Never before released in the UK on any format (at least not legally), by all accounts the only press this sleazy slasher got on release was down to director Ivan Nagy’s role in the Heidi Fleiss scandal. Not long thereafter it sank without a trace, and for the best part of 20 years it was thought to be lost, until the necessary film elements were discovered to enable Severin Films to put it out on Blu-ray stateside earlier this year; it’s essentially this edition that 101 Films have now released in Britain. Small wonder the film never even dented the UK market at the time, as its sexually-tinged brand of graphic gore wouldn’t have stood a snowball’s chance in hell of getting past the BBFC under James Ferman; although interestingly, Skinner is actually the brainchild of English screenwriter Paul Hart-Wilden, who had initially hoped to shoot it himself in London, but wound up selling it to the seedier end of Hollywood once he proved unable to find backing at home. (Again, small wonder.)
Ted Raimi leads as the oh-so aptly named Dennis Skinner, a slightly awkward but otherwise seemingly harmless twentysomething loner. New in town, or so he seems, Skinner finds lodging at the home of Kerry Tate (Ricki Lake, who took the role mere months before her famed TV series began), and her trucker husband Geoff (David Warchofsky). With Geoff constantly away due to work, relations between the two are getting strained, and as much as Dennis moving in is down to financial necessity, it’s clear that Kerry’s other needs aren’t being met. However, the glimmer of forbidden attraction stirring with her new housemate might have been adversely affected if Kerry had any idea what Dennis gets up to when he’s away from the house: i.e. walking the rundown streets in search of prostitutes, who he then proceeds to… well, there’s a pretty big clue in his name. However, what Dennis doesn’t know is that he himself is being stalked with vengeful intent by a former victim of his who got away, Heidi (Traci Lords – understandably both the casting and the character name raised eyebrows at the time).
In the extras, Paul Hart-Wilden not-unreasonably protests against the assumption that Skinner was a bald-faced rip-off of The Silence of the Lambs, pointing out that he had written the script long before Jonathan Demme’s ground-breaking Oscar winner was released. Even so, there can be little question that The Silence of the Lambs was the key thing that got Skinner made, given how the film industry is always eager to cash in on the success of similarly-themed material. It seems fair to suggest that the high-profile notoriety of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer was also a factor, given Skinner certainly shares some common ground with that film.
All that said, what I most appreciate about Skinner, by contrast with most of the early 1990s films that road the coattails of Hannibal Lecter and Henry, is that it is most assuredly and unabashedly a horror movie. In common with the psychological thriller wave, Skinner is very interested on getting us under the skin (no pun intended) and into the head of its obviously deeply troubled title character, and at times it gets perhaps a little ostentatious with this, notably with an abstract running water motif that comes up time and again. However, in no way is Skinner aiming for kitchen sink realism or awards-worthy drama. Once Raimi’s Dennis is in full homicidal mode, his gleeful, theatrical sadism reaches Freddy Krueger levels, not to mention the obvious debt to Leatherface. As such, the overall atmosphere is more reminiscent of the ultra-sordid early 80s slashers like Maniac and The New York Ripper, as opposed to the more grounded and high-reaching serial killer movies of the 90s.
The film’s horror status is of course largely confirmed by the casting of its leading man. Ted Raimi has always been synonymous with the genre (thanks in no small part to getting his big break from his director brother in Evil Dead 2), but we tend to be more used to seeing him in relatively innocuous comic relief supporting roles. As such, his turn in Skinner is a bit of an eye-opener, not only as it shows he can pull of a truly sinister and threatening bad guy role, but also as – well – he’s surprisingly sexy in it, spending a fair amount of his screen time bare chested, and looking in the best physical shape of his career. It’s a pretty bold performance that goes to some very dark, and at times exceedingly distasteful places: I’ll avoid specifics for the sake of spoilers, but one particularly jaw-dropping sequence midway (for which Raimi expresses regret, and Hart-Wilden denies responsibility) might push the bad taste envelope that bit too far.
It’s not all about Raimi though, as much of Skinner’s sleazy and somewhat surreal vibe is down to Traci Lords’ supporting turn as Heidi. Given that the scandals surrounding both Lords and Heidi Fleiss have died down somewhat in the intervening years, it’s a lot easier for viewers today to take the role and Lords’ performance on its own terms, and it has to be said she delivers something really quite special here. There’s a lot we might question about the character – not least the fact that, despite being hellbent on revenge, she spends less time actually hunting down Skinner than she does lying around her run-down motel room, monologuing in her underwear – but it really is Lords’ acting ability rather than her physique that steals the show here, and as histrionic as it might get there’s a lot of really palpable emotion in there.
As for Lords’ fellow John Waters alumnus Ricki Lake, she clearly has the less interesting, considerably more two-dimensional role as a dowdy, homely housewife. Again, there’s plenty about the character of Kerry that strains credibility, not least the fact that she and her husband live in such an Addams Family/Munsters-looking mansion when they’re meant to be young and struggling financially, or the fact that she doesn’t have a job despite the aforementioned financial struggles of the (childless) couple. Nonetheless, Lake does a good job with the marital strife and sexual frustration; indeed, considering how far the boat is pushed out in other areas, it’s perhaps surprising that Skinner stops short of getting explicit where her role is concerned – although one suspects that might have impacted Lake’s future TV career if it had.
With Skinner’s Blu-ray release coming not too long after that of the also near-lost Kolobos, it’s really quite pleasing to see another intriguing 1990s horror movie being re-released in this manner. As much as that decade is often dismissed as a low point in the history of horror, and not without reason, it’s nice to be reminded that the 90s did indeed produce some challenging and compelling genre entries, although the troubles the marketplace faced at the time meant that a great many of these flew way under the radar. It’s great that contemporary independent labels like Severin and 101 Films are making a point of unearthing such works and preserving them for posterity, ensuring that, while the wider horror audience might have missed them at the time, current and future generations of fans will get the chance to enjoy them in all their lurid, gory glory. Anyone who appreciates horror at its most unsavoury will definitely not want to miss this one.
Skinner is available now on limited edition Blu-ray and DVD from 101 Films.