SKINNER (1993)
Label: Severin Films
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 88 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Ivan Nagy
Cast: Ted Raimi, Traci Lords, Ricki Lake, David Warshofsky, Richard Schiff
Synopsis: It’s been called “sleaze-oozing” (Flick Attack), “gut-churning” (The Bedlam Files) and “incredibly tasteless” (Cult Reviews). It featured the most intensely graphic scenes yet by KNB EFX Group (THE WALKING DEAD). Uncut, it remains perhaps the most disturbing – and rarely seen – shocker of the ‘90s: Ted Raimi (XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS) delivers an unnerving performance as psycho drifter Dennis Skinner who wears flesh-suits he slices from doomed prostitutes, falls for a lonely young housewife (Ricki Lake of HAIRSPRAY fame), and is himself hunted by a horribly scarred survivor (an equally unhinged performance by Traci Lords). Richard Schiff (THE WEST WING) co-stars in this still-potent sickie from veteran television director – and one-time Heidi Fleiss boyfriend – Ivan Nagy, now scanned in 4k from the original camera negative and including the complete hooker-flaying sequence.
When drifter Dennis Skinner (Ted Raimi, Blood Rage) takes up a room for rent at the home of married couple Kerry (Ricki Lake, Serial Mom) and Geoff (David Warshofsky, There Will Be Blood) he seems like a nice guy, he's pleasant and offers Kerry friendship while her neglectful truck driving husband is away. However, it soon becomes apparent that Skinner's nocturnal activities are anything but friendly, by night he's a skin-peeling serial killer who enjoys wearing the flayed skins of his victims, not unlike Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs!
On his trail is mysterious woman in black named Heidi (Traci Lords, Cry Baby) who sort of looks like a blonde, junkie version of Carmen Sandiego dressed in a long coat with a wide brimmed hat that hide the scars that cover half her body. For reasons not apparent at first she is stalking Skinner, trailing him while she holes up in a seedy motel, run by a creepy voyeur named Eddie (Richard Schiff, Ray) who holds the key to finding Skinner.
Directed by prolific TV director Ivan Nagy this tasteless 90's cult-classic is a strange brew, a skin-peeling slasher and a bit of a character study that gets under the skin of the guy whose doing the skinning. Ted Raimi is quite wonderful in the role, going from strange and likable straight-up demented nut running around in a human-skin suit, but through it all he's just a charming guy, Raimi has that certain effortless lunatic charisma. Former adult-star Traci Lords turns in a solid performance as the mysterious woman in black while Ricki Lake comes of as a sympathetic every-woman in a bad marriage.
The gore on display here is not too shabby at all, with the Raimi character's penchant for skinning whores we get some cool KNB EFX work by way of Skinner flaying the skin from his victims and the peeling off of a face, it's not groundbreaking or overly abundant but it's good stuff. Now, it would be hard to talk about this film without mentioning a very unfortunate series of scenes of Skinner wearing the skin of a black male coworker he's murdered, while also effecting a stereotypical impression of a black man, it's a shockingly wrong-headed decision that I find hard to believe made it to the final version of the film, but here it is in all it's bad-idea infamy.
The film has it's share of shortcomings, the black-skin scene for starters, and it can be unintentionally silly and tonally all over the place, but director Ivan Nagy gives the film a good-looking visual style with lots of Argento-esque colored lighting bathing the film from beginning to end, it's overkill to a degree but it makes for a visually pleasing film, and at just 88-min it never gets boring.
Audio/Video: Skinner (1993) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Severin Films who went back to the original camera negative for a brand new 4K scan of the film presented in the original 1.78:1 widescreen. The image is crisp and well-defined, grain is well-managed, and the scenes bathed in multi-colored are vivid with deep blacks, this is a surprisingly good presentation for this strange 90's slasher film.
Audio comes by way of English and French DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo with optional English subtitles everything sounds good, dialogue is well-balanced and the score sounds terrific in the mix.
Severin come through with some excellent extras including a 20-min archival interview with the late director who discusses moving from Hungary to the U.S., attending film school and his TV film/series career, before moving on to the less limiting though much lower budget world of indie films. He speaks about his relationship with Heidi Fleiss, and how the TV movie about her really cast him in a negative light.
Star Ted Raimi shows up for a 14-min interview discussing not just this film but a few others including Blood Rage, and touching on the infamously offensive scene of him wearing the skin of a black man while impersonating him, it's an unfortunate scene but he owns up to it here. As soon as I watched the film I was hoping to hear someone speak about this and I am glad it was not glossed over, and he seems truly appalled by it in retrospect.
