Editorials
[Trailer Tracks] Dissecting The Trailer For ‘The Frankenstein Theory’
Movie commercials offer us a great service; they not only show us which upcoming movies look good, but also which ones to avoid. And if one looks closely, they often reveal more than intended about the film in question. In honor of this profound art, I give you TRAILER TRACKS, an examination of upcoming movie commercials: What they say, what they don’t say, and what they say on accident about the product being sold to you, the excited chump.
Today’s Entry:
The Frankenstein Theory (Dir. Andrew Weiner)
Introduction:
Once upon a time, a bunch of knuckleheads took some cameras and went out to Norway or somewhere equally cold and not-America in order to test a theory that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein story was in fact not a story at all. Not only was Frankenstein’s Monster real, but he’s still alive today, stalking angrily through areas both cold and not-American.
And since this theory throws out Shelley’s book as fact (while keeping her creature), this film crew specifically sought out a manic ugly beast-monster thing rather than the loquacious, emotional superhuman found in the novel. That way when they kill it, no one has to feel bad.
Well, they all died. This is the footage they left behind. All the footage. So there are bound to be some boring parts. Mostly boring parts. But every once in a while something cool will happen. Offscreen.
The Set Up:
So a young and stupid film crew treks off into the unknown to find Frankenstein’s Monster (hereby knowingly referred to by the erroneous name, “Frankenstein,” because that’s what the movie thinks he’s called. They don’t even pronounce it correctly). The trailer doesn’t give us a very good idea of how many victims we’re talking about here. There are definitely two dudes and one lady, plus a badass tracker guy. So at least four future Frankenstein poops.
Their plan is simply to walk through the snow listening for Frankenstein shouts. But almost as soon as they get there, they start freaking out. They hear the monster’s shouts, just as they expected to, but now it scares them. They find his tracks. At one point, they find a bunch of Frankenstein vomit in the show. According to the trailer, each new discovery makes them cry and run around for thirty minutes.
The Problem:
If a picture is worth 1000 words, here are one thousand words on why this Frankenstein trip is doomed:
And here’s one word:
TROLLS
See, the whole Frankenstein theory is really stupid and lacks almost all sense. Why would a character birthed in a 19th Century novel exist in the real world? And even if he did, why would he still be alive, today? And why would he act so different than he does in the book? It’s asinine.
Trolls, however, are a whole different story. Everyone knows Trolls exist. Didn’t you see that movie about them?
By walking around in the snowy woods following gigantic footprints and weird echoing bellows, these morons are mistakenly tracking a bunch of Trolls instead Frankenstein. Like Frankenstein, however, Trolls like to eat people, especially young, stupid people. So they’re dead, either way. The difference is simply a matter of jumping out of an airplane instead of jumping off a flying carpet.
The Solution:
There really isn’t much of a solution. Everyone dies. That’s just how most found footage films roll. And while this might be sold as a horror film here in America, up in Troll country they’re going to watch this and laugh their asses off.
Maybe things could have been better for these poor kids had they hired a real Troll Hunter. But the tough guy we see them hanging out with in the trailer is no Troll Hunter. Drunk and full of jokes, he looks like he could handle of couple of these guys:
…but no Trolls. And certainly no Frankenstein.
The film’s big stinger is that the trolls take all the dead bodies (and their still running cameras) to a hidden castle where they are feasted upon by, you guessed it, the real Dracula.
In Summation:
The Frankenstein Theory looks like one of the more boring found footage films ever made. At least Grave Encounters can put some scary stuff in the preview. When a found footage film commercial offers you no real scares, it’s not trying to be coy. That means it has none to offer you in the actual film either. Watch this film’s prequel, Troll Hunter, instead.
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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