Skinned Alive

I rented 'Skinned Alive' under the impression that the movie was made fairly recently. Well, the joke was on me as 'Skinned Alive' is a cheap crap independent movie made in 1989. Apparently, fans were just begging for this movie to be re-mastered and re-released on a digital format, so the director complied. Well, for everyone's sake, he should have just burned the master instead. The collective cast is perhaps the ugliest, most unappealing troupe ever assembled reciting possibly the stupidest lines committed to paper. I love bad B horror movies as much as the next guy. This crap should have been left buried though. There's DVD extras, but I'm not sure why the hell anyone would want "extras" on a movie that appears to be created with the talent of a bowling team who got bored during the off-season. I'm not going to bother to give a plot synopsis, since it would be a waste of time. You could give a monkey a pencil and paper, sit him down in a room for an hour, and he could come up with a better script than this. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. Filmed on location in scenic Ohio.

I can't believe that people actually like this film. I suppose i was lured in by the DVD cover thinking this could be an enjoyable gory-horror-comedy type of film. Boy, was I wrong. This movie was so horrible, I barely made it to the end. The acting was terrible and the gore was lame. The sound quality and dubbing was absurd. This is the kind of movie I watch every now and then and think... why the hell am I not making movies? I can't even recommend this for a good laugh. For something in the same genre, but actually good, try Dead-Alive or Bad Taste. Hell, I would even recommend an HG Lewis film over this.

This is another sick cheapie from J.R. Bookwalter's stable of enthusiast but untalented horror directors, better known as "Tempe Productions". Apart from his own outrageously gore debut film "The Dead Next Door", Bookwalter's production studio has unleashed nothing but embarrassingly bad splatter-stuff upon horror-loving audiences that have the most absurd and grotesque plots but also the most incompetent means to work with. "Skinned Alive" is entirely Jon Killough's pride and handles about a family of traveling weirdos that turn innocent people into fashionable clothing. After killing a guy near a retarded little Ohio town, their van breaks down and the family (weelchaired mother and her incestuous son and and daughter) has to stay at the garage owner's house, where they unconcernedly continue their killing spree. This movie somewhat feels like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" meets "Mother's Day" but it's neither scary nor very funny. I appreciate the goodwill of all cast-members (Scott Spiegel in particular seems to have a lot of fun) and some of the gore-effects are effectively nauseating. Killough's sense of humor is delightfully twisted and low-budget gore king J.R. Bookwalter makes a small appearance as the Jehovah's Witness (they make such easy preys). "Skinned Alive" is overall enjoyable in a brainless sort of way. Too bad about the terrible – at times downright unendurable – acting and the completely redundant divorce sub plot.

As somebody who values and has a rather large collection of low-budget horror films, I can honestly say this is one of the most horrible movies I have ever seen! It's like a thirteen year old wrote the dialogue, and then set up the scenes to look "wicked awesome." Another thing is this movies has no actual concept of reality...I know it's a horror movie, and most stuff in horror movies isn't even slightly based on reality, but when you have people shooting and stabbing people in the middle of the day, in the front-yard nonetheless...well you can't help but feel that either you the viewer are being treated as an idiot, or the film makers themselves are idiots. Even if you were drawn to the movie for the gore, or the cover of the DVD which features a bikini girl with "Skinned Alive" carved in her stomach...JUST STAY AWAY! I have never seen gore so badly done in my life! There are scenes where the bodies being skinned are obviously made of clay! You can actually see the clay bunch up when a knife is plunged into it, and this is supposed to pass for human flesh? You would think that the director or editor would have seen how horrible some of the crap looked, and cut it out, but it's there in all it's 3rd grade glory. There is no redeeming quality to this movie at all. The acting is bad, and the special effects are the worst! Do not spend any money on this movie.

"Skinned Alive" is a low-budget "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" rip-off about cannibalistic family of Crawldaddy that hunts people,kills them and turns their skins into leather that they sell.When their van breaks down the mechanic invites the family to stay with him while their van is being fixed.Soon the bloodbath ensues and only local war veteran can stop trio of ruthless killers...Cheap and dumb copy of Tobe Hooper's seminal terror classic with plenty of cheesy gore and laughable acting.The plot twists are ridiculous and often irritating.If you are fan of Troma works this little slice of low-budget Ohio gore should be in your collection.6 leather coats out of 10.