We also get interviews with the screenwriter Paul Hart-Wilden who speaks
about his fascination with serial killers, the water motif throughout the film, and also touching in the infamous black-skin scene which he makes sure to point out he did not write! The film's editor Jeremy Kasten takes a deep dive into the seedy behind-the-scenes world the director, including him dating the infamous Hollywood Madame Heidi Fleiss, it's a real tabloid type interview, quite fascinating, just like the interview with the director! The disc is buttoned up with a trailer for the film and extended takes of the flaying sequence .
Special Features:
- A Touch of Scandal: Interview with Director Ivan Nagy (20 min)
- Under His Skin: Interview with Star Ted Raimi (14 min)
- Bargain Bin VHS For A Buck: Interview with Screenwriter Paul Hart-Wilden (17 min)
- Cutting Skinner: Interview with Editor Jeremy Kasten (11 min)
- Flaying Sequence Out-takes & Extended Takes (12 min)
- Trailer (2 min)
Skinner (1993) is a depraved slice of 90's slasher cinema, kudos to Severin for unearthing this one, which until this release I only knew of from reading through Ted Raimi's filmography. The film has some interesting ideas and is visually cool-looking, plus it stars Ted Raimi, Ricki Lake and Traci Lords - which is just sort of fascinating all on it's own. Severin's Blu-ray looks and sounds terrific, plus the extras really get into the stories behind the making of the film, it's a solid package for a wild ride of a slasher film, if you like 'em weird and a little wrong-headed this 90's slasher comes highly recommended.
Label: Scream Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 96 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Jamie Blanks
Cast: David Boreanaz, Denise Richards, Marley Shelton, Katherine Heigl, Jessica Capshaw, Jessica Cauffiel
Director Jamie Blanks modern slasher Valentine (2001) is a film that seems to be trying to hard to be very 80's in a lot of ways, we have a tight-knit group of gal pals who in junior high treated a geeky kid named Jeremy Melton very badly at a junior high dance. Years later the girls are being killed-off by a cupid-masked stalker who sends them macabre valentine's day cards and maggot infested candies. The film opens with scenes of the buck-toothed Jeremy being turned down by the girls at the school dance before being beat down by a group of guys for harassing the girls. Thirteen years later one of those girls Shelley (Katherine Heigl, Bride of Chucky) is a medical student at UCLA performing an autopsy in a lab, but her late-night dissection is interrupted by the cupid-masked killer who puts a fright into her and then slices her up, it's a pretty great start tot he film. After her funeral surviving friends Kate (Marley Shelton, Planet Terror), Lily (Jessica Cauffiel, Urban Legends: Final Cut), Paige (Denise Richards, Starship Troopers), and Dorothy (Jessica Capshaw, Minority Report) find themselves recipients of bizarre valentine's day cards, apparently signed by the long-absent Jeremy Melton.
The film is a fun modern slasher, we have a cool-looking killer in a cupid mask with a signature nosebleed, plus a group of attractive young women being stalked and killed off in a myriad of fun ways. The deaths range from throat slashes, electrocution, being shot by arrows, an ax tot he spine and more, but they're very tame, edited down to the bare minimum without the benefit of a bunch of gore, which is a serious let down.
While it lacks the visceral gore this slasher does offer some cool story elements, the geeky kid out for revenge years later sort of smacks of vintage classics like Slaughter High or Terror Train, the killer's mask is creepy and the recurrent nosebleed is a nice touch. The characters are colorful and not completely awful people, not that there's a whole lot of depth, but their not all one-dimensional either. The film throws in a few boyfriends as the possible killer, including David Boreanaz from TV's Angel and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. There are also weird sub-plots involving speed-dating, a pervy police detective, and an awful step-mom that go nowhere, but do add a lot of color to the film.
Audio/Video: Valentine (2001) arrives on Collector's Edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory framed in 2.35:1 widescreen with a new 2K scan looking nicely detailed and vibrant with deep blacks. Fine detail is abundant offering plenty of facial pores and clothing textures throughout.
Audio comes by way of an nicely atmospheric English 5.1 DTS-HD MA mix that has some good quite/loud moments designed to give you a startle. The score from Don Davis sounds good in the mix, plus we get soundtrack selections from Rob Zombie, Static-X, Deftones, Orgy, and Marilyn Manson among others, it sorely dates the movie but some of the tunes are a still pretty cool.
As they did with Jamie Blanks other (better) modern slasher Urban Legend Scream Factory have stacked this disc with loads of extras! There's a vintage commentary with director Jamie Blanks, plus a new audio commentary with Blanks and filmmaker Don Coscarelli (Phantasm), moderated by author Peter Bracke. Apparently Coscarelli is here just as friend of Blanks, it's a very chatty conversation. Then we get a 10-min interview with Denise Richards, 14-min with final girl Marley Shelton, 23-min with actress Jessica Cauffiel, a nearly hour-long interview with Co-writers Gretchen J. Berg And Aaron Harberts, a 28-min Editor Steve Mirkovich, plus a 12-min Composer Don Davis. Now, that's a whole lot of interviews to sit through, I sort of wish we had a documentary with all the interviews edited into it to be truthful, I still have not made it through all the interviews!
And that's not even the end of the extras, there are nearly two hours of behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the film, a vintage 8-min making of featurette, a 17-min vintage EPK, a selection of VHS sourced deleted and extended scenes, and a wealth of TV spots and trailers. There's also an Easter Egg, which is a bit of rarity on a Scream Factory release, an interview with director Jack Sholder (The Hidden) who chimes in about a particular homage made to one of his films in this one, his inclusion here has my hopes up for several possible films of his coming from Scream at some point!
The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a reversible sleeve of artwork featuring the original artwork and a cool new illustration by artists Devon Whitehead which us also featured on the slipcover and the disc.
Special Features:
- NEW 2K Scan Of The Original Film Elements Supervised And Approved By Director Jamie Blanks And Director Of Photography Rick Bota
- NEW Audio Commentary With Director Jamie Blanks And Filmmaker Don Coscarelli, Moderated By Author Peter Bracke
- NEW Thrill Of The Drill – An Interview With Actress Denise Richards (10 min) HD
- NEW The Final Girl – An Interview With Actress Marley Shelton (14 min) HD
- NEW Shot Through The Heart – An Interview With Actress Jessica Cauffiel (23 min) HD
- NEW Writing Valentine – An Interview With Co-writers Gretchen J. Berg And Aaron Harberts (54 min) HD
- NEW Editing Valentine– An Interview With Editor Steve Mirkovich (28 min) HD
- NEW Scoring Valentine – An Interview With Composer Don Davis (12 min) HD
- NEW Almost 2 Hours Of Never-Before-Seen Behind-The-Scenes Footage From Director Jamie Blanks’ Personal Archive (114 min)
- Audio Commentary With Director Jamie Blanks
- Vintage “Making Of” Featurette Featuring Cast And Crew (8 min) HD
- Extended Interviews And Behind-The-Scenes Footage From The Electronic Press Kit (17 min)
- Deleted Scenes Including Extended Death Scenes (8 min)
- Orgy "Opticon" Music Video (3 min)
- Teaser Trailer (1 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (1 min) HD
- TV Spots (1 min)
- Still Gallery (8 min)
- Hidden Easter Egg (1 min) HD
I prefer director Jamie Blanks Urban Legend to this one, the gore is lacking and the characters can be a bit too catty for their own good, but there's a lot to love about this modern era slasher, it's just not a home run for me. The new Collector's Edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory looks and sounds terrific, plus it's packed with extras for the fans of the film to enjoy.
THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT (2018)
Label: Universal Pictures
Region Code: A
Rating: R/Unrated
Duration: 86 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.40:1)
Director: Johannes Roberts
Cast: Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison, Lewis Pullman, Emma Bellomy, Damian Maffei, Lea Enslin
Ten years after the original we are getting a sequel to The Strangers (2008), this time we're following a family struggling with some interpersonal issues, parents Mike (Martin Henderson, The Ring) and mother and Cindy (Christina Hendricks, TV's Mad Men) along with their teen son Luke (Lewis Pullman) are in the process of driving their delinquent teenage daughter Kinsey (Bailee Madison, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark) to boarding school, against her will. She's done something wrong and her parents - who are very caring and sympathetic people - have had enough, while the specifics of her bad behavior are never detailed it is decided boarding school is the way to go. Along the way they stop off at a seasonal trailer park run by an aunt and and uncle, they arrive in the dead of night to a surprisingly empty trailer park. They help themselves to the key to their pre-assigned trailer and begin settle in for the night... when there's a knock at the door, uh-oh. A blond teen whose face is hidden away in the shadows asks if Tamra's home, when informed she's got the wrong place she walks off into the woods, if you've seen the first film you know the deadly game is now afoot, and this family of four have bigger issues outside of family squabbles.
In a a nice bit of 'let's get rid of the phones' in an organic and not too convoluted modern-slasher sort of way Dad confiscates everyone's cellphones in an attempt to have some focused family time, but Kinsey becomes upset as angsty teen often do, running off for some alone time, her brother at the urging of his mother follows her, catching up to her at a nearby park and they begin wandering the park together, eventually stumbling across a trailer with the front door ominously left open. Curious they go inside and discover the mutilated corpses of their aunt and uncle, sending them in a panic back towards the trailer looking their parents, who they run into on the way back. They spill their guts about what they've discovered, the father sends Kinsey and her mother back to the trailer while he and his son go back to check out the corpses, bad idea.
