Editorials
The Curious Case of Number 2s: When ‘Halloween,’ ‘Elm Street’ and ‘Phantasm’ Went Hollywood
John Carpenter and Debra Hill didn’t want to make Halloween II. Those of you who know this story, indulge me for a bit. Those of you who don’t, well, here you go. Anyway, the dynamic duo created a monster with Halloween and creatively, saw no reason to wade back into the same waters. Plus, as far as Carpenter was concerned, there was no more story to tell. So, what changed his mind? The extensive account in the book Taking Shape gets it straight from the horse’s mouth, and it rhymes with honey.
“The sequel was going to be made with us or without us. And part of the reason for making the sequel was to get the money that was owed to both Debra and I from the first film. Being nice capitalists, we decided to go ahead and do that,” reflects Carpenter.
At least he’s honest.
With Universal on board to distribute the sequel to the little independent exploitation movie that could, Halloween officially went from the minors to the majors. But more money involved meant more oversight, and more oversight meant working within a system involving test screenings and notes. By 1981, slashers powered the horror business. And business was booming.
As a result, Carpenter, the other producers, and the studio believed Halloween II needed to contend with the slew of Halloween imitators. Feelings on Halloween II aside, this is a vast difference between the first movie and its sequel. While the former was auteur-driven, the latter was anything but. In the end, seemingly no one on the production was incredibly happy, least of all director Rick Rosenthal, and most certainly not Carpenter. Ask him; he has plenty to say on the subject.
Halloween II is one of three horror sophomore efforts in the ’80s that were less about the auteur, more about the business, and all about establishing the brand. Halloween II, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, and Phantasm II are forks in the road and their respective franchises’ most consequential films.
In each instance, these movies were victims of their own success. Of course, New Line wanted a sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street since it made all the money. And why wouldn’t a horror-loving exec at Universal want a sequel to that successful Don Coscarelli film at a time when horror was big box office? Each of these business decisions required sacrifices on the creative side of the equation.
Coscarelli ran into the same corporate buzzsaw that chopped and screwed Halloween II several years earlier. As a result, Phantasm II has a different lead actor, adds a love interest, and its narrative is pretty straightforward. Fans use many words to describe the Phantasm franchise, but it’s a good bet “straightforward” isn’t one of them. In fact, Phantasm II is the weirdest of the franchise because, relatively speaking, it’s pretty normal. The director acknowledged he played the studio game, making concessions and giving them what they wanted.
Wes Craven, on the other hand, was less inclined to partake. To be fair, the Never Sleep Again documentary features a few different opinions on the exact reason the director of A Nightmare on Elm Street didn’t direct its first sequel. But according to the man himself, he had no desire to turn his “dream child” into a franchise, and not having ownership of said creation bothered him. The studio went ahead without Craven and created a movie that, while beloved now, was anything but in 1985, to say nothing of the fact that it ripped up and contradicted a lot of Craven’s established rules. How? Well, it is the only time Freddy Krueger operates in the real world at a pool party in front of a captivated audience.
Turns out, leaving the auteur in the dust purely to keep the brand alive wasn’t the best decision at the time.
These three movies were catalysts for what came in their wake. Halloween II led to Halloween III (sans Michael Myers), which gave us Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. Halloween II made The Shape human by giving him familial bonds. From that point on, the series turned into a soap opera saga about the most dysfunctional family since the clan Manson led in the ’60s. The 1981 movie’s legacy loomed large enough to the point that a storyline Carpenter attributes to obligation and alcohol wasn’t done away with until 2018.
Nightmare 2’s chilly reception got the studio to bring Craven back into the fold and gave birth to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. The series shifted direction when it was left for dead, and all these years later, we’re still talking about the dream demon. As far as Phantasm II is concerned, it showed Coscarelli the power of ownership and the joys of creative freedom. Phantasm III didn’t drop until 1994, and his voice is evident from the first frame to the last.
Horror history wouldn’t be the same without these movies with the number two in their titles. What’s crazy is they were all created under similar circumstances at different times and yielded identical long-term results. We needed these movies when we got them, even if we didn’t know it yet. They ensured longevity for characters we love and love to hate. And not for nothing, but they are examples of why horror works best when the creator’s vision remains pure.
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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