Editorials
‘Michael Jackson’s Ghosts’: The King of Pop’s Overlooked Collaboration With Stephen King
Pop legend Michael Jackson transformed music videos as an art form with his horror-centric “Thriller” in 1982, co-written with director John Landis (An American Werewolf in London), and featuring makeup effects by Rick Baker and narration by Vincent Price.
The video is credited for helping Jackson’s album become an all-time bestseller, let alone catapulting the single to a perennial Halloween staple. Even the making-of documentary became a huge hit on home video at the time.
So, it’s no surprise that Michael Jackson would continue to experiment with elaborate short film productions throughout his career, including an oft-forgotten “Thriller” follow-up in the ’90s.
Michael Jackson’s “Ghosts” sought to top its supernatural predecessor in just about every way; it screened at the Cannes film festival and held the Guinness World Record for the longest music video until 2013, for example. More importantly, it saw Michael Jackson teaming with the likes of horror stalwarts Stephen King, Mick Garris, and SFX legend Stan Winston.
The short film, with story by Stephen King and Michael Jackson, was initially conceived as a tie-in for Addams Family Values in 1993, titled “Is This Scary?” Mick Garris, who’d previously played a zombie in “Thriller,” was attached as writer/director. That was also when Jackson was hit with abuse allegations, halting production and its ties to the family film sequel.
“Ghosts” eventually resumed production in 1996, with all Addams Family connections dropped and SFX master Stan Winston taking over directorial duties after Mick Garris departed to helm The Shining miniseries. While some of Garris’ footage was used, the six-week shoot added new scenes, dance numbers, and special effects.
The lengthy film clocks in at 39 minutes and centers on an eccentric magician named Maestro, who entertains the local children every day in his spooky mansion. One stormy night, the town’s mayor leads a group of angry citizens to the mansion in an attempt to run Maestro out of town.
Michael Jackson plays five roles in Ghosts, including:
- The Maestro
- The Mayor
- A Skeleton
- The Super Ghoul
- The Ghoul Mayor
Four of those characters required extensive prosthetic work and hours in the makeup chair, along with a slew of dancers made up to look like ghouls.
“I wanted Michael to play the haunted house guy,” explained Winston via his School of Character Arts, “but also the mayor of the town, and an evil demon who comes in at one point. Michael wanted badly to be accepted as an actor, as something more than the King of Pop. But it was so difficult for people to get past Michael’s persona. I thought that the only way he would be accepted as a real actor was if he played all these parts, disguised in makeup, so that no one would know it was him until the end. And he was very agreeable to that idea.”
The pop legend was said to be terrified by genre films but deeply admiring of special makeup effects and prosthetic work. That’s certainly reflected here, with Stan Winston’s team crafting memorable ghouls, ghosts, and demons, and Michael Jackson fully embracing all five roles in a dazzling horror video with heartfelt messaging of tolerance and acceptance.
Retitled and released as Michael Jackson’s Ghosts, the special effects showcase is also notable for being included with select prints of the Stephen King adaptation Thinner, further entrenching this extension of “Thriller” in the horror genre.
Parallels between its story and Jackson’s real life ultimately meant that, in addition to production delays, Ghosts received only a limited release that prevented it from reaching the same heights in popularity as its predecessor. That Ghosts features multiple tracks likely means it’s not as earworm catchy as the extended Thriller feature, too, further rendering this ambitious follow-up to forgotten territory.
Michael Jackson’s Ghosts was also Stan Winston’s last outing as director.
While the full short film isn’t streaming currently in an official capacity, you can watch the abridged music video and the complete 39-minute experience below.
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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