Review of Skew (2011) by James S — 31 Aug 2012

Here's a horror that seems to be finding itself lumped in with the growing crop of found footage horrors that began with The Blair Witch Project. This is a bit mis-leading however as closer inspection reveals that this isn't a found footage movie but merely just shot on a hand held camera. The found footage thing seems to be a convenient excuse for the films shortcomings.

3 friends (Simon, Rich and Eva) take a road trip across America to get to their friends wedding. All the while Simon is documenting the time with his new video camera which occasionally eerily reveals distorted faces of those he is filming. These people then end up dead.

It's quite a neat premise and the three leads in the movie are good. Simon in particular as we never actually see him due to his increasing fear of having the camera turned upon him. It's unfortunate that writer and director Seve Schelenz hasn't really thought his film through after the initial idea as the result is a very bitty movie that showcases a man who clearly knows what he's doing but doesn't know how to do it very well.

What looks like found footage, is to this reviewers eyes, a tightly scripted movie. The use of the hand camera is very well done. It's a great way to reveal things in fleeting glimpses, a "Woah, what was that there?" type effect but this is killed when the tape is rewound for the characters to see it and for the sake of the plot. It dispels the found footage myth and drains any tension out of the film that may have been building.

The character relations are played out quite well and the tension simmering between the three of them builds very nicely to the inevitable big finish. That said, the finish is ambiguous to put it mildly. Some people like to be given open ended movies and that can work very well but Skew doesn't even give it's audience a strong hint at what may have happened, nor any kind of explanation for the preceeding events. It is as though Schelenz really didn't have a way to end the film and hopes that he can cover this up by supposedly setting up a big reveal in the closing moments that actually uncovers nothing at all.

Maybe you just need to be paying really close attention to Skew to work out what its all about but it's not a good enough film to begin with to make the viewer do that. The film seems to be hanging on to the idea that people will say they liked it just to appears as though they knew what was going on.

There is some good talent operating around Skew but it suffers from a lack of organisation. Trying to fall back of the found footage idea to make up for the disjointed nature does not cut it on this occasion.