Skinner (1993)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: Sam Raimi’s younger brother is a psychopathic killer who likes to skin his victims.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Starring Sam Raimi’s brother Ted in the role he was born to play!
• And Ricki Lake…and Traci Lords. What the fuck am I thinking?!
• Is Ted Raimi walking on water?
• SKINNNNNNNNEEEEERRRRRR!!!!

• This is the role that Ted Raimi was born to play.
• Before this gets too late I always thought Ted Raimi could’ve had a better chance to be in more flicks. He’s usually good in his brother’s flicks. All’s I’m saying is he ain’t too shabby of an actor; for geeky roles anyway. That being said, this is the fist time I’m seeing him in a lead role and I will probably eat these words in about 80 minutes or so.
• So far this movie has had two people stumbling around this town with a duffelbag.
• Holy shit Toby Ziegler from The West Wing!
• Strange coincidence but I always confused Joshua Molina from The West Wing for Ted Raimi.
• Traci Lords must’ve take some more acting lessons since Shock ‘Em Dead. 
• Not sure if it’s the copy I have but the sound quality is fucking awful. The music mix is too loud and the dialogue is mostly in whispers. Plus since I’m watching with AirPods the dialogue is only coming through in my right ear while the music is stereo. 
• Something is wrong with Traci Lords’ arm. It looks like it’s 80 years older than her other arm. She injects some medicine or drugs with a syringe into her hand and falls asleep in her seedy hotel room.

• I think Ted is fucking the door to his room that he rented from Ricki Lake.
• OK, this is the second time we see him grabbing water and squeezing it with his fist. Huh?
• This is the role that Ted Raimi was born to play.
• More wandering around with a duffel bag in a seedy part of town. This is riveting.
• He greets a hooker on a street corner. In the morning hours. I thought they were ‘ladies of the night?’ Why are hookers wandering street corners in the middle of the day?!
• So Skinner is renting this room out in Ricki Lake’s house. She failed to tell her very hot tempered husband Geoff that she did so and he’s quite upset at this. Rightfully so. This couple does not communicate well.
• At least we see Traci Lords in underwear in this flick. It’s kinda undercut by her old lady limbs though.
• OK Traci, you’re gonna have to speak up, cause I can’t hear a crom-damned word you’re saying.
• What am I saying, I really don’t care.
• Even more wandering with a duffel bag! What the fuck?! And he even picks up another whore! Didn’t we just see this like 7 minutes ago?!
• Looking real hot in that XXXL white T-shirt Ricki.
• “Anything kinky is extra.” “How much extra?” “Depends on how kinky.” Aaron Sorkin, this ain’t.
• This is the role that Ted Raimi was born to play.
• Man is the sound mixing terrible in this flick. The train going by this hooker’s apartment is louder than the actors’ dialogue.
• This idiot hooker is allowing him to tie her up to the bed. That’s gonna cost HER extra!
• Did Skinner just put on rubber monster halloween gloves to kill her? That’s what it looked like.
• Kerry (Ricki Lake) is totally trying to seduce Geoff but he wants none of it!
• Skinner is obsessed with water. Wish someone would water-board him.
• Why is Kerry dressed like a 9-year-old girl?
• Hahaha. When Skinner drinks the water he dribbles it hilariously all over himself. He has a drinking problem!

• So far I’ve watched over a half hour of this and Traci Lords has not left her hotel room and is continuously talking to herself and I injecting her old wrinkly hands. 
• Skinner apparently got a job at a warehouse. First he was mopping up the floors and now he’s just wandering around like he owns the place. Also there’s no one else around this warehouse.
• He finds an empty room or area and nods in approval. Perfect place to pull his pud.
• I’m very disturbed that both Kerry and Skinner have just touched raw chicken and are now dancing together. I guess when you’re a sadistic serial killer Salmonella is the last thing on your mind.
• Traci Lords is now in that same shallow river or whatever Skinner was walking on during the credits. She’s muttering to herself about seeking revenge on Skinner. The Traci Lord seeks vengeance!
• So she’s the Loomis to his Michael Myers? Or The Bride to his Bill. Or Joanna Kramer to his Ted Kramer (That’s what Kramer vs. Kramer is about right? Two Kramers battling it out?).
• Another fucking streetwalker for Skinner! How many whores are in this town?!
• Traci Lords interrupts Skinner killing the whore and chases him off. When she bends down to assist the hooker, Skinner comes around the other side of the alley and knocks Lords out. Hilarious.
• Skinner is now talking to a corpse (I’m assuming the latest whore) about when he was younger and how he watched his father did the post mortem for his own mother.
• He then very easily rips the skin off the hooker’s face like it was chicken skin. Actually I’ve struggled harder in ripping off chicken skin than he did with that woman’s face.

• Isn’t it a strange coincidence that his name is Skinner and he likes to skin his victims? I think so.
• And like Ed Gein he wears the skin of the victims. They’re totally capitalizing on the wave of skin-wearing psychopaths after Silence of the Lambs.
• This is the role that Ted Raimi was born to play.
• Wait, he let Traci Lords go after knocking her out? She’s back at the hotel. Even if he didn’t know who she was she’s still a witness. Unless he likes this cat-&-mouse game and wants her to hunt him down. It’s anyone’s guess—even the screenwriter’s!
• Richard Schiff is a peeping tom!

