SKINNER: RARELY SEEN GRUESOME GORE FEST

I’d never heard of the movie SKINNER before watching this release. That should mean something since in the late 80s and into the early 90s I owned a video store. There were a ton of made for straight to video titles on those shelves too. And even though the store closed before this was released I still would have noticed it had it been around the shelves of other stores that were still there. So when I heard it starred Ted Raimi and featured effects by KNB Effects I was intrigued.

Raimi stars as Dennis Skinner, a drifter being tracked down by a mysterious woman dressed in black with a large black hat covering most of her face (Traci Lords). Just why she’s tracking him and how the two connect we have no clue. As he enters a new town Skinner finds a home with a room for rent. Owned by a young couple only Kerry (Ricki Lake) is there when he stops in to enquire about the room. Her husband Geoff (David Warshofsky) is a truck driver out on the road at the moment. Skinner takes the room and settles in.

At night Skinner prowls the streets nearby, tending to wander the seedier areas of town where the local hookers walk looking for customers. Unfortunately for them they have no idea what kind of man Skinner is and see him as an easy payday. What they don’t know is that in the bad he carries with him everywhere he carries the tools of his trade, that of serial killer.

While all of this is going on we get to learn more about the mystery woman. She books a room in a seedy hotel run by Eddie (Richard Schiff). Going to her room he watches from a hole in the wall to find out something about her. As she gets settled in she shoots up some drug (heroin?) and takes off something on her leg revealing it as badly scarred, the same with her arm. Could it be that she was once a victim of Skinner and this is why she is tracking him? Well…yeah!

The gore end of the film comes when we get to see what it is Skinner does with his victims. Particularly gruesome is the body of a co-worker who threatened him who Skinner killed and then flayed, walking around in a suit made of the man’s skin. It is some effective effects work on the part of KNB.

But how does the movie hold up on its own? Well that kind of depends on what kind of movies you enjoy. If you like those low budget/no budget films that went straight to video back in the 90s then you’ll love this movie. If you’re a bit pickier the odds are good you won’t. And if you are somewhere in between then you’ll enjoy at least one viewing of the movie but doubtfully enjoy repeated viewings. Horror fans are a forgiving group though and the odds are good they will flock to this one.

Raimi is a much better actor than is seen here. Normally filling out supporting roles and especially comedic ones, he fares better in those films. Lords is the same. Even though it’s been years she’s still more known for her infamous history of being in pornography at an early age than her regular features which is sad. She truly has talent when it comes to acting, but that’s not seen much here in this cardboard cutout of a character. Lake is surprisingly bad here. I’ve seen her in many other roles and this one appears to have been done with little to no direction. The big surprise is to see Schiff in the film as he’s gone on to so many more respectable roles.

In spite of all of this Severin is releasing this in a spectacular version with a restored 4k scan from the original camera negative making it perhaps the best looking the film as ever been. They’re also packing on some interesting extras as well including “A Touch of Scandal” an interview with director Ivan Nagy, “Under His Skin” an interview with Ted Raimi, “Bargain Bin VHS for a Buck” and interview with screenwriter Paul Hart-Wilden, “Cutting Skinner” an interview with Editor Jeremy Kasten, the flaying sequence out takes and extended takes and the film’s trailer.

Horror fans looking for something new to watch will be glad to have this one in their collection. It’s not quite up to the best from the time period but so much better than much of what is coming out and considered low budget gore films being made today. And congrats to Severin for giving the film a new life.

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