Editorials
‘Hotline Miami’ and the Horror of Postmodernism
Hotline Miami came into existence at a very specific time in our zeitgeist. It blends a multitude of styles and aesthetics deliberately intended to tug at what is both familiar and comforting. This nostalgia is highly directed towards our experiences with various forms of media. You have the 80’s VHS style menus and the beautiful Miami Vice-styled landscape and decor but behind this facade, you have the contrasting hyper-violence of late 90’s top-down shooters a la Grand Theft Auto. Both Hotline Miami and it’s sequel highlight our society’s glorification of violence and how it hints towards a deeper, underlying issue with consumption. Hotline Miami reflects both the sheer violence and dread that many experienced in Miami during the eighties while at the same time subverting this with the now fashionable, rose-tinted view of the eighties.
The games’ plot exists both as events and a product within the universe of its sequel; the in-game world glorifies and aspires to the entertainment value that is Hotline Miami. On the surface Hotline Miami resembles your standard top-down, retro indie game but it is so much more as developers Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin create a sprawling, complex and human story. The entire plot of the opus that is Hotline Miami in its entirety takes both games to explain as each game fills in each other’s specific plot holes. Both games’ playful use of chronologically as well as reality creates an almost Lynchian universe where nothing is outside the realms of rationality. This uncertainty of time and space set against the upbeat backdrop of synthwave creates at times a deeply unsettling experience for the player.
Each level has you kill, die and repeat until you clear the entire building, be it of the police, Russian mafia or politicians. Each and every level of the game has the player commit these violent killings to the soundtrack of catchy, rhythmic synthwave/electronic music. It always ends the same way; once your mission is complete the music cuts away and you must jarringly retrace your steps through the dozens of people you’ve slaughtered and all the carnage you have left in your wake. Adding to this is the game’s electrifying mechanic which has both you and your enemies die in a maximum of two hits. This creates a frantic almost animalistic quality to the combat where it is kill or be killed.
Adding to this primal aspect is the animal masks that are scattered around and worn throughout the game. This ambiguity plays a great part in the sheer ferocity of the games’ violence. The masks provide a motif throughout the game as both meaning and motive are often disguised by multiple interpretations of various ideologies. The protagonists are acting on their most primitive urges as they take out their resentment and fear of invading forces. Juxtaposing this is Jacket’s seemingly normal, quick stops at bars, fast food joints and convenience stores just moments after missions where Jacket brutally pulverizes at least thirty people.
These regular, mundane activities such as returning videotapes serve as Jacket reentering society and after his bouts of reverting to his killer instinct. It’s slightly off-putting to see this much context and depth in a game that on the surface tries to play homage to mindless, stupid fun. The bland, consumer-oriented life is so alien from Jacket’s stint the army that he needs to reject it. The bestial violence that Jacket was taught to do in the military has no place in the real world. Despite the conclusion of the Soviet-American War, Jacket cannot co-exist with the Russians that he fought against neither can he forgive them for killing his best friend Beard. As you complete more and more missions aspects of Jacket’s violence begins to creep into the banality both unnerving Jacket as well as the player as increasingly surreal elements bleedthrough into his reality. As this reaches a climax the specter of Jacket’s dead friend has to remind him and the player that:
“This … all of this is not really happening …
What you saw just now, did not actually happen ”
Hotline Miami‘s jumbled chronology aids the sense of confusion the player experiences as they traverse this synthwave haze. Alongside the fast forwards and rewinds, the games’ plot blurs the line between real life and the film production in-game. This makes the player begin to question what exactly is real or not real. Martin Brown is a playable character in the sequel – a highly acclaimed actor starring as The Pig Butcher within the in-game film: Midnight Animal.
The Pig Butcher is Hollywood’s interpretation of Jacket. Unlike Jacket’s tragic albeit warped justification for murdering the Russian gangsters, the plot of Midnight Animal presents Jacket as merely a lunatic with a bloodlust; showing how a larger part of society views Jacket and his motives. As the game progresses, Martin Brown’s levels distort so frequently that it is never really clear whether or not Martin is actually recreating these crimes in real life or if he is only playing a character. There is no conclusive evidence for any interpretation as it is never made clear; are we just experiencing what Martin thinks he’s doing or are we playing Martin as he fully embraces the violence that he states he’s relished in:
“I have wanted to do this for a long time. Kill kids, strangle them, beat people’s heads in. Rip their eyes out. … Just listen to the scream, see them die in agony. I finally get to do that now.”
As the game progresses Martin insists that the violence is not real which allows him to justify his voyeuristic enjoyment. This serves as an analogue to how players can distance themselves from their own role and pleasure from the game’s violence. After all, because of the hallucinogenic nature of the game, it is clear that you are not reenacting the game’s events as they occurred but how a comatose Jacket interprets said events. There is no cohesive evidence that strongly alludes to either interpretation to be canon and this surrealism contrasted by ultraviolence and sincerity makes Hotline Miami a very visceral and emotional game that always keeps the player guessing and piecing together the series’ overarching plot.
Regressing through the level is a lot more somber and introspective than the high octane violence seen only moments before. The game part is done and now you need to reflect not only on what you have just done but also your motive. The rooster – Richard is one of the three internal voices that appears to Jacket (the first game’s protagonist) in his dreams. He constantly re-enforces the player’s own self-doubt; questioning the player’s motives or even whether the player has any motives it all:
“Do you like hurting other people?
Who is leaving messages on your answering machine?
Where are you right now?
Why are we having this conversation?”
Neither the player nor the player-character can answer this. You’re just here for fun right?
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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