Editorials
E3 2015 Horror Game Wish List
Hide the children, it’s almost time for the latest installment in our annual celebration of all things video games and the last thing you want getting between you and the deluge of headlines we’re about to witness is a son or daughter who isn’t capable of appreciating this wondrous occasion because they’re too busy crying about how you haven’t taken them for a walk in three days, or whatever it is parents do with their kids.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo is that magical time of year when the makers, sellers and buyers of video games flee their homelands to journey to the City of Angels for four straight days of gaming goodness. Without E3, June would be the second worst month of the whole year, beaten only by the absolute worst month, which we all know is August. August sucks.
I’m sure you don’t remember my wish lists from previous E3’s — and if you do, you’re an X-Man and you should really consider finding a better use for your gift because memorizing old articles of mine is both weirdly specific and an entirely useless ability in the grand scheme of life — but for all you non-mutants, you should know that what I want rarely matches up with what we get.
Let’s see if I can keep that streak going with this year’s wish list.
These games are in no particular order, but if they were, the Friday the 13th game would likely claim the #1 spot. We’ve seen nary a screenshot or second of gameplay footage from this one, leading me to believe it won’t be hitting the October release date they originally promised.
Aside from Until Dawn, which I’m sure will be shown in some capacity, the only other slasher game I see coming this year is Slasher Vol. 1: Summer Camp, which, like F13, is an asymmetrical multiplayer game in which a player-controlled psychopath must hunt down a team of player-controlled teens.
Even more of an enigma than the F13 game is Sony Bend’s oft-rumored project. Rumor has it it’s an open-world survival horror game. It’d be great if that were true, so long as it has nothing to do with zombies. We have plenty of those to choose from now thanks to Dying Light, Resident Evil, Dead Island 2, DayZ and H1Z1, as well as at least two more Walking Dead games. I’m not tired of the undead, I’m just craving a reprieve from the constant smell of rot.
Before State of Decay even had a name — it was first announced under the code-name Class 3 — developer Undead Labs has been open about their plans to use it as the foundation for an even more ambitious open-world zombie game, code-named Class 4.
With the obligatory XBO port of State of Decay finally behind them, the studio is free to focus completely on the next big thing. I can’t imagine they’ll have anything substantial to show off in time for E3, but there’s a chance we may get a CG trailer. I’d also settle for a title.
Dead Island 2 may take the stage this month, but the smarter move would be to save the good stuff for Gamescom in September, or possibly even whatever this year’s incarnation of The Game Awards ends up being called. I can’t say that I’m looking forward to watching those for another year, even with the world premieres the show brings with it. That won’t keep me from enduring them again, because you’re worth it.
The only other high profile zombie games I’d like to hear from belong to Capcom. The focus should stay on the Resident Evil 0 remaster that’s coming later this year. However, if Capcom really wants to impress, they might mention Resident Evil 7. I assume they’ll want to follow up the success of Revelations 2 with another episodic game, which may mean more Revelations for us.
And with that, Resident Evil concludes the itchy, tasty portion of this wish list.
On the supernatural front, we have the possibility of an Alan Wake remaster, a Western release for Fatal Frame V and, if we’re lucky, we’ll hear something from Frogware’s Call of Cthulhu game. That one has been quiet for awhile. Games that are based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft have had a rough time staying out of development limbo, so even a “Yes, it’s still on the way” statement from Frogware would be fantastic.
Is Draugen a supernatural horror game? Whatever it is, it’s been quiet long enough that I’m beginning to worry about its health. Developer Red Thread Games has said they’d like to crowdfund it, potentially for a 2015 release. Mid to late 2016 is looking more likely as far as a release window, and that would give them plenty of time to raise some funds to help realize it. Until then, some new footage would be a swell way to remind us Draugen still exists.
Kodoku is one of those rare sorts of video games that can be immediately identifiable solely because of a distinctive art style. I’m not sure what the official term for it is, or if there even is a term to describe this delightfully strange-looking game. I also don’t think it’s necessary.
What’s more important is that you approach this interactive acid trip like you would a real one and make sure you have a safe place to play it in, and that you surround yourself with people you trust.
Before we go, here are a few miscellaneous things I’d also like to see at E3:
– Release dates for Predator in Mortal Kombat X, The Forest (PS4), DayZ (PS4) and Grave (XBO)
– A look at that upcoming Bloodborne expansion
– What’s next for Creative Assembly (Alien: Isolation) and Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within)
– Literally any news regarding the future of Condemned, Dead Space and Silent Hill
– For Konami to spend their entire conference apologizing to us for everything they’ve done. They can open with a heartfelt speech, followed by some crying, then Kojima needs to come on stage and kick a Konami exec in the balls, followed by even more crying. It will all end with a surprise appearance from Guillermo del Toro where he looks directly into the camera to tell me, personally, that everything is going to be okay.
– To not have to mention Left 4 Dead 3 in next year’s list.
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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