Editorials
[Butcher Block] Lucio Fulci’s Gory ‘The House by the Cemetery’
Butcher Block is a weekly series celebrating horror’s most extreme films and the minds behind them. Dedicated to graphic gore and splatter, each week will explore the dark, the disturbed, and the depraved in horror, and the blood and guts involved. For the films that use special effects of gore as an art form, and the fans that revel in the carnage, this series is for you.
Within a two-year span, gore master Lucio Fulci released his Gates of Hell trilogy; City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, and The House by the Cemetery. It’s an unofficial trilogy, as these films aren’t connected in any way in terms of plot. But there is a recurring Lovecraftian influence, a ton of gore, and actress Catriona MacColl plays a lead in all three. While the first two entries went large scale apocalyptic, The House by the Cemetery opted for a pared down haunted house story. Of course, in Fulci’s hands, a traditional haunted house becomes anything but. Instead of ghosts and walls that drip blood, this New England home paints the floors red with the entrails of unlucky victims.
Opening with a woman wandering an abandoned home in search of her boyfriend, she finds his bloody corpse hanging just in time to get a knife shoved through her skull and out of her mouth. If this isn’t your first brush with Fulci, then it’s no surprise that he gets up close and personal with the carnage. Cut to New York City, where our central family are setting up a move that will transport them to that very same New England home from the opening. Norman Boyle’s colleague Dr. Peterson was conducting important research in the house, but he abruptly killed his mistress and hung himself. Because this mysterious research is so important, Norman moves his wife Lucy (MacColl) and son Bob (Giovanni Frezza) into the house so that he can complete Dr. Peterson’s work. But Bob’s new babysitter Ann (Ania Pieroni) is behaving suspiciously, and a mysterious little girl named Mae keeps warning him away- though he’s the only one who can see her.
Naturally, the Boyle family will soon realize that vicious bats are the least of their problems.
Though The House by the Cemetery has a more coherent plot than many of Fulci’s supernatural horror films, it still retains Fulci’s preference of creating mood and feeling over logic. Meaning there are plenty of story and logic inconsistencies, as well as moments that will leave you scratching your head. Like Ann scrubbing up a big puddle of blood from the kitchen floor; neither she or Lucy seems phased by that. Ann, as a character, remains one of the biggest mysteries. She seems to be aware of the horrors lurking in the basement, or at least drawn to it, but it’s never explained- her decapitation ends any further character development or reveals. Bob’s ghostly friendship with Mae seems like it’s from a different movie altogether, quite likely part of an earlier version of the script from screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti, who drew inspiration from The Turn of the Screw.
So, between that, Lovecraft’s influence, and a bit of Frankenstein thrown in with Fulci’s splatter-filled sensibility, this one is a true collage of haunted house weirdness.
Eventually, the house’s secrets are revealed. It’s not ghosts to blame for this creepy New England haunt, but an undead Dr. Freudstein. The living, worm-filled corpse of a Victorian mad doctor, Dr. Freudstein long ago discovered a way to keep his undead body going with the blood of victims. He also happens to revel in his kills. Though not as gory as perhaps the previous two entries in the Gates of Hell trilogy, this film still has decapitations, brutal throat ripping, scissors to the chest, multiple stabbings, and one gnarly death by poker. The Boyle’s real estate agent gets the slowest, bloodiest death of all.
The effectiveness of the gore has as much to do with the intimate way Fulci lingers on it as it does the special makeup effects by Giannetto De Rossi. De Rossi previously worked with Fulci on fan favorites The Beyond and Zombie, and he’s the mind behind some of the most memorable kills in Fulci’s films. His stellar work eventually made him a commodity stateside, where he worked on films like Dune, Rambo III, and Conan the Destroyer. More recently, he delivered the splattery goods in High Tension. His gore earned The House by the Cemetery a spot in the prosecuted section of the infamous Video Nasties list. The film didn’t pass for uncut release until 2009.
No matter your ranking of this film in the Gates of Hell trilogy, it’s still a rare instance where the haunted house story goes full splatter. Most families move into a haunted house and flee after the supernatural presence proves too much. In Fulci’s hands, don’t expect the family to get out alive. Even if it borrows from familiar stories that came before, Fulci’s style and use of gore makes it feel fresh. And there’s always one of horror’s best screamers in Bob.
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”.
You must be logged in to post a comment.