Review of In Her Skin (2009) by Matt S — 24 Jun 2011

An well acted, chilling, sad and disturbing true crime tale that's like a real life Black Swan with out it being all in her head or was it? This film starts off very grim and ends very grim and the sense of dread never leaves this film as a husband and wife desperately search for their 15 year old beautiful, ideal, golden child Rachel as she fails to meet her dad to pick her up after dance class and all clues leads to a very troubled, self destructive/hate young 19 year old Caroline their childhood neighbor.

The movie is filmed in a very haunting way as in some parts you can hear ghostly whispers as the film travels to one location to the next adding a tragic tone to the already depressing film and it kind of reminded me of The Lovely Bones in a way.

Ruth Bradley who plays Caroline to me is this movie, her performance was so believable, tragic, effective, scary and hauntingly memorable that she will make your blood turn cold, very oscar worthy. Guy Pearce, Miranda Otto who play the grieving but determined parents give heartbreaking and strong performances that will pull at your heartstrings and Sam Neill who plays Caroline's dad gives an always good performance.

The murder scene in this movie is so realistic, disturbing, brutal and intense it will make you sick in anger and sadness and it's the kind of viciousness of something like the movie Audition and it's terrifying that this is a true story.

Overall it did come to some sort of an conclusion and a sad one at that and the motive for the murder was jealousy, lonelieness, anger and her mental illness and it's the act of violence nightmares are made of and it;s one of the most tragic story and movie I've seen in a while and at that I don't know if it's a movie to really recommend but for the powerful performances it's worth seeing at least once.

6.9 out of 10.