Editorials
The Dark Side of “Fantasy Island”: Revisiting the Show’s Creepiest Episode, ‘The Nightmare’
On Valentine’s Day, Blumhouse’s latest release gives a classic fantasy TV series from the ‘70s a horror makeover in Fantasy Island. At least, that’s how the description of the plot reads on IMDb. First introduced in 1977 as a pair of back-to-back TV movies, Fantasy Island starred Ricardo Montalbán as the mysterious Mr. Roarke, a debonair and mysterious fellow who welcomes guests to his island to fulfill their greatest fantasies. Fantasies that rarely ever turn out how the guest envisioned. The setup of the series allowed for all corners of tone and genre to be explored. While fantasy and drama remained at the forefront of the series, it wasn’t out of the norm for horror to guest star in episodes.
Outside of the guest’s dream scenario, Fantasy Island kept its supernatural elements understated and enigmatic for much of its run. Mr. Roarke often dropped hints toward his immortality and an ethereal, specific code of ethics he adhered to. There were also the episodes in which he engaged in a battle of wits with the Devil (Roddy McDowall) himself over the claiming of souls, sharpening the mystery further. Many years after the series had ended its run, Montalbán revealed in an interview that he played Roarke as a fallen angel whose sin was pride, and that the island was Purgatory. So, really, in the grand scheme of biblical battles of good and evil, Fantasy Island remained far closer to genre fare than a cursory glance suggests.
Mr. Roarke granted his guests anything their hearts desired, which meant the sky was the limit for the scenarios they faced. For many, their dreams were rooted in reality. For others, they encountered ghosts, witches, mermaids, demons, and plenty of time travel. All of which were intended to instill a valuable life lesson for the participant. Each episode featured two to three unrelated fantasies at play. Season four’s “With Affection, Jack the Ripper” saw a criminologist live out her dream of discovering the identity of Jack the Ripper, only to find herself his newest intended victim. “Possessed” featured a mother seeking Roarke’s help when her daughter begins behaving strangely, and the ep’s title is a crucial hint as to why. Season five’s “The Ghost’s Story” revolved around a woman forced to stay the night in an actual haunted house for the sake of her occultist reputation.
That’s only scratching the surface of the horror-centric fantasies.
The series’ creepiest episode of all, though, came very early in its run when the supernatural hadn’t yet become so prominent: season two’s “The Nightmare.” A young woman wanted to play out her recurring nightmare to decipher its meaning. A nightmare that traumatized her as a child, but has come back with a vengeance after her recent nuptials. Roarke recreates her childhood home and bedroom down to every last detail, and the poor woman’s nightmares are viscerally personified post-haste.
It’s sensory overload as her nightmares are filmed in a disorienting, blurry fishbowl aesthetic. The unnerving sound is dialed up to an extreme decibel; the maniacal cackling of her marionette clown, now life-sized and autonomous, to the child-like screams of her other toys as they spontaneously combust. The more the woman tries to flee her childhood home, the more she’s cornered by sentient toys and roaring flames. The woman does eventually discover the root cause of these terrifying visions, but the truth isn’t nearly exciting as the build-up, and you can probably figure it out by the context clues in her waking life. Still, “The Nightmare” makes for a jarring terror-filled episode.
Michael Peña takes over the role of Mr. Roarke in the 2020 film adaptation, which promises to place Fantasy Island firmly in the realm of horror. While it remains to be seen whether this iteration of the character is more rooted in evil, the truth is that the property was never too far from the genre in the first place. The only real question is, what took so long?
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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