Editorials
‘Sightseers’ – Sardonic Mumblegore from ‘Kill List’ Director Ben Wheatley [Horrors Elsewhere]
People spend a great deal of time searching for their other half, and once they find that perfect love, they will do everything to keep it. That determination is plain to see in Ben Wheatley’s movie Sightseers, a romantic comedy without equal. Two awkward lovebirds’ road trip turns into an appalling travelogue as soon as they discover each other’s darkest parts.
Thirty-four-year-old introvert Tina (Alice Lowe) is first spotted consoling her rancorous mother (Eileen Davies) right before going on holiday. Carol, who remains vocally disapproving of her live-in daughter’s recent relationship, makes her feelings loud and clear as Chris (Steve Oram) picks up Tina. With little delay and absolutely no tact the mother tells Chris she does not like him, then calls her daughter a murderer. Carol’s behavior, while inappropriate, is in part justified. To be more specific, the mother’s cryptic reservations about Chris are surprisingly spot on.
As viewers have already surmised, Carol’s “murderer” outburst stems from the loss of her beloved Poppy, and how Tina played a role in the dog’s accidental death. The mother has yet to forgive the daughter, with the guilt now hanging over Tina. So, this caravan holiday is not only meant to be an “erotic odyssey” for the new couple but also Tina’s much-needed reprieve from Carol’s acrimony.
It does not take long for Chris, a seemingly average fellow who hopes to write a novel along the way, to show his true colors. First he backs up over a man he just so happened to disagree with earlier at the National Tramway Museum. Then he murders a neighbor at a caravan park. Although Tina is none the wiser at this point, she is more than happy to abduct the dead man’s dog, Banjo, who looks a lot like Poppy. When Tina finally learns of her sweetheart’s hidden bloodthirst, she is less horrified than expected. In fact she develops a taste for murder herself. From there the couple lays waste to the loathsome bystanders they meet on their trip.
Sightseers is uncommonly good when conceiving and dissecting its lead characters. Dowdy Tina is downright the saddest of the two; the audience is made aware of her pathos as she struggles to be accepted by her spiteful mother. Her efforts are futile and her surrender to Carol’s abuse is frustrating. The mother lords Poppy’s death over the daughter, using it very much like an emotional choke chain. More attention is undoubtedly paid to Tina, and by the end, all the work pays off.
Chris, on the other hand, is as self-righteous as he is fragile. As much as he believes his crimes are warranted, they are really a reflection of his insecurities. Flattening a stubborn litterbug with the caravan is one thing, but going after Banjo’s original guardian, another writer, because he felt inferior to him is a damning statement all on its own. The most compelling evidence is when Chris bludgeons a man who demands Tina pick up after her dog. The funny thing is, this stranger dies for exerting the same morally superior attitude that Chris himself wields. Watching the couple then nonchalantly eat the victim’s packed lunch only a few feet away from his freshly slain body is the first truly chilling moment in the movie Sightseers.
For a short time Chris and Tina’s love withstands the truth; it appears even stronger. Before long comes the beginning of the end when reality sets in and Chris sees Tina’s all-in acceptance as something bad. As toxic as Carol is, she imparts essential insight from afar: “Whatever you give him, he’ll want the opposite.” Sightseers goes on to deepen the cracks in Tina and Chris’ shaky relationship with careful understanding and authentic performances. As inhuman as these two people are, the way their romance fizzles out is incredibly human.
A third-act rough patch sets Chris and Tina on a course for splitsville, and no amount of accord and passion (namely on Tina’s part) can seem to change that. Chris cites Tina’s chaotic approach to killing as the reason for their breakage, whereas Tina has given up parts of herself to be with him. The story wants them to be together — their shared murder anthem of “Season of the Witch” illustrates how alike they truly are — and as twisted as this may be, so does the audience. That would at least keep them out of the general dating pool.
Thematically speaking, Sightseers comes very close to its target. Lowe and Oram gather a surplus of sympathy in spite of their characters’ depravity. The ending can be seen as abrupt or interpreted as unfulfilling. Contrarily, the story has emphasized the need for growth when it comes to love. Making room for someone else while recognizing how said love changes one’s self. Here one person matures more than the other as well as reaches an epiphany about the kind of relationship they want.
While Wheatley’s Kill List blurs criminal goings-on with folk-horror, follow-up movie Sightseers is a grim but attractive horror-comedy spotted with pitch-black humor. Lowe and Oram’s cutting script acts as a scenic collection of murderous episodes. In between the many visited vistas and tourist attractions are these bursts of jarring manslaughter that reveal the inner workings of both troubled protagonists. The inevitable laughs stem less from the killings and more from the eerily honest depiction of splintery romance once the honeymoon period is over.
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
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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