Review of The Skin I Live In (2011) by Joey S — 31 Mar 2013

A very enjoyable surreal drama/arthouse horror movie with some pretty creepy twists, The Skin I Live In is undoubtedly very strange, but its strangeness is what makes it so great. The movie is not always easy to watch, and has a number of rape scenes (one of which involving a man dressed as a tiger no less) and the story is a freakishly twisted take on Frankenstein.

The movie is about a plastic surgeon who, after his wife burns to death in a car crash, decides to use genetic engineering to create the perfect skin that is impervious to burns, bug bites, and various other harms.

To do this he uses a human test subject named Vera, who is kept locked away in his lavish mansion and under constant surveillance. It gradually becomes even weirder until it reaches a most unusual (and unexpected) plot twist late into the movie.

The entire movie is jam-packed with sex, violence, and a whole lot of soapy melodrama, making it very campy at times even though much of what takes place in the story is actually pretty dark. The Skin I Live In is not the kind of movie that can be easily recommended, simply because not everyone is into this sort of Jodorowsky/Lynch type of melodramatic weirdness.

For those who thrive on the bizarre and twisted, The Skin I Live In is definitely worth seeing.