Editorials
[2013 HORROR MOVIE PREVIEW] LEFTOVERS & INDIE
I can’t even believe how happy I am to enter the New Year. These 2013 horror movie preview lits were a lot of work, but well worth it. Over the past several days we’ve shared with you all of the great genre films we’ll be seeing in theaters next year, everything from a new Evil Dead to a new Sin City and Machete.
With the end comes the indie films, and the leftovers, which includes various titles from Magnet, Anchor Bay, IFC, among a few that could end up premiering at the 2013 film festivals. We look forward to catching all of them and telling you guys what to look forward to. And with that we ask you, which ones are YOU most excited for?
LIONSGATE & SUMMIT / PARAMOUNT / UNIVERSAL / SONY / LEFTOVERS & INDIE
CLICK ANY TITLE FOR SYNOPSES, TRAILERS, DETAILS & MORE STILLS (If Available)
Dates Subject to Change
The ABCs of Death (January 31, Magnet Releasing)
Twenty-six directors. Twenty-six ways to die. The ABCs of Death is perhaps the most ambitious anthology film ever conceived with productions spanning fifteen countries and featuring segments directed by over two dozen of the world’s leading talents in contemporary genre film. Inspired by children’s educational books, the motion picture is comprised of twenty-six individual chapters, each helmed by a different director assigned a letter of the alphabet. The directors were then given free reign in choosing a word to create a story involving death.
Girls Against Boys (February 1, Ancor Bay Films)
When Shae (Danielle Panabaker), a naïve college student, is tormented by several men in a matter of days, she reaches her breaking point, and is drawn into coworker Lu’s (Nicole LaLiberte) twisted plan for revenge. Together, the two embark on a gruesome killing spree, terrorizing and brutally murdering not just their attackers, but any man who gets in their way. However, after a wild weekend of retaliation, the friendship between the girls shifts into a dangerous obsession, and their perverse game becomes a desperate struggle for Shae to maintain control against Lu’s deadly and seductive influence.
Stoker (March 1, Fox Searchlight)
After India’s (Wasikowska’s) father dies in an auto accident, her Uncle Charlie (Goode), who she never knew existed, comes to live with her and her emotionally unstable mother (Kidman). Soon after his arrival, she comes to suspect this mysterious, charming man has ulterior motives, but instead of feeling outrage or horror, this friendless girl becomes increasingly infatuated with him.
The Lords of Salem (April 26, Anchor Bay Films)
Heidi, a radio station DJ, receives a wooden box containing a record. Heidi listens and the bizarre sounds within the grooves immediately trigger flashbacks of Salem’s violent past. Is Heidi going mad or are the Lords of Salem returning for revenge on modern day Salem?
7500 (August 31, CBS Films)
Kwanten and Smart will co-star as married couple Brad and Pia Martin, who board Vista Pacific Flight 7500 with their two longtime friends for a trip to Japan. Bibb is set to play Laura Baxter, a stewardess on the transpacific liner, who is involved in a complicated and secret relationship.
The Devil’s Rapture (October 11, LD Entertainment)
Something very strange happened in the small village of New Bethlehem, a devout community kept under the tight reins of the town’s vigilant Elders. Six girls born on the same day to different mothers. Perhaps a coincidence or as most believe a chilling omen of something yet to come. Now, on the eve of their 18th birthday, the young women are mysteriously disappearing one by one and feared dead. Terror has overtaken this quiet community. Could this be the work of a serial killer, one of the village elders or a horrific prophecy come true, born of the supernatural, The Occult?
Maniac (TBD, IFC Films)
Elijah Wood plays the role of a serial killer who works at a shop that sells antique mannequins. He finds victims on the Internet and stalks them like prey, all the while suffering from hallucinations that throw him back into the past, when he was abused by his own mother. In his twisted mind, he gains a measure of revenge against his mother with each kill.
S-VHS (TBD, Bloody Disgusting)
Searching for a missing student, two private investigators break into his abandoned house, which contains another collection of mysterious VHS tapes. In viewing the horrific contents of each cassette, they realize there may be terrifying motives behind the student’s disappearance.
The Green Inferno (TBD)
Apparently inspired by Italo mondo films like Ruggero Deodato’s notorious 1980 Cannibal Holocaust and Antonio Climati’s 1988 Natura contro (also known as The Green Inferno and Cannibal Holocaust II), The Green Inferno follows an idealistic student and a group of naive do-gooders who are captured by cannibalistic Indios after their plane crash lands in the Peruvian jungle. In it, a group of student activists from New York City travel to the Peruvian amazon to stage a protest and save un-contacted tribes. Things do not go as planned.
