Editorials
Happy 64th Birthday to Clive Barker!
Today marks the 64th birthday of English author/director/artist Clive Barker, a man who probably doesn’t need any introduction to the horror community. But just in case, he’s the man who created perhaps the most evil and dangerous puzzle box in Hellraiser, who mixed noir and horror in the criminally under-appreciated Lord of Illusions, who shaped my early nightmares with “The Thief of Always“, whose game Undying is still to this day one of the most eerie interactive experiences I’ve ever gone through.
You see, Barker is not a traditional horror creator. Rather, he has this wonderful fascination with magic, mysticism, the supernatural, and all things related, finding a way to blend them all into grand, almost epic tales. His stories don’t put only our world in a state of peril, they risk other worlds as well. No plane of existence is safe from Barker’s pen or brush, from “The Kingdom of The Cuckoo” in “Weaveworld” to Mr. Hood’s time warping realm in “The Thief of Always” to Pandemonium, the capital city of Hell, in “The Scarlet Gospels”. It is because of Barker’s seemingly limitless imagination that his works feel vast and limitless, the possibilities of where his stories might go endless and, therefore, always exciting and unpredictable.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, my first encounter with Clive Barker was with his children’s book “The Thief of Always”, which I saved up my lunch money to buy a copy of. A few years later, I got my hands on his game Undying, which only further sealed the deal of my interest in his works. As the years passed, I found myself watching his films, reading more of his novels and venturing into his short stories, and ogling his artwork. His oddities were as fascinating to me as many find the works of David Lynch, David Cronenberg, and Tim Burton. He found ways to marry beauty and horror in unique approaches, which is why he is one of the most recognized horror authors and ranks up there with King, Koontz, and similar contemporary names.
Although he hasn’t gotten behind the camera too many times, Barker’s three studio films that he did direct are each classics in their own right. Obviously we all know Hellraiser and the impact the ensuing franchise has had. Doug Bradley’s performance as Pinhead is so iconic that fans can’t imagine him played by anyone else. Nightbreed has become a cult sensation, one that perfectly exemplifies the imagination and scope that I spoke of earlier. It also turns horror conventions on its head, making the monsters the heroes and humans the villains. However, there is always that shade of gray in the middle, where nothing is falls under simple categorizations. And in Lord of Illusions, Barker took the world of illusionists and magicians and wove a haunting story behind their mystery. Scott Bakula’s portrayal of Harry D’Amour is one of my favorites in the horror genre and Daniel von Bargen brought charisma and foreboding, demonic strength to Nix.
With 16 novels, dozens of short stories, wonderful collections of art and a few video game titles under his belt, Barker is a horror auteur who paves the way with his works. We wish him a very happy birthday and are always excited to see what comes next from him!
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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