Editorials
Horror Education of the Week: ‘Prometheus’
Prometheus.
Some of you liked it. The majority of you hated it.
I adore it.
The prequel/not a prequel to Alien (and now maybe it’s a sequel to Blade Runner) follows Dr. Elizabeth Shaw and Dr. Charlie Holloway, along with a crew, to LV-223. After finding multiple drawings across Earth, all depicting the same god-like figure, they set out on their journey to this distant planet. There they hope to find the answers to mankind.
Perhaps Prometheus can be seen as a warning to our society to not put our trust in man as a god. It can also be seen as a warning to not put all of our faith in an invisible God.
Prometheus blows my mind. There are so many complex themes and imagery in it that makes me want to watch it on repeat. I cannot do it justice. There is simply no possible way. I state this with every article where I present ideas to you, but this time I truly mean it. To give every ounce I believe this film deserves would take weeks if not months.
I think Prometheus affects me strongly because I grew up Catholic. I learned the Bible in a manner where I was told that I was special – because I was one of the few that believed in THE ONE TRUE GOD. In the last few years, any ounce of belief has left me. I still hope that there is some purpose to life or a higher being that put all of this into existence, but I simply can no longer put my faith into something I cannot see.
While I cannot give Prometheus the analysis it deserves, I can present the greatest, most obvious theme throughout this incredible film. The concept of God.
From the beginning, Prometheus is saturated with religion.
– The opening of Prometheus opens with a god-like engineer sacrificing himself. As his body deteriorates, it is washed away and DNA broken down. DNA we later discover is identical to human DNA.
– He has sacrificed himself, like Jesus, so that we shall live.
– The name Elizabeth is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name Elisheva, meaning “God’s promise”, “oath of God”, or “I am God’s daughter”.
– Elizabeth is always wearing her father’s cross, showing she has faith in God.
– The name Charles is from the Germanic word karl meaning “free man”.
– Charlie’s faith is in science, much like Charles Darwin.
– When Prometheus lands, the captain is seen setting up a Christmas tree. The celebration of the birth of the Son of God.
– There is constant dialogue throughout the movie on what the characters believe, and what they have faith in.
– Elizabeth’s mission is to find the creators. Her thoughts are that the engineers created us, and she wants to know who created them.
– In the pyramid, the crew find the chamber full of the vases of death. This scene is very reminiscent of the egg chamber in Aliens, as mentioned a few weeks ago.
– Behind the giant head in the chamber, is a mural. The mural shows a familiar alien being in a very crucified Christ pose. Yes, it’s our Space Jesus.
– When Charlie and Elizabeth argue about the discovery of the fallen engineers, Charlie states that the realization is that nothing is special. Anyone can create life.
– We then learn that Elizabeth is sterile and cannot conceive. This idea is very important.
– In the Gospel of Luke, Mary, the mother of Jesus, asks how she is to conceive and bear a son, since she is a virgin. She is told it will happen by the power of God.
– After Charlie is infected and is killed, Elizabeth is told by David that she is pregnant. A virgin birth of sorts by the power of the engineer gods.
– Wrapped much like Christ on the cross, Elizabeth preforms surgery to remove the alien embryo from her.
– “Sometimes to create, one must destroy.”
– This quote can be seen everywhere in the Bible, perhaps the most prominent in the Old Testament with the story Noah and his ark. God sends constant rain upon the earth to flood and destroy it so that select humans can start over.
– In the Bible, King David is chosen by God.
– David in the film is stated by Peter Weyland to be his only son. Much like Jesus to God.
– A parallel of the Bible story of David and Goliath can be seen in Prometheus.
– Goliath was a giant and a warrior. David struck Goliath in the forehead with a stone from his sling. Goliath fell dead, and David took Goliath’s sword and beheaded him.
– The Bible story’s point was to show that Goliath represented paganism, and David represented a true faith in God.
– The engineer can be seen as the Goliath figure in Prometheus, however, with the stones of words that David throws, he is far from victorious and ends up being the one beheaded.
– In the Bible, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
– Jesus says that Simon is “blessed” to see his true identity. Jesus then calls Simon by the name “Peter” – from the word ‘rock’ in Greek.
– “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:13-20)
– The idea that Peter Weyland hopes to learn the secret to eternal life on LV-223 – a giant rock – can be interpreted in a much deeper sense from the above quote.
– The first scene we see the awakened Peter Weyland, he is having his feet washed.
– At the beginning of the Last Supper, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. Peter refused to let Jesus wash his feet to which Jesus said: “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me”, Peter replied: “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head”. (John 13:2-11)
– The idea that Weyland’s feet are being washed just before his “last supper” so to speak, is quite significant.
– Weyland’s last words are: “There’s nothing.”
– David answers, “I know. Have a good journey, Mr. Weyland.”
– In the deleted scenes and extras in the dvd set of Prometheus, we see additional amounts of religious imagery.
– At the 2023 TED Conference, Peter Weyland gives a grand speech culminating in “We are the gods now.”
– In an extended conversation with the engineer at the end of the film, Weyland tells him that he made David in his own image. For that, he deserves to live forever as he, too, is a god.
– In a transmission to Weyland, Elizabeth pleas for his assistance, stating “Do you ever feel all the science in the world will never give us the answers we really want?”
– In the end, Elizabeth puts her father’s cross back on as David asks her, “After all this, you still believe, don’t you?”
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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