Editorials
‘Tremors’ Kicked Off the 1990s With the Decade’s Own ‘Jaws’ [We Love ’90s Horror]
The ‘90s often get a bad rap with horror fans. After the numerous successful slashers and creature effects films of the ’80s, the ‘90s offered a different variety of horror fare. Though there were plenty of hits, hidden gems, and misunderstood classics, the ‘90s usually don’t get the kind of love that other decades get when it comes to horror. It’s time to change that.
This column has been a real treat because I’ve gotten a chance to see what people think about the movies I’ve chosen to champion. As always, there will be debate and I welcome it! One comment that got me thinking posited that the back half of the ‘90s was where a lot of the better horror offerings began to appear. So, I wanted to go all the way back to the start of the decade and find some good flicks to highlight. Well, as luck would have it, 1990 offered up a movie that I’d argue is not only one of the decade’s best but a stone-cold classic.
You know I’m talkin’ about Tremors.
The story of the isolated town of Perfection, Nevada and its subterranean giant worm problem is well-known by now. The film has spawned five (soon-to-be six) sequels, a television series, and a pilot for a new series that I WOULD KILL TO SEE. …Um, anyway, the point is that y’all know what Tremors is about. Instead of hashing out the plot, let’s examine just why Tremors might be a perfect movie.
To clarify, Tremors is perfect for what it is: a small scale creature-feature effects film. That sounds like it’s the kind of movie that’s a dime a dozen, but you’d be surprised how hard it is to pull off such a concept. Actually, it’s not that it’s hard to execute. Rather, it’s difficult to accomplish this kind of production and make every aspect of it sing. Tremors is a movie that understands the tiny corner it’s playing in and it uses that to its advantage.
Let’s clear up a few things. When I say “small scale,” I’m talking about the actual size of the story. This is all about a tiny town with less than twenty people in it, and the threat they are facing doesn’t pose an issue to the outside world. Tremors doesn’t have to worry about anything bigger than the story it’s telling and the characters it’s playing with. That sense of isolation is a benefit to Tremors; it allows the danger to feel big because it’s a huge disruption to a very minuscule community.
Thankfully, that community is littered with phenomenal characters and actors. Every single member of the ensemble does exactly what they need to do. Of course, the lead performances by Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward are absolute delights; Val and Earl are a dynamite duo that are immediately likable, funny, and believable as two poor schmucks who just picked the wrong damn day to leave town. And special mention needs to be given to Michael Gross and Reba McEntire as the gun-crazy couple who end up with the best showdown in the movie.
So, let’s address that headline up above. I’m sure there are some of you that raised an eyebrow when I made such a bold statement. Here’s the thing: Jaws is my absolute favorite film of all time. When I say Tremors is as great as Jaws, and that is what I’m saying, I’m not being cavalier about that comparison. There is only one big difference between the two: Jaws has Big Character Drama and Tremors doesn’t. But, that isn’t an inherently negative thing if it’s factored into the script. Tremors has plenty of character beats but it understands that they don’t need to be too complex. In fact, their simplicity is an asset. The budding romance between Val and seismology student Rhonda (Finn Carter as a pitch-perfect nerd) is straightforward and adorable. Tremors isn’t the kind of movie that would benefit from deeper digs into the serious lives of its characters. The streamlined story is reflected in its characters.
Just because Tremors’ dramatic aspirations aren’t on the same level as Jaws doesn’t mean it’s a lesser film. Tremors sets very specific goals for itself and meets them at every turn. At the same time, it delivers the same kinds of thrills and adventure that you find in Jaws. Director Ron Underwood has masterful control over the movement of the camera and the pace of the edit. Combined with S.S. Wilson & Brent Maddock’s script – which deserves exuberant praise on how it handles escalation in regards to the monsters – Tremors moves at exactly the right clip, spending just as much time as it needs to with each character to establish who they are and how they function in this community.
Of course, we can’t talk about Tremors without talking about graboids. The underground beasties are easily some of the best movie monsters in the history of the medium. From conception to execution, these gigantic worms are an absolute marvel of practical effects work. And like I mentioned earlier, the script does a superb job at evolving our knowledge about the creatures. At first, they appear to be smaller eels. Then, we see that those are just a part of a larger animal’s tongue. And, to make things even better, the graboids are capable of pattern recognition and learn how to outsmart our heroes. This gives the graboids a sense of personality even though they are acting like a normal animal. Like the shark in Jaws, the graboids feel like a menace with purpose without tipping into cartoon buffoonery. I could go on and on about how great graboids are, but I’m sure I don’t need to convince you.
What I do hope to convince you of is Tremors’ classic status. I’m not talking cult classic or genre classic, but full tilt film classic. There are reasons I can speculate on as to why Tremors isn’t as widely respected as it should be – the intentionally simplistic nature of its drama; the dilution that’s caused by over-franchising; its lighthearted nature undercutting any sense of Important Filmmaking – but that’s part of why I want to do this column. There are plenty of ‘90s horror films that don’t get the love they deserve. And even when they do – Tremors is certainly loved but in a very niche way – they aren’t afforded the same landmark status as many other films.
Tremors is a landmark film. It kickstarted the ‘90s in the best possible way and it’s a movie that none of us should be looking down on. In a better world, Tremors is recognized as the absolute masterpiece of drive-in cinema that it is. Let’s start treating it that way.
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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