Here Comes the Devil (TBD, Magnet Releasing)
With Here Comes the Devil, Bogliano moves into a supernatural realm: On a family vacation, a couple’s son and daughter disappear while exploring a cave-riddled mountainside. The children eventually return home seemingly unharmed, but are withdrawn and devoid of emotion. The parents fear they have fallen prey to something inhuman — and that this dark evil has come home with them.
The Quiet Ones (TBD, Hammer Films)
The Quiet Ones tells the story of an unorthodox, but charismatic Professor (Harris) who uses controversial methods and leads his best students off the grid to take part in a dangerous experiment: to create a poltergeist from negative human energy.
Horns (TBD, Mandalay Pictures)
Daniel Radcliffe will portray the number one suspect for the rape and murder of his girlfriend. He awakens one morning to find horns starting to grow from his own head and soon realizes their power drives people to confess their sins and give in to their impulses — an effective tool in his quest to discover the true circumstances of his late girlfriend’s tragedy.
Berberian Sound Studio (TBD, IFC Films)
Set in 1976: Gilderoy is hired to orchestrate the sound mix for the latest film by Italian horror maestro, Santini. As time and realities shift, Gilderoy is lost in a spiral of sonic and personal mayhem, and has to confront his own demons in order to stay afloat.
Grabbers (TBD, IFC Films)
An idyllic remote Irish fishing village is invaded by enormous tentacled creatures from the sea who are picking off the villagers one at a time. The inhabitants learn that the one thing the creatures don’t like is alcohol, it makes people taste horrible, so they realize that in order to stay alive, they’re going to have to get as drunk as possible.
Frankenstein’s Army (TBD, Dark Sky Films)
Using shocking vintage newsreel footage as his jumping-off point, Raaphorst has hit on a unique and bold premise. Toward the end of World War II, Russian soldiers pushing into eastern Germany stumble across a secret Nazi lab, one that has unearthed and begun experimenting with the journal of one Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The scientists have used the legendary’s Frankenstein’s work to assemble an army of supersoldiers stitched together from the body parts of their fallen comrades – a desperate Hitler’s last ghastly ploy to escape defeat.
Byzantium (TBD, IFC FIlms)
On the run for murder, two young “sisters” arrive penniless at an English seaside town. Clara is a fiercely modern woman who has her eyes on the future and no time for the past. Teenager Eleanor is shy and innocent. Yet they both hide the same secrets: they are really mother and daughter, and they are both … vampires!
Eleanor is exhausted by 200 years on the run and desperate to settle down. But little does she know that her mother has been protecting her all of the years from their own kind, “The Brotherhood”. To escape them, they must either blend in or continue running away. But just as they think they may have escaped, their past rapidly catches up with them.
Hatchet III (TBD, Dark Sky Films)
The story finds Harris hunting down the true secret to ending the voodoo curse that has left Crowley’s ghost terrorizing Honey Island Swamp for decades. Mears will play a brooding, pompous SWAT team leader who is sent in to contain the carnage strewn about the haunted swamp. Williams will play a fast-talking journalist who fancies herself an expert on the legend of supernatural stalker Crowley.
Antiviral (TBD, IFC Films)
Antiviral follows Syd March, an employee at a clinic that sells injections of live viruses harvested from sick celebrities to obsessed fans. Biological communion – for a price. Syd also supplies illegal samples of these viruses to piracy groups, smuggling them from the clinic in his own body. When he becomes infected with the disease that kills super sensation Hannah Geist, Syd becomes a target for collectors and rabid fans. He must unravel the mystery surrounding her death before he suffers the same fate.
Cabin Fever: Patient Zero (TBD, The Indomina Group)
When a cruise ship in the Caribbean collides with an abandoned research vessel, a deadly virus is unleashed. Passengers must find a way to survive before the flesh eating disease consumes them all.
Dark Was the Night (TBD)
Dark Was the Night centers on the isolated town of Maiden Woods, where a nearby logging company has disrupted the balance of the life in the woods. From the frozen forest, an evil will emerge and threaten the local citizens; their only hope being the local Sheriff and his trusted Deputy.
Nothing to Fear (TBD, Anchor Bay Films)
A horror/thriller that follows a young family as it tries to reinvent itself by moving to a small town in rural Kansas. The family is tormented by an ancient demon with an insatiable blood lust. It revolves around two young sisters and their family, who accidentally discover one of the seven gateways of Hell in a small town in rural Kansas.
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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