Editorials
5 Tales of Queer Terror from TV Anthologies [Series of Frights]
Series of Frights is a recurring column that mainly focuses on horror in television. Specifically, it takes a closer look at five episodes or stories — each one adhering to an overall theme — from different anthology series or the occasional movie made for TV. With anthologies becoming popular again, especially on television, now is the perfect time to see what this timeless mode of storytelling has to offer.
Television has, needless to say, not always been so widely mindful or inclusive when it comes to queer characters and narratives. Even in a progressive genre like horror where the theme of otherness is common, small-screen storytellers had to be crafty and cautious in the past. Queerness was ciphered, alluded to, or avoided altogether until attitudes and practices changed.
In the history of televised horror, some of the most unequivocally queer stories are found in anthologies. These particular tales are transparent with their representation and help articulate the characters’ frightening life experiences.
Play for Today (1970-1984)
Penda’s Fen
The BBC’s Play for Today produced over 300 diverse teleplays during its impressive and lengthy run, and its masterpiece is Alan Clarke and David Rudkin’s feature-length collaboration, Penda’s Fen. The singular drama from 1974 expounds the intense and fantastical maturation of a teenager, as well as speaks deeply of a bygone era of England.
This multifarious story takes place in Pinvin, and it follows the confused Stephen Franklin (Spencer Banks). His grammar-school classmates chide him for his sanctimonious opinions, and his parents have no idea how to tell him the truth about his ancestry as his eighteenth birthday approaches. That urgent desire for selfhood soon forces Stephen to accept realities for not only himself but also the state of his country.
Stephen’s burgeoning sexuality is handled with depth and vision. From an incubus manifesting after an erotic dream, to the valorous rejection of masculinity and conservatism, Stephen’s coming out is far from typical. His devout parents are well aware of their son’s latent orientation — they notice Stephen’s crush on the milkman before he does — and to some degree, they are understanding rather than disapproving. In addition, a pagan, Anglo Saxon king rescues the “impure” Stephen from England’s damning intolerance. This is all a welcome break from the vilification of queer characters so common at the time.
Penda’s Fen cannot be defined by one genre; it is more than a folk-horror movie. In addition to its bold heresy, the telefilm beautifully injects romanticism, imaginatively depicts sexual awakening and repression, and acknowledges England’s pagan past in respect to modern nationalism.
Tales from the Crypt (1989-1996)
The Assassin
This curious and uneven Tales from the Crypt episode has absolutely nothing to do with its source material; “The Assassin” is an in-name-only adaptation of Carl Wessler’s story from Shock SuspenStories #17. Instead of a gun-for-hire trailing his mark throughout the city and ending up at a play, Crypt writer Scott Nimerfro and director Martin von Haselberg come up with something more exciting and twisty, if not retrograde.
Shelley Hack’s character Janet McKay is surprised by three visitors one day after her husband Frank (Marshall Teague) goes to work. The trio of CIA agents (Chelsea Field, Jonathan Banks, and Corey Feldman) has tracked an AWOL assassin named Ronald to Janet’s house. The agents think Frank is Ronald now living under a new identity, but they are way off base.
In its last two seasons, the series experimented with other genres besides horror. “The Assassin” is a domestic take on Die Hard best remembered for its twist ending. In an inevitable turn of events, the seemingly helpless housewife is none other than the assassin in question. The ‘90s was not a sensitive or well-represented decade for transgender folks, whose existences became punchlines for movies and television. Yet as dated as this campy episode feels and acts — for one thing, Janet can switch between distinct voices, one of which is played by Cam Clarke of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fame — it is erratically ahead of the times, as well.
One by one Janet takes down attackers who repeat her deadname and force her to remember a past she has moved on from; refusing to acknowledge her previous life is how Janet partly copes with cruel statements like: “See, you can change the way you look, but you can’t change what you’re made of.” Something else of note is how transitioning quite literally saved Janet’s life; the agents might have otherwise killed her sooner. So, after Janet eliminates the undesirables and hosts a dinner party that same evening, husband Frank commends her: “You are quite a woman.” Turning to face the audience, Janet practically winks as she replies: “Of course I am, silly.” As far as endings go, this is as good as it gets for such a peculiar episode.
