SKINNED DEEP (2004)
Label: Severin Films
Region Code: R
Rating: R
Duration: 95 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Full Frame (1.33:1)
Director: Gabe Bartalos
Cast: Karoline Brandt, Jay Dugre, Warwick Davis, Liz Little, Les Pollock
When the Rockwell family foursome hit the road for the all-American summer road-trip things screech to a halt when their minivan gets a flat tire on a remote stretch of road. The father Phil (Eric Bennett) leaves his family in the minivan while he hoofs it to the nearest bit of civilization he can find, which turns out to be a roadside café run by Granny (Liz Little, Saint Bernard) who invites Phil to bring his family to her house and she'll have someone come fix that flat. Taking the seemingly kind old lady up her up on the offer the family arrives at her house a short time later and sit down to dinner with her and her three sons. We have the diminutive Plates (Warwick David, Leprechaun), the big-headed Brain (Jason Dugre, Saint Bernard), and the gruesome bear-trap jawed Surgeon General (Kurt Carley, The Black Waters of Echo's Pond), all of who play nice for a bit but then set about slaughtering the family. The parents throats are slashed, and their son is split in half vertically, but they spare the teen daughter, Tina (Karoline Brandt), at the request of Brain who has a crush on her.
Region Code: R
Rating: R
Duration: 95 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Full Frame (1.33:1)
Director: Gabe Bartalos
Cast: Karoline Brandt, Jay Dugre, Warwick Davis, Liz Little, Les Pollock
When the Rockwell family foursome hit the road for the all-American summer road-trip things screech to a halt when their minivan gets a flat tire on a remote stretch of road. The father Phil (Eric Bennett) leaves his family in the minivan while he hoofs it to the nearest bit of civilization he can find, which turns out to be a roadside café run by Granny (Liz Little, Saint Bernard) who invites Phil to bring his family to her house and she'll have someone come fix that flat. Taking the seemingly kind old lady up her up on the offer the family arrives at her house a short time later and sit down to dinner with her and her three sons. We have the diminutive Plates (Warwick David, Leprechaun), the big-headed Brain (Jason Dugre, Saint Bernard), and the gruesome bear-trap jawed Surgeon General (Kurt Carley, The Black Waters of Echo's Pond), all of who play nice for a bit but then set about slaughtering the family. The parents throats are slashed, and their son is split in half vertically, but they spare the teen daughter, Tina (Karoline Brandt), at the request of Brain who has a crush on her.
Tina is locked away in a bizarre newspaper wallpapered room where she endeavors to find away out of the hell house, while Brain attempts to win her over with his big-brained charms, while Granny and her sons tear-up anyone else who wanders into the roadside café. There's not a lot to the premise of Skinned Deep, certainly nothing new, it's a riff on Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 by way of Frank Henenlotter (Brain Damage), with whom FX artist turned director Gabe Bartalos worked with on demented stuff like Frankenhooker, Basket Case 2 and 3, and Bad Biology.
In place of TCM's Sawyer family we have Granny and her clan of demented sons. The pint-sized Plates who is an overcaffeinated grinning weirdo whose weapon of choice is is throwing dinner plates; Brain has a comically oversized head; and the Surgeon General is a knife-wielding manic with black goggles and a bear-trap jaw, he being the fam's defacto Leatherface. Plated and Surgeon General are the killers, while Brain is much less viciously natured. Warwick might be the only actor here a name for himself, and the rest of the cast are a bit on the amateurish side and it shows. Questionable acting aside the movies bizarre blend of horror and comedy is quite gory is highly enjoyable. It's a wild, bloody ride with a lot of imagination behind the sometimes surreal visuals and and character designs, especially that of Brain and the bear-trap jawed Surgeon General. Warwick Davis is so gifted he does not need a lot of make-up or prosthetics, just a white jumpsuit, a wicked grin, some truly awful puns, and a never-ending supply of dinner plates which he throws with a shit-eating grin. There's also some weird sci-fi shit happening down in the basement involving a headless bodybuilder named the Creator, and something called the Octobaby, but you're gonna have to watch it to see what that's all about - it's more weird shit from the demented mind of Gabe Bartalos.
