Ecorchés vifs

Don't be fooled by the brilliantly lurid title of this film, which suggests images of unparallelled violence to the epidermis of a living person: no-one in Skin 'Em Alive is actually skinned alive. A couple of people are impaled on spears, loads are shot or blown up, and one gets his head banged against a wall, but there is absolutely no graphic flaying of the human body's largest organ whatsoever. A shame really, since this film sorely needs something really sensational (ie., some spectacularly graphic gore) in it order to make it worthwhile viewing for fans of Italian exploitation.

Bryan Rostron plays down-on-his-luck lothario Rudy, who decides to leave the country when he gets into trouble with some local hoods. After scrounging some cash from a buxom, blonde bimbo girlfriend, he hops on a plane for Africa, where he meets up with his half-brother Franz, the leader of a team of bloodthirsty mercenaries who are fighting a war against rebel natives. Rudy hopes to get his hands on some of the diamonds that Franz is rumoured to have sewn into the belt of his trousers, however his plans are scuppered when his half-brother is captured by the rebels. In desperation, Rudy joins the other mercenaries on a daring rescue mission...

Whilst the plot of the film isn't all that bad, having many of the elements that go to make a great exploitative adventure (thoroughly unlikeable characters totally devoid of morals, a jungle setting, savage natives, funky soundtrack), the dreary direction from Mario Siciliano means that the film never fulfils its potential. There is quite a lot of (non explicit) violence and rape (the mercs take advantage of any native women they happen upon), but Siciliano holds back on the genuine nastiness and sheer sleaziness that directors such as Ruggero Deodato, Umberto Lenzi, Joe D'amato or Bruno Mattei would have given the project (now those guys would have made sure that at least one person had been skinned alive!).

This rare Italian action adventure tells the story of a broke man called Rudy, who goes into the African jungle to join his half-brother Franz. Franz is leader of a mercenary group that fights against native rebels, but Rudy only wants some money from his next of kin (on one occasion, he says: "You know I can't stand violence"). But Franz, a racist who sees Africans merely as animals, just wants him to leave again immediately. Then, Franz gets abducted and imprisoned by the rebels. Rudy joins forces with the other mercenaries, who are as fascist as Franz and like to kill Africans and rape their wives. He does so to make a deal with Franz as soon as they have freed him, but the mercenaries get attacked on more than one occasion by the natives.

This tedious piece of sleaze is barely watchable. Not because it's too violent or so, but for a whole bunch of other reasons: It's extremely boring, the acting is ridiculously bad, there are painstakingly racist moments (even though the mercenaries themselves are portrayed to be the scum of the earth), Mario Siciliano's direction is awfully uninspired and Stelvio Cipriani's score may well be by far the worst he's ever composed. And even though the film has a high body count, almost no drops of blood are spilled. The title is a "lie", because nobody gets skinned alive or even skinned at all: There are just verbal threats of getting skinned alive, but it never happens. All in all, "Scorticateli Vivi" is a waste of time that's just not worth watching.

This is one of the few forgotten films that really don't need to be rediscovered for distribution. Rating: 1 out of 10 - and that's almost an honor for this abysmal mess.

This one will leave a taste in your mouth like Guiseppe Castellano had stuffed his y-fronts in there after a hard days filming in Africa. If he even was in Africa, because I've since discovered that a lot of the footage in this film comes from an earlier Siciliano film called Congo Hell. That fink!

Young Rudy is down on his luck. Some mobsters are into him for some cash and giving him a hard time, so he does what every young man would do - he goes to some war torn country in Africa where his brother is a violent evil mercenary to tap him up for some cash. His brother, who has a German accent compared to Rudy's American one, hates his guts and tells him to bolt, but then a bunch of rebels turn up and kill everyone except for Rudy's brother, whom they pile off to some undisclosed location.

This leaves Rudy with a bunch of unlikeable, murderous, rape-happy bXstard mercenaries who fight each other for leadership but do agree that they need to go and get the captured Colonel, and reluctantly also agree to take Rudy along. Rudy's not quite going to find out his brother's welfare - he's more interested in some diamonds the man has on his person.

Thus begins a journey where no one is skinned alive, but plenty of people are gunned down, tortured, beaten to death or burned alive. You'll hate every single white guy in this film and basically wait about just to see them die horribly, which makes the ending a bit of a bitter pill swallow to be honest. A lack of gore makes you kind of wonder why they made it so sleazy in the first place, but there's plenty of action so the film is rarely dull. It sure is racist though.

I'm going to have to watch all of Congo Hell now and find out if most of the footage was nicked from there, and Guiseppe Castellano was just rolling about with a gun in someone's back garden.

The action of Mario Siciliano's "Skin Them Alive" takes place somewhere in Africa.A mercenary team is raping black women and killing black men.Depraved mercenaries are led by Franz who hides a stash of diamonds.His money-hungry brother decides to steal Franz's diamonds to get himself enough dough to travel to US."Skin Them Alive" features plenty of violence and three ineptly staged rapes.The script is surprisingly racist and the cast is gleefully ugly.The cinematography is dreary and the score by Stelvio Cipriani is pretty bad."Skin Them Alive" was obviously influenced by Italian cannibal sub-genre,but there are no cannibals here.Fans of seedy Italian exploitation cinema should give this one a look,all others should stay far away.6 racists out of 10.

Sleazy exploitation doesn't get any better than this. If you're one of the multitudinous sheep, weaned exclusively on Hitchcock films and easily swayed by AMC, TCM, AFI, and all the other establishment factories who claim to know the films That You Should Watch, you will absolutely hate it. On the other hand, fans of Joe D'Amato, Bruno Mattei, Andrea Bianchi, et. al., will be treated to a misanthropic delight. Bring a few bars of soap and a rosary: you'll be needing both after you view this one. If you decide to rent the DVD, you will be treated to Jose Larraz's equally sordid Black Candles, although those averse to bestiality need not apply. Enjoy!