FTP: Skinner (1993)

APRIL 22, 2020

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Sometimes I watch the bonus features even when I don't like the movie, because I'm a. curious if the people who made it aren't thrilled with it either, and/or b. wanting to make sure that I don't get anything wrong in my review, like accuse it of being a ripoff of something. In Skinner's case, it was more the former - the disc came out 25 years after the movie was originally released, and wasn't from the original distributor, so there's no reason for anyone to hold back on its issues (leaden pacing, repetitive plotting, etc). But it turns out it became a solid example of the latter, because I spent half the movie thinking it was made to cash in on Silence of the Lambs only to discover the script predated it.

Alas, that doesn't make the movie any better, and the writer even notes that the film (which he intended to direct itself, but took an offer when it came and was essentially shut out of its production entirely) only has one real change from his original script, which maybe he shouldn't have noted since the script is pretty lousy. It's akin to Maniac or Henry in that it's not much more than a series of kills intercut with the murderer's home life, but it lacks the chilling intensity of Henry and the... well, I don't love Maniac either, so I guess there's not much difference in general, but doesn't help Skinner feel any fresher or novel. Even the "old LA" vibe is muted since there's so little of it to be seen (they shot it rather quickly in only a few key spots in the downtown/Echo Park area), whereas Maniac gave the vintage (read: grimy) New York a nice showcase in some of its major scenes.

Incidentally, the two films share another common trait: they're most notable for the FX work. Maniac was famously one of Tom Savini's iconic showcases, and here the low budget didn't stop them from using KNB, already a huge name in the genre. The on-screen violence is somewhat limited to throat slashings and other "basics" like that, but the post-murder skinning sequences are appropriately disgusting and wince-worthy, and the burn makeup on Traci Lords (as a survivor of Skinner's, and yes that is his name, Dennis Skinner) is quite good as well, though it's hidden behind her hair for most of the run time while we get more looks at her slightly less effective arm/leg burns. Still, as a showcase for what these guys could do at their peak with a presumably much smaller budget than they were afforded for say, Jason Goes To Hell or Army of Darkness (all three were released the same year), it's got plenty of merit on that alone.

And it's nice to see Ted Raimi taking lead actor duties for a change, instead of playing second fiddle to Bruce Campbell or someone. Unfortunately, he comes off as a total creepy nut in the scenes where he's trying to be normal, and whether it was intentional or not (he's a good actor, after all) it makes the other characters, particularly Ricki Lake as his landlord/possible love interest, come off as a bit moronic. To go back to Maniac, even Joe Spinell (an actor who could never play a random nice guy) managed to seem less of a psycho in his scenes with Caroline Munro, but Ted never really pulls that off here.

Worse, the one scene where he can really cut loose is unfortunately very misguided, and it's (not too coincidentally) the one scene that the writer says he had nothing to do with. In the sequence, Skinner kills a black coworker who annoyed him, and then wears his skin to chase another victim, which might be uncomfortable enough (kinda sorta blackface-y?) but the murderer also uses a "Fat Albert" kind of voice as he runs around in the guy's skin, making it incredibly far from "woke" as they might say nowadays. It's kind of the only truly memorable scene in the movie, but for all the wrong reasons (in his interview, Raimi seems embarrassed by it but has fond feelings toward the rest of the film and its production).

The other good thing about the bonus features is that it explains a bit why the movie was kind of lost for a while - the original owner died, and then other company got the rights in an auction of his estate but had no idea where the elements were. Co-editor Jeremy Kasten talks about hunting down pieces of the film from various labs and storage facilities, working out deals to get the stuff (one apparently told him he could have what they had for 500 bucks if he paid in cash that day) and piece it together without much of a road map to figure out what went there. As I listened to him recount his journey, I couldn't help but think that I'd rather watch a documentary about all of this than the finished product. Oh well.

What say you?

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