Editorials
All Joking Aside, 1986’s ‘Killer Party’ Remains a Fun April Fools’ Day Slasher Film
When it comes to school-age horror, Killer Party is a class unto itself. This 1986 film kicks off with a lively, if not misleading, cold open. A campy drive-in flick sets the stage for real-life, heavy metal act White Sister. They rock on as a chaste, hair-crimped teen is then terrorized by the walking dead. In due time, it’s revealed this is all just part of a movie within a movie. Or really, a high-concept music video being watched at home by one of the film’s main characters. Not a novel idea, but the execution is handled in the best way imaginable. Only ten minutes in and Killer Party already proves why it’s one of the most individual slashers around.
Killer Party follows Phoebe (Elaine Wilkes), Vivia (Sherry Willis-Burch) and Jennifer (Joanna Johnson) as they pledge Sigma Alpha Pi together. The initial hazing is bad enough, but now they have to endure the worst of it all inside an old frat house with a dark past. Soon comes the April Fools’ costume party where a disguised guest takes full advantage of the theme and hacks away at the attendees. With tomfoolery in full swing, though, one has to wonder if this is all part of an elaborate sorority hoax, or if it goes far beyond being a sick joke.
Originally titled Fool’s Night (or, The April Fool), William Fruet‘s Toronto-shot movie pulled a last-minute name change when MGM caught wind of Paramount’s own pending prankster horror, April Fool’s Day. The two films only have surface-level similarities, but their proximity was too close for comfort. As playful as Fred Walton’s weekend mystery is, Killer Party is largely a horror-comedy. Producer Michael Lepiner told Fangoria in Issue 44 he wanted to “attract a broader audience.” Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter writer Barney Cohen penned an impish script that toes the line between droll and slapstick. Since Killer Party takes place on a college campus in the 1980s, you also know what to expect with its depiction of Greek life. Fraternity sanctioned theft, public humiliation, and inconsequential high jinks fill the first two-thirds of the movie. Although a good portion of the film is devoted to hell week antics, they’re reasonably amusing. Viewers are dared not to crack a smile when the pledges utter the phrase of the day, “I, myself, prefer a big fat cucumber.”
Given their target audience, the average slasher is frequently set deep in the woods, or in academic surroundings. High schools provide a built-in sense of community for young characters, whereas the likes of Killer Party take one step closer to the big, bad world. In this particular collegiate setting, evil hides in plain sight. This isn’t a case of entering the wrong neck of the woods, so to speak. Rather, that relatable desire to belong and fit in is directly why Phoebe and her besties are now in trouble. The movie has a roundabout way of criticizing fraternities. The most vocal aspersion is from a crabby professor who tells his class: “There are people who’d get rid of [frats and sororities] today if they could.” Whether or not this was the film’s intention, Killer Party takes a good swipe at Greek row without being too obvious about it.
At the heart of this fitful movie sits three young women with singular personalities. Phoebe is eager and naïve, Vivia is approachably brainy, and Jennifer is wary to a fault. Differences aside, they bike to school in tandem as well as spend almost every waking moment together. Their loyal friendship can be neatly summed up by an original, Bananarama-like earworm heard throughout the film—”These are the best times of our lives,“ the singers repeat in the chorus. It’s a perfect portraiture of these characters and their current outlook. In retrospect, this tuneful anthem becomes a bittersweet reminder of what was at stake. Phoebe, Vivia, and Jennifer were looking to join a sorority in a bid to feel accepted. The truth is, they didn’t have to look far if they wanted to feel that sisterly bond.
By the halfway point of the film, new and intrepid viewers are wondering what the hell is going on. It’s been a series of scenes for grins with only a hint of something insidious in the works. Not until the ill-fated April Fools’ bash does this movie start to feel assuredly horror. Unsuspecting victims? Check. A killer decked out in a distinct costume such as a vintage deep-dive suit? Check. A good versus evil standoff at the end? Check! Killer Party has the earmarks of your classic slasher. But there is a colossal plot development by the film’s end that separates this one from the pack. While it’s best to discover that twist on your own, it’s safe to say it leads to an ending no one could have foresaw. A movie that started off so humorously, now ends shivery and harsh.
With a decade so distinguished by other nameable horror offerings, Killer Party gets lost in the crowd. The movie drags its feet, and editing left little to no on-screen violence intact. Notwithstanding, the movie has developed and maintained a following for good reason. Admirers are drawn to its high-spirited attitude and style. On top of that, the movie is innovative in a subgenre not known for straying too far from tradition.
The horror elements aren’t as pronounced as they could be, but fun is the life and soul of Killer Party.
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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