Editorials
Underseen Monster Movie ‘Neon Maniacs’ and Its Troubled Production [It Came From the 80s]
It Came From the ‘80s is a series that pays homage to the monstrous, deadly, and often slimy creatures that made the ‘80s such a fantastic decade in horror.
Getting a movie made is no small feat, but sometimes, in cases where every obstacle that can pop up does, it can be akin to performing a miracle. Such is the case with Neon Maniacs, a mess of a monster movie rife with production woes. In an era of practical effects-driven horror prone to sequel fever, a horror movie about a horde of varied monsters seemed like a safe bet for franchise potential. Even a schlocky one; horror has a built-in fanbase, after all. Despite a cool concept, the muddled title, incoherent narrative, and financial troubles sentenced this bizarre movie to near obscurity.
The setup is simple enough; monsters from another dimension have taken up residence inside the Golden Gate Bridge by day. At night, they emerge to slaughter. When a group of friends hanging out at a nearby park falls prey to the creatures, only Natalie (Leilani Sarelle) survives. Naturally, the police don’t believe her story, and she’s ostracized at school. She teams up with new love interest Steven (Clyde Hayes) and young horror fan Paula (Donna Locke) to keep the monsters at bay.
Penned by Mark Patrick Carducci, who would go on to co-write the screenplay for Pumpkinhead, Neon Maniacs was nothing if not ambitious. As in, the initial script was broader in scope and featured twenty-seven Maniacs. Budgetary constraints prompted that number cut down to twelve; Ape, Archer, Axe, Decapitator, Doc, Hangman, Juice, Mohawk, Punk Biker, Samurai, Slasher, and Soldier. They also come accompanied by two little cyclops-lizard creatures called Scavengers. Because the film spends a lot of time with the human protagonists, most of the Maniacs get minimal screen time. For the monsters that resemble mutated Village People, that’s not always a bad thing. Considering the movie’s title, though, they should’ve been more prominent.
Instead, Neon Maniacs spends a lot of time setting up the romance between Natalie and Steven, likely a big deal because she’s a virgin and, therefore, a “pure” target for the Maniacs. That’s isn’t something the final product makes all that clear, though. It probably also explains why the lengthy climax at the school’s Battle of the Bands dance ends in anticlimactic fashion. Spoiler alert: After the Maniacs descend and attack, Steven and Natalie hide in a darkened classroom and figure that’s the perfect time to have sex. While at least one monster is searching for them, I guess once Natalie is no longer a virgin, the remaining monsters shrug their shoulders and wander back home. Paula is pretty much a third wheel, an outsider whose passion for horror somehow makes her the first to discover that the monsters’ weakness is water. Therefore, living at the Golden Gate Bridge is a risky move. The movie is full of strange decision-making that may have made sense in initial drafts but became nonsensical during its hacked-up production.
As for the title, Carducci explained in an interview in Fangoria issue #47 that, “The neon part is a coined term. It’s a new name for new monsters.” Also adding, “There’s also a sort of electric, almost punk energy to them.” In other words, an explanation that makes more sense in theory than in practice. It is a catchy title, however.
Special makeup effects were designed and created by Allan A. Apone (The Avengers, Friday the 13th Part III) and Douglas J. White (The Return of the Living Dead, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh). Their crew, from their SFX shop Makeup Effects Lab, had a lot on their plate with thirteen distinct creature designs on a meager budget, but it was exacerbated by a sudden 3-month halt in production midway through the shoot, thanks to financial woes. When production finally resumed, many of the actors playing various Maniac roles didn’t return. So, the MUFX crew had to reapply foam latex appliances that had been fitted for those actors on new replacements. Anytime the Maniacs were doused in water, they melted. Makeup effects artist Shannon Shea hilariously details what it was like working on this effect in his book I’m Rubber, You’re Glue, recounting that one of the notable monster deaths was simply cotton candy packed around a skeleton. “The water hit the cotton candy, and it did melt into bright pink and blue rivulets, but was it successful? Who could tell? It was a low-budget movie entitled Neon Maniacs for corn’s sake; did it matter? (pg. 161)”
It wasn’t just Maniac actors that departed during the hiatus; cinematographer Oliver Wood had moved on as well. That meant director Joseph Mangine, an experienced D.P., stretched himself further by pulling double duty. Mangine never directed again after this, but he did continue his work in cinematography.
Once production finally completed, the film then sat shelved for a couple of years before finally seeing a small theatrical release in 1986. That final hook meant to tease a sequel never happened, much to the disappointment of its devout followers. But sometimes that’s for the best. Neon Maniacs should be a horror fan’s dream. A bunch of rampaging monsters running amok in a city? Yes, please. Instead, it’s a bunch of quick shots of various monsters that grin and grunt at each other, but we never get to see much of their personalities beyond that. That screen time is dedicated to a trio of humans that don’t offer much rooting interest. As it stands, it’s the precise type of horror movie that makes you wonder about what could’ve been. Neon Maniacs belongs in the same category as films like Spookies, a film whose tumultuous behind-the-scenes stories prove far more interesting than what ended up on screen.
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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