Found in your local “Shower After Watching” section of the suspicious flea market around the corner is 1993’s Skinner. And it’s probably the only movie in that bin to feature an acting performance from daytime talk show host Ricki Lake. Seriously.
This little piece of rarely spoken about horror history is one part Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and one-part uncategorizable madness that I’m semi-shocked is still available to watch at all, much less to be reached in an instant on Tubi.
In the film, directed by feature director turned porn director Ivan Nagy, Dennis Skinner (the great Ted Raimi) is an active serial killer who murders mostly prostitutes and then skins them, stitches them back together and wears them while talking about his childhood and saying things like “This really is the clothing…..for a divine soul.”
Skinner darkens the doorway of Kerry Tate (Ricki Lake) who’s desperately looking to help her truck driver husband (David Warshofsky) with the bills by renting out one of their bedrooms in their home. They befriend each other and he struggles nightly with the urge to, you know, skin her alive. An urge that he takes out on many “ladies of the night.”
Meanwhile, Heidi (Traci Lords), a survivor of a past Skinner attack, spends her days shooting up in hotel rooms and talking to his picture, swearing her vengeance. We pan back to this about every ten minutes just in case you forget. As Skinner unfolds and his victims continue to pile up, Heidi comes closer and closer to catching him while he comes closer to giving in to his urges to kill Kerry and peel her like a Fruit Roll-Up. The sexual tension also rises between them as her husband becomes more and more suspicious of what’s going on with Bill Nye The Serial Killer Guy and his wife whom he can’t stand. Ricki Lake just kind of stumbles around the house pretending that she’s okay in this situation and making really gross meals for everyone to eat.
Skinner feels like a film that should have its place next to something like Thankskilling for its absolutely insane moments and trashy volition but thanks to a great performance from Ted Raimi, a haunting score, and an overall frightening vibe, it manages to stand out as something that sticks with you much longer. There’s something frighteningly believable about Raimi’s performance as a soft spoken, nervous, and overtly happy seeming person with a twisted night life. He’ll pick up a prostitute, sheepishly ask her to close her eyes while he undresses and then will show up overtop of her wearing someone else’s skin and screaming. It’s definitely up there with performances like Mark Duplass in Creep or Michael Rooker in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer but is surrounded by a deluge of video nasty-isms and strange moments that you can’t help but laugh at. At one point he just chugs a glass of water like he’s being electrocuted and splashes water all over the place for absolutely no reason other than to add to the fact that he’s weird as shit.
On the other side of the door, Ricki Lake’s strange acting performance is the perfect juxtaposition. Her clueless innocence to anything and everything around her just feels like you’re watching a field mouse be dangled in front of an anaconda.
When these two are in the same room together the awkwardness is overwhelming. They will be having a normal conversation and the next thing you know he’s helping her de-skin the grossest looking turkey you’ve ever seen in your life and awkwardly rubbing his hands in the creases of the turkey breast. Immediately after they start dancing together, hands clasped with chicken goo all over their fingers. Be right back… I have to wash my hands.
Eventually, Ted Raimi’s Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler-esque performance can only hold up so much. The Ahab character becomes laughable camp, repeating the same lines with overdramatic C-movie flare and even the haunting score that at one point reminded you of a John Carpenter score becomes tiresome and repetitive. It’s more like spending a day inside the mind of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho than actually watching American Psycho.
With a little narrative direction, a few cut scenes (maybe one character completely) and a better ending, the film could have reached the cult status of something like William Lustig’s Maniac. Not to be, however, as it never really figures out how to land. Skinner is not a movie I will recommend to everyone but I will say that it’s one that’s stuck with me since I saw it as a kid. Fans of the darker, more twisted side of horror will definitely want to add this one to their watch lists.
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