• I sure hope Traci Lords is acting. Because I am really starting to feel really sorry for her.
• Skinner is starting a fight with a very large African-American co-worker. Big mistake.
• Now some lady is pissed at her man that she demands he let her out of the car at night in around the area that all the hookers dwell. Come to think of it other than the warehouse, the seedy hotel and Kerry’s house, this is the only other location in this movie.
• The random lady stumbles towards Skinner who is also just wandering around wearing his new skin body suit. Now he’s chasing her ranting and screaming like a lunatic.
• I’ve never seen so much graffiti in my life. Every inch of wall is covered with colorful graffiti. Even the pavement has some! Where was this filmed?!
• OH EM GEE. I just realized that he wasn’t ranting like a lunatic to be scary but he was actually trying to talk like the black coworker (whose skin he’s wearing, that I didn’t notice until now, with this film being so grainy and dark), it is so over-the-top racist and inappropriate it would make even Trump blush.
• Cornered by a security guard with a hound, Skinner takes off his “glove” and feeds it to the dog to get away.
• This is the role that Ted Raimi was born to play.
• We are about an hour into this stupid movie and we have a killer psychopath who likes to skin his victims yet no backstory about the police trying to solve these murders. He’s killed like 6–7 people so far. And I’m still baffled to what purpose Traci Lords is serving.
• This is like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer but for complete and utter morons and made by complete and utter morons.
• While in a middle of a little between Kerry and Geoff, Skinner strolls in the kitchen and cheerfully greets them and even says: “How ya doing big guy?” And mimics punching him in the gut while making “boom, boom, boom” sounds. Eddie Deezen should’ve played Skinner.
• Geoff is a big rig truck driver and he parks the cab of the truck in front of his own house. I’m very disappointed he didn’t blow the horn when he left in anger towards Kerry who he’s just accused of her having the hots for Skinner.
• Hahahaha. The security guard tells Skinner that his dog is sick with food poisoning from the rancid meat he ate the previous night. Actually, is that supposed to be another terrible racist joke? Now I feel terrible for laughing.
• Skinner asks the guard what he will do to the guy who poisoned the dog if he catches him and the guard shows him this old simple bolt-action rifle. Maybe he’s in the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon and plans to bore the killer to death with fancy rifle twirling?

• Seriously, no bayonet? Pfft.
• The guard then asks Skinner if he’s seen Earl (the black guy) and Skinner says: “You know ol’ Earl. He could be right under our noses and we wouldn’t know it.” The guard then replies: “Yeah. Guess you’re right.” Huh?
• Traci Lords has acted in her pornos with more purpose and plot. Seriously, she’s doing absolutely nothing in this so far.
• I’m more embarrassed for her for being in this than Spermbusters.
• I’m assuming (because there’s no exposition at all in this crap) that Skinner only kills people he judges to be sinners or bad people and that’s why he hasn’t harmed Kerry yet and even wants to be friendly with her. Otherwise she’s a lot of skin for him to wear and you would think he would crave that. What?
• I believe the scene of him entering her room at night was the film telling us that he had sex with her. He had no shirt on but the scene cutaway right after he sat on the bed. Next scene he’s talking to himself about it being nice them being together but it’s not the right time for them. Gosh this movie is so poorly made.
• It’s also very embarrassed that Richard Schiff is in this and is trying to rape Traci Lords.
• Out of nowhere, Skinner appears to Kerry wearing one of his skins. I think he wanted to be completely honest with her. I tried that with one girlfriend and she freaked out too.

• This is the role that Ted Raimi was born to play.
• Wait. Why is Richard Schiff dead now? Traci killed him? And why was there an enormous amount of blood in one room but he slowly crawled and died from another very bloody room? Did she brutally beat or stab him in both rooms? How fucking strong is she? Maybe it’s been steroids that she’s been injecting into her arm.
• Traci Lords tells Geoff that she’s been hunting him down for 5 years?! Maybe you should’ve called it quits after 1 year and called the FBI or something. 
• I know Traci Lords wanted to be a serious actress but considering her shady acting past, you would think the only roles she would’ve gotten were “hot babe.” I mean, what casting director sees an attractive ex-pornstar and says: “OK I want you in this thriller but you’re gonna be heavily made-up with artificial scars.”
• She and Geoff are now working together to get Skinner. He drives his big rig through the main gates of the warehouse where Skinner works (they just assume he’s there this late in the evening with Kerry) and then she threatens Geoff to scare him off because she wants Skinner all to herself. She even slices him with a knife.
• Skinner is about to kill Kerry when Traci Lords enters the room. Traci Lords to the rescue!
• Traci cut Geoff so badly in the arm that he’s bleeding out on the ground. The security guard finds him near death!
• Was Ted Raimi in Darkman? Because I would much rather watch Darkman 3: Die Darkman Die right now.
• How in the fuck does this have a 5.0 rating in IMDb?
• This is the role that Ted Raimi was born to play.
• I will lose it if the security guard is the one who kills Skinner.
• Welp, I think I’m right. He shoots both Skinner and Traci Lords. Both chat as they die. Actually Skinner was only shot in the thigh so I’m guessing he’ll survive. 
• Where’s the security guard as he just babbles on, Traci Lords is near death and Kerry still tied up on the ground?!
• And that’s the finale folks. Excuse me while I go suck on my car’s tailpipe while it runs in the garage.

 

Was it Entertaining: 

Any Good Gore: It had some gore and a decent scene of Skinner skinning his skinned victim.

Any Nudity: Not one boob. Not one skin flute. Again Traci Lords fails me in a Schlocktoberfest.

Best Quote: 

Best Scene: Look if you made it this far in this review than you already know this is absolute trash and has nothing of value or worth.

Worst Scene: After seeing Skinner try to act like a black man with such racist reckless abandon that I genuinely felt terrible. 

Final Thoughts: I really don’t know what I was thinking. I believe I saw the trailer recently and it looked like it could be an interesting study of a psychotic serial killer with an off-kilter cast. But boy was I ever wrong.

Score: 1 Huge Disappointment (out of ten)