Editorials
‘Gremlins 2: The New Batch’ Remains One of the Best Pick-Me-Up Horror Movies [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.
Like most of you, I adore Gremlins. It’s an annual watch around Christmastime and it has heavily informed my particular interest in genre film. It’s a cornerstone of my childhood and one of my all-time favorite movies. In recent years, there has been a school of thought that posits that the sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, is the superior of the two movies. While I certainly loved the second entry as a kid – and played the heck out of the Nintendo video game – I was always a staunch defender of the original film as the best of the duology.
But even I have to finally admit it: Gremlins 2: The New Batch is an outright masterpiece.
And yes, it’s also the best Gremlins movie.
The decision to move the sequel to New York City and center the action inside a building that represents the entirety of American consumer culture is brilliant. It allows director Joe Dante a plethora of gags and satire that never fails to be hilarious. There are plenty of stories about the conceptualization and production of this movie, and they all come back around to a, “Let’s just do it. Why not?” kind of mentality that fits perfectly with the chaotic energy of the gremlins. Dante even called the film a way to prove why there shouldn’t be a sequel to Gremlins.
And let’s talk about the gremlins themselves. The original designs by Chris Walas are still fantastic and iconic, but bringing in Rick Baker took the gremlins to a whole new level in terms of design and articulation. Add to that the creative decision to create as many distinct gremlins as possible and you have a cavalcade of memorable movie monsters. The gremlins range from comical extremes like the Vegetable Gremlin and the wonderful Brain Gremlin, to genuinely creepy designs like the Bat Gremlin and Mohawk. And when Mohawk becomes the Spider Gremlin? NIGHTMARES FOR LIFE.
Even beyond the designs, there are just so many gremlins in Gremlins 2: The New Batch. As a practical production, Gremlins 2: The New Batch is a jaw-dropping achievement. The climax involves a sea of gremlins that still boggles my mind every time I watch it. It’s a technical marvel that will likely never be rivaled in any future Gremlins endeavor. If just for the sheer magnitude of effects work in the film, Gremlins 2: The New Batch is a staggering success.
But Gremlins 2: The New Batch is more than just a phenomenal effects film. The returning cast all fit right into the film’s self-parodic tone extremely well. Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates actually work even better since they retain their Capraesque goodheartedness in a sea of corporate cynicism and monolithic urban apathy. It makes their naiveté come off as delightfully silly and endearing. Add to that grin-inducing turns from the legendary Dick Miller and Jackie Joseph as the Futtermans and this Gremlins fan has his heart instantly warmed.
What’s surprising is just how uniformly incredible all the new cast members are. There isn’t a weak link in the bunch. You’ve got John Glover delivering one of the best performances of his entire career as the airheaded mogul Daniel Clamp. Seriously, he’s supposed to be something of a bumbling satire of Ted Turner and Donald Trump but he just ends up being so dang likable. Robert Picardo brings middle management smarm to Forster, the Clamp company toadie who ends up finding love with Greta the Girl Gremlin. Robert Prosky creates a charming and kooky character out of Grandpa Fred, the horror host that has dreams of legitimate television journalism. Haviland Morris threatens to run away with the movie as opportunistic and seductive businesswoman Marla Bloodstone. And then, you top things off by having horror legend Christopher Lee as the ghoulishly droll Doctor Catheter. Every one of these actors is doing dynamite work and you can tell they are having an absolute blast in every scene.
When we talk about sequels, Gremlins 2: The New Batch needs to be a necessary part of the discussion. Most sequels struggle to find the right balance of delivering what people expect and crafting something new out of existing material. Gremlins 2: The New Batch somehow manages to strike that balance by blowing up the entire idea of a sequel. Gremlins was already a movie that leaned into cartoon absurdity, but Gremlins 2: The New Batch ramps it up to a historic level that possibly remains unmatched in all of cinema. It’s a movie that should be part of any film studies class because it’s remarkable it exists at all. We’re so lucky this bizarro piece of madcap lunacy escaped from whatever dimension it came from.
Whenever you need to put a smile on your face, Gremlins 2 is a guaranteed pick-me-up.
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.