Obviously this is a super low-budget film, but it's clearly a passion project for then firstitime director, who at this point in his career was no longer satisfied limiting his imagination to creating special make-up FX, he had too many nifty ideas up in his head to contain them to his first craft, and had to make a film. It might not be for all tastes, but if you get off on low-budget gems and psychopath-family horror I think you will be quite entertained by it.
I first saw this one probably in 2004/05 when I first had the Netflix DVD subscription service, in the days before the streaming version took hold. I had it this advertised somewhere in a magazine, maybe Fangoria, which would make sense since it was one of the Fangoria presents Gorezone Video releases. That image of the Surgeon General on the cover of the DVD totally hooked me, I had to see it. I didn't know at the time that it was directed by Gabe Bartalos, and actually didn't realize it still till much later, but despite it looking kind of crummy and super low-budget at the time I was won over by the heart and obvious love of horror the scrappy film exuded, plus we get a cameo from Forest J. Ackerman, so how cool is that? Watching it again for the first time in at least fifteen years I think I liked it even more, and this new restoration from Severin certainly spit shines the visuals a bit, which greatly improved my viewing.
Audio/Video: Skinned Seep arrives on Blu-ray from Severin Films in 1080p HD full frame 1.33:1 sourced from a 2K scan of the original camera negative. It looks loads better than I remember the DVD looking, which is not unsurprisingly. The 16mm gain is heavy and organic throughout, showing up with more force in the dimmer lit sequences. Colors are pleasing, with some strong fine detail in the close-ups, and the blacks are quite nice without any crush. The image looks significantly brighter than my memory recalls the DVD looking, but some of the darker scenes can still be a bit murky, with the well-lit exterior outdoor scenes looking the best. It still looks low-budget and unpolished, there's no getting around that, but it's the best this surreal TCM2 riff has ever looked on home video. Check out over 100 screenshots from the Blu-ray at the bottom of the review.
Audio comes by way of English DTS-HA MA 2.o stereo with optional English subtitles. Dialogue is never difficult to discern and the score from David Davidson, Jonathan Bepler and goth-punkers The Damned's Captain Sensible
all sound very nice.
Extras begin with a an archival Audio Commentary with the Cast & Crew, then onto Deep Cuts - A look back on Skinned Deep a new 14-minute making of retrospective with director Gabe Bartalos discussing how his ideas for creatures morphed into a story ideas and the inspiration to make a film. We also hear from actors Jay Dugre and Karoline Brandt who discuss the challenges of making the film, including Dugre running naked through the NYC streets with a giant brain head, and Brandt shooting the tunnel scenes. Bartalos also gets into the character of Plates played by Warwick, their friendship and his performance in the film, as well as designing the character of the Surgeon General and Weapons Machinist Jake Lee gets into designing the character's signature weapon. The featurette has some cool behind-the-scenes images and footage of the making of the film and creating the special effects.
We also get a great Archival 'Making Of' Featurette that runs 22-minutes from the original DVD release back in 2004 with Bartalos and the whole cast and crew that covers a lot of ground, with lots of behind-the-scenes footage, plus we get a 2-minute Trailer for the film. The single disc release arrives in a black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork, with a new illustration of baddie the Surgeon General, which is replicated in the disc as well.
Special Features:
- NEW! Deep Cuts - A look back on Skinned Deep with Writer/Producer/Director Gabe Bartalos, Actors Jay Dugre and Karoline Brandt and Weapons Machinist Jake Lee (14 min)
- Audio Commentary With Cast & Crew
- Archival 'Making Of' Featurette (22 min)
- Trailer (2 min)
Skinned Deep (2004) is a hallucinagenic and gory riff on the psychopathic murder family sub-genre, roughly along the lines of TCM2, The Hills Have Eyes, House of a 1000 Corpses and the like, but with some baked-in Frank Henenlotter-esque weirdness and filtered through the demented mind of Gabe Bartalos. This is a fantastic upgrade of this little seen gem, if you're a fan of weird low budget horror definitely give it a watch, and then checkout Bartalos' Saint Bernard (2013) if you have not seen it, also on Blu-ray from Severin Films.
Screenshots from the Blu-ray:
Extras:
