'Only Skin Deep' is a Bizarre and Terrifying Lesson to Never go Home with Strangers

I am currently having a phase of Tales from the Crypt, and I could not remember how crazy this episode was. I had seen this episode years ago, and I decided to watch it again. Only Skin Deep has a pretty insane twist, but it oddly became one of my favorite episodes from this great horror series. I think it had to do with the down-to-earth vibe the villain had in this episode, and it really made her stand out in a strange way.

In this episode, we follow the story of a man named Carl, who is not someone to root for. He arrives to a Halloween party, that is being hosted by his ex - wife, Linda. We learn right away that Carl is an awful person, who is a violent, short tempered piece of trash. Even though his ex - wife did not want to see him, Carl still showed up to the party, and he refused to leave when a friend of his tried to kick him out.

This instantly showed that Carl was most likely dangerous, and we quickly get another scene of his temper, when he suddenly throws something in the kitchen. He is startled when a random woman in a white mask and body bag costume greets him. They instantly hit it off, and Carl grows enraptured by this random woman. She tells Carl that he can call her anything, and he decides to refer to her as Molly.

She invites him to leave with her, and they head straight to her apartment. Carl and Molly decide to spend a night together, and they make an agreement: Neither of them must remove their masks.

Carl and Molly have a pretty crazy night, and after their night ends, Carl wakes up to find Molly gone from bed. He suddenly sees a random stranger appearing to yell at him, but this strange man vanishes before his eyes. Carl runs into Molly when she emerges from a room, where a strange sound was coming from. She convinces Carl to drink something that she made, and after he finishes his drink, he reveals that he developed a huge crush on Molly. He takes off his mask, which pisses off Molly. She tells him that they had a deal, and he must leave her apartment immediately.

Carl loses his temper, (which isn't really surprising), and he storms out of bed. Instead of leaving, he decides to stick around, to see if he can figure out what her real name is. He goes through all of her things, not able to find a single trace of her name. He begins to experience moments of his vision going blurry, but he ignores this. Carl then stumbles across a glass display, and he pulls open the door, to find something absolutely terrifying.

He finds a display of faces, from dead people. One of them resembled the man he had seen for a split second in the bedroom. Outraged, Carl goes after Molly, and they get into a fight. Carl attempts to remove her mask during the scuffle, but his fingers go through her white mask, as Molly screams in pain.

Molly's mask was never real, it was her real face the whole time.

Carl ends up passing out, and Molly reveals to him that she had put something in his drink to knock him out. She drops another bombshell on Carl, admitting that she was born with her masklike face. She proceeds to cut off his face, and then stores it along with the other human masks.

The episode ends with Molly turning on her cutting machine, as she stares at the reflection of her face.

I feel that the ending of this episode left me a lot of unanswered questions. I wanted to know so much about Molly, because she was such an interesting serial killer. I wondered if maybe her face made her self conscious over time, and perhaps it had to do with why she became a killer. Perhaps she never wanted any of her partners to leave her, and that is why she cuts off their faces, so that they can stay with her forever.

This episode is a great red herring, to never go home with strangers.

But let's face it, Carl 100% had his demise coming.

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Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn