SKINNER (1993) (Severin Films Blu-ray Review)

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.   

SERIAL MOM (1994) (Collector's Edition Blu-ray Review)

SERIAL MOM (1994)
Collector's Edition Blu-ray 

Label: Scream Factory
Release Date: May 9th 2017 
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 94 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1, DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 
Director: John Waters 
Cast: Justin Whalin, Kathleen Turner, Matthew Lillard, Ricki Lake, Sam Waterston, Suzanne Somers, Traci Lords, Patty Hearst

Synopsis: Beverly Sutphin is the perfect happy homemaker. Along with her doting husband Eugene and two children, Misty and Chip, she lives a life straight out of Good Housekeeping. But this nuclear family just might explode when Beverly's fascination with serial killers collides with her ever-so-proper code of ethics – transforming her from middle class mom to mass murderer! Soon, the bodies begin to pile up… and suburbia faces a horror even worse than wearing white after Labor Day.

Director John Waters (Pink Flamingos)satire of suburbia in Serial Mom (1994) has always had me in stitches, a dark and biting satire starring Kathleen Turner (Body Heat) as an suburban apple-pie baking mom named Beverly Sutphin who has a secret obsession with serial killers, a secret she had kept hidden from her loving family for years. She's married to a dentist named Eugene, played with doting naivety by Law and Order's Sam Waterston, they have two children, the college bound Misty (Ricki Lake) and horror-obsessed teenage son Chip (Matthew Lillard, SLC Punk). Beverly's killer instinct emerges as she observes what most would perceive be trivial slights, which go against her weird code of ethics, these slights include not properly recycling, stealing parking spaces, wearing white shoes after labor day, and standing up her daughter, and it all begins when her son's math teacher Mr. Stubbins questions her parenting skills during a parent-teacher conference, calling her out for allowing him to watch "sick" gore movies. She runs him down outside the school with her station wagon, a wasted stoner-chick is the only witness, and with her account of what happened the police quickly begin to piece together who the unlikely culprit is. Once she has what seems to be her initial kill out of the way she has some serious trouble staving off her murderous urges.

As the comedy roles on more people from around town end up as victims of her twisted moral compass, including a series of foul-mouthed phone calls to her friend and neighbor Dottie Hinkle (Mink Stole, Cry Baby), which are freaking hilarious, hearing Kathleen turner raspily say "pussy willow" and "cocksucker" never gets old! On her rampage Beverly kills with scissors, an air conditioners, a fire poker, and a spiced up leg of lamb, it's all great stuff. The kills are pretty campy and don't get too gory, except for her pulling someone's liver out of their body on the end a gore-strewn fire poker, which was a nice homage to the gore-films of Herschell Gordon-Lewis, whose seminal gore-film Blood Feast (1972) is showcased in the movie.

Kathleen Turner is simply wonderful in the movie, she camps it up to the perfect degree in a delightfully weird performance, chewing on the scenery and clearly having a blast with the likeable, but murderous, character. The supporting cast is also great, including Sam Waterston, who seems so out of his element in the best possible way. During an amped-up sex scene with his wife he excitedly shouts "Oh honey, you are hot tonight!", and their kids played Lillard (13 Ghosts) and Lake (TVs The Ricki Lake Show), are fun, each profiting from their mother's infamy during the trial. Justin Whalin (Child's Play 3) shows up as Chip's chronic-mastubator friend, Mink Stole (Pink Flamingos) and Mary Jo Catlett (Foul Play) as Beverly's doomed neighbors, this is just a great cast... almost forgot the infamous Patty Hearst as juror no.8! Traci Lords (Excision) even shows up, as does grunge-punk rockers L7 as the band Camel Toe, during a raucous club performance, with prop-pants featuring huge puffy pussy lips sewn into their crotches. which is sort of a thing nowadays in Japan I hear, weird. 

Audio/Video: Serial Mom (1994) debuts on Blu-ray from Scream Factory, looking crisper and sharper than my 2008 Universal DVD, see comparison shots below, but that is to be expected with the 1080p upgrade. Skin tones and colors are slightly improved, there's not a lot of depth and clarity to the image, and it can be a bit soft at times, but I think this goes back to the source. Overall this is a pleasing HD image and a nice upgrade over the standard-def releases, there's just not a lot of wow-factor. Notably, the Blu-ray image does appears to lose some minor information on the left and right of the screen. The disc includes the option of DTS-HD MA 2.0 and 5.1, the surround is very front speaker specific for the most part, but occasionally we get some nice use of the surrounds, but for the most part this is a front heavy audio track, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Onto the extras we have a nice array of bonus content, Scream have ported over all the extra from the 2008 Collector's Edition DVD, including two commentaries, the original commentary with Waters from the original 1999 snapper case HBO Home Video release, and a second with Waters and Kathleen Turner from the 2008 Collector's Edition DVD. Waters is always a fun listen and both tracks are loaded. Also carried are the Making of EPK, the half-hour Serial Mom: Surreal Moments (29 min) doc with interviews from Waters, Stole, Actress Patricia Hearst, Actress Ricki Lake, Actor Matthew Lillard, Casting Director Pat Moran, Production Designer Vincent Peranio, plus The Kings Of Gore: Herschel Gordon Lewis And David Friedman (11 min) featurette, containing interviews with Waters, film critic Dennis Dermody all speaking about the influence of Herschel Gordon Lewis and Dave Friedman, whose seminal gore film Blood Feast shows up prominently in the movie. Lewis and Friedman also show up in interviews, and they're always great. The featurette doesn't have a whole lot to do with the movie Serial Mom but I loved that its here. 

The only real new brand extra is a 34 minute sit down chat with John Waters, Mink stole and Kathleen Turner seated in a living room conversing about the movie, it's fun and witty, Waters is in fine form, speaking about making the movie, how prescient it was in the months before the O.J. Simpson trial and the advent of Courtroom TV type shows. Mink Stole speaks about being intimidated by star Turner, while the star herself recalls having a blast making the movie, with Waters telling the story of how Turner single-handedly saved the movie when the studio considered not releasing it. The disc comes in a standard blue keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork featuring the original key art and a new illustration, the new artwork also adorns the slipcover (o-ring). 

Special Features
- NEW – A Conversation With Director John Waters, Actress Kathleen Turner And Actress Mink Stole (34 min) HD 
- Serial Mom: Surreal Moments – Featuring Interviews With Waters, Stole, Actress Patricia Hearst, Actress Ricki Lake, Actor Matthew Lillard, Casting Director Pat Moran, Production Designer Vincent Peranio and More!
- Feature Commentary With John Waters And Kathleen Turner
- Feature Commentary With John Waters
- The Making Of Serial Mom – Original Promotional Featurette (6 min) 
- The Kings Of Gore: Herschell Gordon Lewis And David Friedman Featurette (11 min) 
- Original Theatrical Trailer (2 min) 

SCREENSHOT COMPARISON

UNIVERSAL DVD (2008) TOP
SCREAM FACTORY BLU-RAY (2017) BOTTOM 

UNIVERSAL DVD (2008) TOP

SCREAM FACTORY BLU-RAY (2017) BOTTOM 

UNIVERSAL DVD (2008) TOP
SCREAM FACTORY BLU-RAY (2017) BOTTOM 

UNIVERSAL DVD (2008) TOP

SCREAM FACTORY BLU-RAY (2017) BOTTOM 

UNIVERSAL DVD (2008) TOP

SCREAM FACTORY BLU-RAY (2017) BOTTOM 

UNIVERSAL DVD (2008) TOP

SCREAM FACTORY BLU-RAY (2017) BOTTOM 

John Waters' exquisite taste for bad taste has rarely been better for me than right here, which is probably his most commercial work to date. His biting take on America's confusion between celebrity and infamy proved to be slightly ahead of it's time, too, this having been released just a few short months before America collectively lost it's mind during the O.J Simpson slow-motion highway pursuit and ensuing trial, a time that brought us 24-hour celebrity murder shows and networks like Court TV, truTV and the ID Network. We are still deeply entrenched in a culture that celebrates the heinous acts of others, you need look no further than America's obsession with the murder trial of Jodi Arias and the Casey Anthony, or the reality TV success of the awfulness that is the Kardashians, an entire family made famous because their father defended O.J. and one of them made a fuck tape that went viral, ugh. Anyway, Serial Mom is damn fun film, loaded with Waters' patented blend of suburban satire and dark humor, and some biting social commentary. The new disc from Scream Factory looks good and the extras are plentiful, if you're a fan this is a must-own. 4/5
  
 

Blu-ray Review: EXCISION (2012)

EXCISION (2012) 

Label: Anchor Bay Entertainment 

Release Date: October 16, 2012
Region Code: A

Duration: 81 minutes
Rating: Unrated

Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic Widescreen (2.40)
Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 with English, Spanish Subtitles

Cast: AnnaLynne McCord, Traci Lords, Ariel Winter, Roger Bart, Jeremy Sumpter, Matthew Gray Gubler, Ray Wise, John Waters, Malcolm McDowell, Marlee Matlin 

Director: Richard Bates, Jr.  

Synopsis: Based on writer/director Richard Bates, Jr’s short film of the same name, Excision follows a disturbed and delusional high school student, Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord). Pauline, with aspirations of a career in medicine, goes to extremes to earn the approval of her controlling mother (played by Traci Lords). While dealing with both being an outcast teenager and having an obsession over curing her sister’s cystic fibrosis, Pauline becomes increasingly deranged as her fascination with surgery and flesh and blood grows into something compulsive and demonic, if not epic.

The Film: Wowie, this was a dark-hearted film, and a funny one, too but super dark and certainly twisted - nice to see some original fuck-uppedness out there. Pauline as played by AnnaLynne McCord (TV's Nip Tuck) is an outsider at school, attractive but in a dark, demented way. She's strange and no one seems to care for her, particularly not the popular kids. She doesn't really help herself with fun question in sex ed class like "Can you get an STD from a dead guy?", that's just social suicide in high school and in life after, y'know but she's an inquisitive young lady so what can you do.

She's has dreams of becoming a surgeon and believes she has natural God-given abilities with a scalpel which she hopes to use to cure her sister of her cystic fibrosis, let's just see how that delusion pans out at the end. Speaking of dreams, let me tell you this chic is festering in dark surreal nightmares, fantasies actually, she dreams of crawling naked over masses of corpses, licking mutilated body parts, bathing in a tub of blood and enduring toe-curling orgasms while straddling cadavers on the autopsy table - really bizarre stuff. A virgin at the start of the film she offers her virginity to the boyfriend of one of the popular cheerleaders and this poor douche nozzle just has no idea what he's been invited to partake of, definitely bites off more than he's willing chew.

The film has quite a cast including Traci Lords (Cry Baby) and Roger Bart (Hostel II) as her parents. Bart who plays a sympathetic and henpecked husband to Lords over-bearing but well-meaning mother. We also have some great cameos from Ray Wise (Twin Peaks) as the school principal and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) as Pauline's teacher (how fucked-up a school would that be?) plus a brief cameo from trash-master John waters (Serial Mom) as a priest who futilely attempts to bring the demented Pauline closer to God whom with Pauline speaks regularly about pre-marital sex among other things, very funny. 

Hard to believe this is a first time feature for Richard Bates, Jr., it's very well directed, definitely a guy with vision and a beautiful film too with tons of grotesque and surreal beauty. Hats of to McCord for her performance, very solid and some might think casting an actress as gorgeous as her in the role as some sort of stunt-casting ala Charlize Theron in Monster (2003) but she's got the chops, not a character you will soon forget, totally unhinged and wonderful. 

The film is pretty twisted, if you're a fan of Todd Solondz' twisted coming-of-age film Welcome to the Dollhouse (1999) with some Cronenberg-esque body horror (think Dead Ringers) elements soaked with a wickedly dark wit then this is a film for you, highly recommended. (4 Outta 5)