Editorials
Looking Back on the Mundane Monsters of MTV’s “Death Valley” 10 Years Later
Here’s a question no one’s ever asked before: what do you get when you hire one of the minds behind Scrubs (Curtis Gwinn) and the creator of Fat Guy Stuck in Internet (Eric Weinberg) to create a TV show based on an idea by Powerman 5000 frontman Spider One? Well, you get the criminally underseen Death Valley, a short-lived MTV program about ordinary cops living in an extraordinary world. Ten years after its final episode, I’d like to shine a light on this overlooked gem and explore how it paved the way for contemporary hits like Wellington Paranormal and What We Do in the Shadows.
Taking place in an alternate version of the San Fernando Valley where zombies, vampires and werewolves are about as common as drug deals and armed robberies, Death Valley is a Cops-styled mockumentary show chronicling the misadventures of the Undead Task Force. With a single 12-episode season that aired throughout 2011, the show explored the daily struggles of law enforcement having to deal with absurd and horrific crimes, all the while being followed by a drama-hungry documentary crew.
While the show was never a certified hit, garnering only modest ratings and a small but dedicated cult following, I believe it was one of the best horror comedies to come out before the TV horror boom of the mid-2010s. With more than a little inspiration from that one episode of The X-Files where Mulder and Scully find themselves being hounded by a reality TV crew during an investigation (Season 7’s excellent X-Cops), Death Valley was a creative departure from your usual supernatural-based programming.
Unlike most shows featuring modern-day monster hunters, the heroes of Death Valley aren’t super-powered chosen ones or even members of a proper special forces unit, they’re just regular cops who happened to deal with the occasional man-eating creature of the night. They may pack UV flashlights and retractable wooden stakes (as well as the occasional baseball bat and grenade launcher), but this is still a down-to-earth romp about a world where society has had to adjust to the existence of the supernatural.
How do you arrest a dead suspect?
The show’s nonchalant approach to world-building is actually part of its charm, with characters claiming that the undead has been plaguing society for about a year now, with no real explanation as to how it happened or why. Werewolf attacks and zombie infections have become so common that they’re treated like a nuisance, more akin to public intoxication and disorderly conduct than a threat to civilization. This setup is meant to be comedic, but it also makes the show feel like a more realistic take on how most people would react (or refuse to react) to real-world monsters.
The clever scene transitions are a great example of this, showing brief glimpses of the undead wreaking havoc across town as citizens go about their day. These moments really help with the atmosphere, further elucidating how the undead have become just another quirk of life in California. The documentary-style presentation also keeps things believable as we accompany these police officers on their quest to break up vampire parties and reprimand werewolves that aren’t abiding to the mandatory curfew.
The show even gets a little serious at times, often using the undead menace as clear analogues for real-world issues like HIV, drunk driving and even the opioid epidemic. Hell, one episode even introduces us to vampire prostitutes who sell themselves for a taste of blood, showing the grittier side of a world where people have to deal with Vampiric curses alongside traditional STDs. While these situations are mostly presented as tongue-in-cheek satire, there’s no denying that some of it hits close to home.
Of course, the real backbone of Death Valley is comprised by the officers themselves and their quirky personalities. Featuring cops like the over-enthusiastic John-John (Texas Battle), the honorable everyman Joe Stubeck (Charlie Sanders) and the secretly bad-ass rookie Kirsten (Caity Lotz), the show’s unique character dynamics had enough potential for several more seasons, with some moments being reminiscent of a more horror-centric Brooklyn 99. Personally, my favorite character was the batshit-crazy Captain Dashell (played to perfection by Bryan Callen), though his constant sexual remarks were a bit too much even for 2011 standards.
A bit more action-packed than your average workplace comedy.
Curiously, the documentary crew is often dragged into the action as well, with sound technicians and cameramen finding themselves in constant peril as they attempt to record the action. With most mockumentary productions opting for a “fly-on-the-wall” approach to justify the aesthetic, it’s fun to see a show embrace the crew as a part of the narrative, even if it makes some of the inconsistent camera setups and impossible angles a little more noticeable (though that’s a nitpick I have with almost all mockumentary shows).
Unfortunately, that’s not Death Valley‘s only shortcoming, as some of the humor is a bit hit-and-miss, with quite a few dated references and some arguably offensive stereotyping. Some of the action sequences are also a little lacking, though that has more to do with the limited budget than anything else. Even so, I think it’s safe to say that most of these issues would have been addressed in future seasons had the showrunners been given the opportunity. As it stands, the show is still worth a watch for genre fans, especially with its smorgasbord of practical gore and monster effects, but I can’t help but wonder where these stories could have gone next.
While there’s little chance of a series revival at this point, I really appreciate what the show did for televised horror comedies and wish we could have seen more. That’s why I’d argue that Death Valley is still worth checking out a decade later despite ending on a demonic cliff-hanger. The show might have been aiming for comedy, but I think there’s something truly frightening about the idea that, even if vampires, werewolves and zombies were real, regular people would still have to get up and go to work in the morning.
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.