Skinner

If there's one thing I've learnt from Skinner, it's not to accept a dinner invitation from Ricki Lake: 20 minutes to prepare and cook an entire chicken?!?! That sounds like a recipe for some serious E.coli to me. And while we're at it, Ted Raimi isn't so hot on kitchen hygiene either: he fails to wash his hands after manhandling the chicken and proceeds to spread bacteria all over the place.

Of course, a bout of serious food poisoning is still preferable to being killed and flayed, which is what Raimi's character, Dennis Skinner, likes to to do hookers, using their skin to create a suit in which he can prance around in the moonlight (a man's got to have a hobby). When Skinner's landlady, Kerry Tate (Lake), becomes close to her loony lodger, the psycho decides that the time is right to reveal his secret to the lucky lass, much to her horror. Meanwhile, Heidi (Traci Lords), morphine-addicted survivor of one of Skinner's earlier attacks, hunts the psycho looking for revenge.

Skinner is by no means a great movie, suffering from an erratic narrative and plot details that are left frustratingly unexplained (what is up with Dennis's fascination with water?); it is, however, an entertainingly piece of trash, a sick little psycho flick with a wonderfully over-the-top performance from Ted Raimi, and solid support from Lake and Lords, the latter channelling Meiko Kaji and Christina Lindberg for her role as a vengeful junkie on a mission.

The film also features an impressive moment of graphic flaying (courtesy of KNB effects group) that is guaranteed to please gore fans: Skinner slices open his victim's back, works the skin loose, rolls the body over and yanks the skin down off the face (be sure to watch the uncut version of the film: there's an iffy copy on YouTube that is missing this splattery scene).

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for the delectable Ms. Lords, who doesn't get nekkid (for a change), but is still very hot (it takes more than a few scars and a lack of hair to stop her from being sexy).

Now...I am a HUGE Ted Raimi fan, and I bought this movie under the assumption that this highly underrated actor would be in a starring role and make a worthwhile movie. However, this is not the case. Although this movie had promise, the script needed work (to say the least), the audio track was terrible, and I sense that there was a lot of poor editing done, because it was full of plot holes. The only thing I really learned was that the skin of the bully that the dog ate must have been poisonous, because I can think of NO OTHER REASON why the dog died. Its really a shame, too, since poor Ted has not been offered more leading roles because he is immensely talented. I'm just sorry that his brother's perpetual habit of putting him in the background drove Ted to this during his early career. Tracy Lords mumbled her way through, and I wondered how in the hell a DVD has a video roll in it. I guess I'll just swallow my $9.00 loss (at least the shipping was free), and be glad that there is better Ted Raimi fare out there.

"Skinner", directed by the fairly unknown soft-core porn director Ivan Nagy, is one strange…STRANGE film, to say the least. I honestly can't quite label what it is exactly, but it's some sort of odd mixture between horror, revenge-exploitation and an unusual serial-killer portrait. Even stranger than the mix of themes is the choice of cast members. Ted Raimi, who usually only just makes cameo appearances in films produced and/or directed by his more successful brother Sam, takes on the lead role of the introvert psychopath Dennis Skinner, talk show hostess Ricky Lake (also known from John Waters' movies) plays his landlady and former porn star Traci Lords stars as one of Raimi's previous victims out for vengeance. The plot remains vague and unclear regarding Dennis' awkward personality and motivations, but I can only presume he's another fictional character inspired by real-life killer Ed Gein, who also formed the base for successful genre milestones like "Psycho" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Raimi's character slowly but surely develops into a tormented persona haunted by traumas from his childhood, yet a proper explanation is never given. Another truly peculiar aspect of "Skinner" is the dosing of the blood and gore. The film is overall tame, with a strict emphasis on atmosphere and character drawing, yet suddenly comes a sequence that is almost indescribably gross and sick-spirited. It's like the scene was added after filming all the rest, following negative screening results, or something, yet I didn't notice any differences or interruptions in the editing. Maybe Ivan Nagy preferred spending his entire make-up effects budget on one ultra-sadistic moment? "Skinner" is an obscure and atypical piece of 90's horror, but it's definitely worth a peep if you like cinematic oddities that can't possibly be categorized.

Ted Raimi is Dennis Skinner, a friendly, grinning wacko who kills women, skins them and wears a suit made of their stitched-together flesh. He rents a room from lonely housewife Kerry (Ricki Lake), who's glad to have some company since her moody trucker husband (David Warshofsky) is always gone. Meanwhile, Heidi (Traci Lords), a depressed, soft-spoken, scarred, limping morphine addict who managed to survive an attack years earlier, balances her time in a grimy hotel room shooting up, crying and plotting revenge.

This is a dark, dreary, depressing and often awkward film and I hated it when I first saw it. However, I gave it another chance and am glad I did. Aside from the top-notch KNB FX work, it takes place in a unique, graffiti-tinged decaying urban hell landscape, has a great score from Contagion and plenty of clever movie references if you're looking for them. There's one odd and powerful moment in this film, where Dennis is talking to the shell of a victim he's just killed and skinned about his traumatic childhood and rubbing the hands of the deceased along his face for comfort. Moments like these, done with some thought and care, lift a film like this right up out of the gutter.

I completely disagree with the potshots made at Traci Lords. Many people just cannot put their perceptions of her behind them long enough to even consider the fact she's capable of giving a competent performance. I found Lords to be more than just a little competent in this particular role. It is by no means an easy or flattering part to have to play, but I thought she played it very, very well.

Speaking of unflattering portraits, you can learn more about director Ivan Nagy by viewing HEIDI FLEISS: Hollywood MADAM.

Score: 7 out of 10.

This is the coolest movie I have ever seen. It takes a porn star and gives her a chance to get vengance on the man whom she took in to her home (she was not a prostitute, but his landlord, like ricki lake) and skinned her while she was still alive. I still want to know exactly how she killed the hotel manager, though. That has always intrigued me.