They are. You’re here reading this, so I’m going to assume you feel the same. What I do plan to discuss is the different reasons why this trend seems to be snowballing.
The obvious reasons can be linked to simple snobbery. The assumption that if a film is well-made or contains deeper meanings or subtext, it can’t possibly be a horror movie. If it has those elements, it’s clearly something else. Hereditary is a dramatic family thriller. A Quiet Place is a psychological thriller. Get Out is a socio-political thriller. Thriller – you know, that thing that is almost horror, but not quite.
Then there is the thing that happens where a person assumes that a film can’t fall into a particular genre because it doesn’t fit the framework of how they have come to interact with that genre. “Well I hate horror, so IT can’t possibly be a horror film because I enjoyed it.” Or “The First Purge didn’t scare me. Therefore, it’s not a horror movie.”
Those reactions are certainly part of the problem, but there is something else going on in our society that might be affecting public perceptions as well. In case you weren’t aware, the past couple of years have been a colossal shit show. Hate and bigotry run rampant. Economical worries and fears about the climate and the future of our planet are very present in our minds. Every day, our leaders find another way to jab at the already crumbling framework of our society without a care as to who might be in the way when the debris falls. People are scared in ways they haven’t been before.
In his book, “The Monster Show”, David J. Skal discusses how genre cinema tends to see a rise in popularity when times are tough. In the Depression era, for example, the classic Universal horror films had huge financial success. Dracula, Frankenstein and Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde all cleaned up at the box office and provided audiences with an escape from the harsh struggles of everyday life in a country that was faltering.
We’re seeing that phenomenon reflected in the success of horror films today. The Nun grossed over $360 million worldwide and David Gordon Green’s Halloween destroyed the box office its opening weekend by pulling in over $76 million. This could be in part, tied to the current political climate. It’s possible that for the first time in a long time, the real world is far more frightening than anything we might seen onscreen when the lights dim and the film starts to roll.
So why the disconnect? Why are people so hesitant to label some of these films as “horror?” Maybe the effect that we’re seeing is that culturally, though we are enjoying and celebrating the aforementioned films, audiences aren’t embracing them as horror movies because we’re in a place where we need our horror to be more explicit. We need it to be clearly separate and “Other” from our daily lives. We need the fantastic. We need the supernatural and the otherworldly. That is what we’re recognizing as “horror.”
Maybe in the modern political hellscape, we want to believe that “horror” is further removed from the realities we are currently facing. Maybe we need it to reach beyond a family trying to survive in the wake of the collapse of civilization. Beyond a mother struggling to process her grief. Beyond a group of women reclaiming lost power in 1970s Berlin. We might be a little too bruised to call some of the year’s film slate “horror” because they tie too easily to the horrors that are at our door. We might enjoy them and appreciate their brilliance, but people might not be registering them as horror films because they strike a little too close to home.
Whatever the reason, 2018 has been a brilliant year for horror, bringing us more new stories, ideas and visionaries and giving us even more nightmares. Though the mainstream might be hesitant to see it for what it is, horror fans celebrate it regardless, and we raise our glasses to Hereditary, Suspiria, A Quiet Place, Halloween, The Nun, The Haunting of Hill House, and every other film that made us fear whatever might be laying in wait – in the darkness and in the light.
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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