Editorials
The Iconic Transformation Scene in ‘An American Werewolf in London’ Remains an All-Timer [Scene Screams]
Scene Screams is a recurring column that spotlights the scenes in horror that make us scream, whether through fear, laughter, or tears. It examines the most memorable, and often scariest, scenes in horror and what it is about them that makes them get under our skin.
So much about An American Werewolf in London makes it a standout entry in lycanthropic horror. The shocking jump scares, the nightmare imagery, the eerie mythology of a werewolf haunted by his decomposing victims, the blend of humor and horror, and the tragic romance of it all make this a pinnacle even 40 years later. Above all, it’s remembered for its iconic scene that captures the excruciating pain and terror of transforming from human to werewolf.
American backpackers David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne) trek across the Yorkshire moors, despite warnings, and get attacked by a beast. David barely survives, but his pal does not. David wakes three weeks later in the hospital, where he meets and falls for nurse Alex (Jenny Agutter) and suffers horrific visions of his dead friend. Jack warns David to kill himself before the next full moon to prevent more deaths and end the curse, but David ignores what he presumes as a delusion and moves in with Alex.
The unforgettable moment finally arrives when David is alone in Alex’s apartment. The hours of the day blur into the night as David paces about her place, trying to stave off boredom. Cut to Alex on her shift, tucking in a young patient. The camera pans up to gaze at the full moon in the sky, then back to the apartment. David is struck with searing pain in his skull, he rips his clothes off to free his burning skin, and the slow, painful change into wolf begins.
David trembles and screams in pain for three long minutes as his limbs stretch and rip in inhuman ways. His torso elongates, hair erupts all over his body, and his teeth grow sharp. His face morphs, and his screams eventually become guttural growls. The transformation into wolf swallows David whole, and a howl that echoes into the night signals the shift as complete.
Rick Baker’s Academy Award-winning makeup effects design and creation go a long way, making this transformation so powerfully unforgettable. Baker and his team put in many months of work to prepare. They created numerous heads and limbs, which they dubbed “Change-o” heads, hands, and feet to swap out through various stages of David’s transformation. The actual sequence took a whole week to shoot, working backward with the hair growth. They applied all of the hair to Naughton, and Baker trimmed a little off to mark the progression. Naughton’s lower body was secured beneath the floor for some of this scene, with fake legs attached above. Baker and his team approached this with ingenious simplicity, inventive techniques, and an insane amount of hard work and preparation, working in riveting unison with Naughton’s performance to sell the horror and pain of the transformation.
But Naughton deserves a lot of credit, too; the physicality of this scene and his anguished cry work in tandem with Baker’s effects to sell the horror. The stretching sounds and how director John Landis shoots this scene, capturing the terrifying transition from multiple angles, wide and closeup, create a symphony of terror.
It’s a pivotal moment narratively, too, as it’s the point of no return for David. David wakes up naked and back in human form, but he’s no longer the person he once was. He’s now a murderer responsible for claiming the lives of many. Poor David’s fate was sealed that night on the moors, but now it’s a matter of how much collateral damage he’ll cause to end his curse.
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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