Where the Strangers was a atmospheric and dread filled home invasion downer the sequel is a more stylish retro-80's sort of slasher, the abandoned trailer park has an off-season summer camp sort of feel, it definitely brought to mind Friday the 13th - complete with not one, but three masked killers! That's right, Dollface, Pin Up Girl, and the Man in the Mask are back and out for the blood of strangers. Like the original this one has loads of atmosphere and style, the deserted trailer park has a light covering of fog and the visuals are bathed in a jaundiced yellow light, drenched in shadow and punctuated by tasty Carpenter-esque synth score - the main title copping Carpenter's theme for The Fog (1980) without shame, plus we get some choice 80's tuneage by way of Kim Wilde's "Kids in America" and Bonnie Tyler's "Total eclipse of the Heart" placed prominently in two key scenes.
The cast is good, we don't get a lot of time with mom and dad but they're here enough to establish their love for the kids, even when the teenage girl is being difficult, and Bailee Madison does good work as the delinquent teen, she's not too angsty and not too much of a bad-girl, she makes a great final girl and summons that necessary inner-strength convincingly when called upon.
The body count here is not too high, this is a small group scenario - much like the first film - but the kills really count, you feel for these characters, some of whom are dying to save their loved one, I found one of the death's particularly harrowing when the victim becomes impaled by debris after a car crash, unable to free himself the Man in the Mask (or Sack Head if you prefer) opens the car door and sits down in the passenger seat, finding a song to his liking on the radio before toying with his prey, finally finishing him off with an ice-pick. I thought the whole scene was anguishing and sad.
The film starts off a tiny but slow but once they get to the trailer park things pick-up considerably and don't let up until the flaming end, literally a flaming end, there's what can only be an homage to the Stephen King/John Carpenter film Christine (1983) with a Ford F-150 engulfed in flames chasing after our final girl- it's quite a visual. It's funny that I dig these homages in this film when just today I was decrying Tomb Raider (2018) for riffing on Temple of Doom and Goonies, but when a slasher lovingly sends-up another of it's ilk I have no issue with it, some cinema-sins are forgivable while others are not, I think it's genre specific too.
One of the best looking sequences features the brother facing down Pin-Up Girl and Man in the Mask at the trailer parks pool, lit up with copious amounts of neon party lighting, there's a baptism of blood in the pool I found quite effective, and I must say that when the movie decided to unmask one of the characters it didn't ruin it for me, I thought it would but it didn't, in fact at the end of the day while I might think the original is the better made film this is probably the one I'll come back to more often, it's way more fun and not quite the downer gut-punch of the original, I prefer slashers to the almost always downer home invasion films.
Audio/Side: The Strangers: Prey At Night (2018) arrives on Blu-ray from Universal Pictures in 1080p HD framed in 2.39:1 widescreen, this is a very dark film, so thankfully the blacks are nice and inky with good shadow detail, but the atmospheric lighting doesn't allow for crisp detail, so don't come into this one expecting razor-sharp detail and clarity - it's just mot that sort of film, it's going for a darker retro-80's slasher sort of look. Audio comes by way of a sweet sounding English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 options with optional English subtitles. The sound design really gives emphasis to a few jump-scare moments, one that stands apart from the pack is the startling introduction of Pin-Up Girl which actually made me jump a little bit, and the Adrian Johnston retro-synth score and 80's tunes sound terrific.
Looking at the extras they are pretty slim pickings, all slick and all-to-brief EPK styled clips that add up to about 10-minutes of not all that much. When Universal sent this our way for review they included a t-shirt and soundtrack CD, if you're a fan of retro-80's synth scores and 80's music I highly recommend the soundtrack CD.
This 2-disc Blu-ray/DVD release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork, and a slipcover featuring embossed lettering on the cover and spine, inside there's a Movies Anywhere Digital Movie Code for the film.
Special Features:
- Alternate Ending (2 min) HD
- “Prep for Night” Music Video – Director’s Cut: The Man in the Mask, Dollface, and Pin-up Girl get ready to terrorize an unsuspecting family in a music video directed by horror auteur Mickey Keating (Darling, Carnage Park) (2 min) HD
- A Look Inside The Strangers: Prey at Night: Stars Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson and director Johannes Roberts talk about the making of the film (2 min) HD
- Family Fights Back: Stars Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison, Lewis Pullman and director Johannes Roberts review the film’s characters and their fight to survive (2 min) HD
- The Music of The Strangers: Prey at Night: Director Johannes Roberts and star Bailee Madison discuss the John Carpenter-inspired score and the ‘80s soundtrack that keeps The Strangers killing (3 min) HD
When they first announced this ten-years-later sequel for The Strangers (2008) I scoffed at the notion, thinking that surely this was gonna be a cheap and woefully uninspired cash-grab, but I give credit where credit is due, director Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down) came through with an entertaining slice of slasher cinema that left me pleasantly surprised, it's not just a rehash of the original, it turns what was a dread-filled home invasion thriller into a sweet slice of throwback slasher goodness.
