Skinner is a 1993 slasher film that keeps appearing on my recommendations list on Amazon, but I have been able to resist it for some time now. I came across it on my streaming website and decided to check it out prior to spending my hard-earned money on more junk. A blind buy can be fun, but I have a certain type of movie that I blind buy, and a 90s slasher is always a blinking red light wrapped in a red flag. In other words, prior to Scream, as I have previously stated, slashers were a wasteland of wise cracking pun infused unfunny assholes, who spent more time researching funny comebacks than inventive kills. The film has that one saving grace, though, that always intrigued me. It was damn near a Cannon Picture, as the company had reformed prior to the release of, but alas, the company went BACK out of business prior to the purchase.
Synopsis:
At night Dennis Skinner roams the streets with a goodie-bag filled with knives looking for victims to skin, constantly followed by the hobbling, wobbling junkie Heidi who was mutilated by him and is now looking for revenge.
IMDb: 5.1
Rotten Tomatoes: 38%
Tagline: Madness is only skin deep.
What I always found interesting about this film are the stars. Infamous underage porn star Traci Lords, 25 by the time this film was made and 7 years past her porn career, and Ricki Lake, starring in this film the same year she started her talk show, Ricki Lake, both starred. Opposite them, Ted Raimi, brother of Sam, a notoriously odd character actor who rarely was the star of his own movie, played the lead role of Dennis Skinner. Ted researched his role thoroughly, because he wanted to portray a psychopath, and not a sociopath, preferring to distinguish between the two, and modeling his performance after Ed Gein. Director Ivan Nagy was a convicted bookie and former boyfriend of Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss. His career is full of TV movies, low budget films, and pornography.
I always found Ricki Lake attractive. She is very much in her heyday as the cute, chubby, innocent girl Kerry, that rents a room to weirdo Dennis. It’s a good thing she went on to host a talk show, though, as her acting here is rather bland and uninspired. She had 5 years of acting experience, debuting in 1988’s Hairspray, so there really is no excuse for it.
Meanwhile, Traci Lords is Heidi (a nod to Ivan’s high profile escort girlfriend, perhaps?), a junkie hooker who survived a prior attack by Dennis. She’s hot on his trail to exact revenge. She’s all kinds of messed up physically, burnt hands, limping, all strung out, burnt legs, and her messed up face. They still show her strutting around in lingerie, but it’s not presented as sexy, but more as gross and sad. Hey, I got an idea! Let’s take the most sought out porn star of the 80s and ugly her up! That’ll move some units! Pun intended.
Ted Raimi plays Dennis a bit on the nerdy side. He’s socially awkward and weird with women. I guess this plays into the whole serial killer vibe he was going for, and he really does fit the mold. I always kind of thought he seemed like a serial killer in real life, as he’s known for his weird roles and odd characters. He just looks like a smart guy in general, but can twist on a dime and become evil, much like his character in Skinner.
A shade under 90 minutes, this is a pretty fun movie. It’s low budget, but everyone involved did a pretty good job. Raimi steals the show, as expected, but Lords is pretty memorable, too. It’s always nice to see a former porn star go legit. She plays the sad desperate revenge seeking hooker to a tee. Not sure, but for some reason I always found her a bit trashy, and it helped me appreciate her performance.
On the other hand, they try desperately to portray Ricki Lake as the good girl who is controlled by her boyfriend and growing suspicious of her new roommate, but she struggles a bit in the role. She looks the part, for sure, but I don’t believe her. She just doesn’t seem very enthusiastic, and I would assume she felt a bit above this film.
The gore is practical and decent in its execution. The scenes of him skinning the women are excellent in their gore, but it’s the simple things like slicing the throat, that are kind of generic. I do enjoy his scenes wearing the skin as well.
Overall, it’s a lot of fun. It definitely has the feel of an early 90s horror film, but the wise cracking is very mild and fits with the character. He’s a psychopath, not a stand-up comedian. There are many times when you can tell the character is struggling with whether or not to kill the Ricki Lake character and chooses not to, and it’s a nice touch to his constant fight with his murderous impulses. I appreciate that.