Masters of Horror (2005-2007)
Sick Girl
Lucky McKee and Sean Hood’s contribution to Masters of Horror is in some ways a spiritual sequel to the director’s cult film, May. Not only do both stories share Angela Bettis as an awkward protagonist, they study the effects of loneliness and pent-up sexuality.
Bettis plays Ida Teeter, a single entomologist desperate for companionship beyond her many bugs at both work and home. When she meets the fascinating Misty Falls (Erin Brown), Ida fears her job and creepy crawlies will scare her date away, but the opposite happens. Around the same time, Ida receives an anonymous package containing a mysterious insect later named “Mick.” The dangerous specimen eventually gets loose and takes hold of Misty’s mind and body.
“Sick Girl” shows the harms of changing for other people. Throughout the episode, Ida deals with an ornery landlord who harps about her unconventional pets; the woman’s vocal aversion to bugs is thinly-coded homophobia. Then there is Ida’s friend and coworker who tells her to keep her job and bugs a secret from potential partners.
Misty, on the other hand, is accepting of Ida, seeing as she grew up around insects. The real problem is when Misty acts differently in order to seem less “weird.” That dysphoria is worsened by both Misty’s father and Mick; they each vie for control over her life through direct or indirect means. It is only after Ida and Misty jointly dismiss the outside world’s expectations and prejudices do they find sapphic happiness.
Into the Dark (2018-)
Midnight Kiss
Carter Smith and Erlingur Thoroddsen’s “Midnight Kiss” is an unashamedly gay slasher where the writing and characterization cut deeper than the actual killer. The openly queer director and writer are perceptive when picking apart the friend group at the core of this tense, New Year’s Eve-themed whodunit.
The story begins in the past when Cameron (Augustus Prew) and his friends first came up with the movie’s namesake; the goal of the game is to kiss someone new at midnight on New Year’s. No-strings-attached hooking up with that same person until morning is also permissible. Fast-forward to a few years later, Cameron’s ex Joel (Scott Evans) has invited him and other mutuals to an isolated getaway in the desert to celebrate both New Year’s Eve and Joel’s surprise engagement. An already tense gathering then becomes a battleground for survival as a vicious, masked murderer crashes the party.
“Midnight Kiss” deserves more praise for its unapologetic execution. The characters are unambiguously queer with the exception of straight gal pal Hannah (Ayden Mayeri), and their conversations about sex and relationships never feel sanitized. Smith and Thoroddsen’s movie comes off as authentic without sacrificing entertainment. What it lacks in body count it makes up for in insight.
What helps the story the most is the more exhaustive writing in regards to the characters and their dynamics; they are credibly complicated. The detractors may have wanted something campier and more irreverent because of the queer factor, but “Midnight Kiss” goes in a whole other yet capable direction.
Monsterland (2020)
Plainfield, IL
In spite of its title, this television adaptation of Nathan Ballingrud’s book North American Lake Monsters is more about human nature than tangible monsters. Logan Kibens and Emily Kaczmarek’s episode “Plainfield, IL” is based on the short story “The Good Husband,” but the heterosexual couple, Katie and Sean, is now Kate (Taylor Schilling) and Shawn (Roberta Colindrez).
The main characters’ long relationship began in law school. However, Kate wanted to end things from the start following her bipolar I diagnosis. Shawn instead stayed with her, and the two built a life and family together. After sixteen years, Kate’s condition has taken a toll on Shawn; her spouse has attempted suicide multiple times, with their daughter Heather finding her on one occasion. When what Shawn feared the most finally happens, she learns not even death can keep her and Kate apart.
While it may be Pet Sematary-esque in plot, “Plainfield, IL” stands on its own as a story about loss augmented by the supernatural. What binds an undead Kate to this world is Shawn’s anguish and fear of letting her go and being at peace, even if it means her beloved loses more of herself each and every day. The episode interprets mental illness and grief as monsters, both of which are already hard to live with without the influence of unearthly forces.
By featuring complex, queer characters who deal with relatable problems, an episode like “Plainfield, IL” only helps normalize same-sex couples without pandering or trivializing. It is also a stark reminder of how mental health issues affect everyone.
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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