source: Skinner

Moviecut—Skinner

Skinner is a film wherein Ted Raimi goes around, cutting off skin of girls and then wearing the skin. This has SOMETHING to do with Traci Lords, who spends most of the film lying in her bed, half-naked, rolling around, and masturbating to Ted Raimi's picture. This involves Ricki Lake, as well, who is dating this abusive guy. He's abusive, I guess, since he wants a clean house. And he is suspicious of Ted Raimi. Ted Raimi just moved in with Ricki, you see. And he got blood on his shirt once, and that's suspicious. Meanwhile, Ted lives a double life as a factory worker. Who kills people. And wears skin. And then has a friendly relationship with Ricki. Before going out. And killing again. And as he kills again, he explains that his dad is the reason he skins people alive. This has SOMETHING to do with Traci Lords being in some water. And as Traci Lords masturbates in the bed, her landlord watches her. Along the way, some black guy gets his skin completely cut off, and Ted Raimi wears it and walks down the street, talking jive, as he stalks another victim. Also, a dog dies from eating skin. And.. uhh... this all turns into an unfun climax that leaves the viewer very unsatisfied. Pretty confusing for only really having 3 characters that do anything. The director made the mistake of muddling up a cool concept with dream sequences, flashbacks, and hiding Traci Lords's face behind her hair. The picture quality is terrible, and the sound quality is worse. There is some decent gore here, but it's not really worth seeking out just for that. Cool concept, not a very cool film.

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT* I bought this video. Ricki Lake rents out a room to a maniac. He's Skinner. Dennis Skinner. Skinner likes to wander from town to town, flaying whomever he can find. He likes to hang out in a heavily vandalized part of town where the hookers hang out. If a hooker meets Skinner, it's flaying time. One of his old victims, (Traci Lords), is hunting him down. She wants revenge for the partial skinning from Skinner. Get the knives ready. "Skinner" made me think about the Superintendent yelling at Principal Skinner on "The Simpsons". SKINNNNNERRR!!!! I couldn't help but laugh every time they said his name. "Where's Skinner?" SKINNNNERRR!!! Get down here! Traci Lords shows up as an obsessive, would-be victim of SKINNNNERRR! Unfortunately, she does not get naked. However, I still like to see porno stars in regular flicks. It amuses me. I especially liked the scene where Lords shows Lake's husband her serial killer war wound. That was a serious scalping job. "Skinner" has the right psychotic mind-set for a maniac with big knives movie. Skinner is a first class psycho who likes to skin his female victims. There's one scene in the middle which has an extensive, gory lesson in the art of flaying. Overall, "Skinner" is worth a look for horror fans.

This is the coolest movie I have ever seen. It takes a * star and gives her a chance to get vengance on the man whom she took in to her home (she was not a prostitute, but his landlord, like ricki lake) and skinned her while she was still alive. I still want to know exactly how she killed the hotel manager, though. That has always intrigued me.

Dennis Skinner (Ted Raimi) has moved into the Tate household, helping them with their financial situation while widening the gap between husband and wife. He seems nice enough, but a disturbing childhood - he only ripped his mother's face off after his father forced her to watch him conduct her autopsy before punching him in the face - has led to him becoming a skid row slasher. However, Dennis' past sins have come back to haunt him in the form of Heidi (an insanely perfect Traci Lords), a bad girl with a secret - horrible scars as she's survived being flayed alive thanks to the power of her will and no small amount of narcotics - who won't stop until he gets her horrible revenge. Skinner was the kind of movie that haunted the video stores in my early 20's. It almost made it into theaters, as well, because a newly reformed Cannon Pictures almost gave it a limited theatrical run. However, this new Cannon fell into bankruptcy before Skinner made it to screens. It's just as well - this is a movie made for home video. It's gloriously scummy, revelling in darkness, grue and gore courtesy of Pittsburgh hometown heroes KNB. Where films like Silence of the Lambs only hint at the skin suits that their killers are making, Dennis Skinner creates muliple flesh fashions that he walks around in. Former Hairspray lead and daytime talk show host Ricki Lake plays the lonely Kerry Tate, who lives a near-seperate life from her husband Geoff (certainly named for the former Queensryche frontman). As mentioned before, Traci Lords grabs every scene she's in by the literal balls and leaves the viewer begging for more. This whole paen to slicing up hookers was brought to us by Ivan Nagy, who may know a thing or two about the world's oldest profession, as he was the ex-boyfriend of Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. In addition to directing episodes of CHIPs and HBO's The Hitchhiker, Nagy also cooked the books for the mob. His work on Skinner would pair nicely with a film like Fulci's The New York Ripper, providing a west coast glimpse of neon-hued squalor.

I am also a big fan of Ted Raimi, and this was his finest hour. He stars as the sick and depraved Dennis Skinner, who passes off sort of as a geekish type of guy, friendly to just about everyone. Untill mid-day night, he goes out after hookers and brutally kills them and skins them, for his own sick plessure. Also starring Ricki Lake, Richard Schiff and Traci Lords (who not to bring down the movie, performance was terrible.) **1/2 out of 4.

This movie cracked me up! What a fun, trashy little film. Tracy Lords is almost impossible to watch and Ricky Lake is just calling it in. The only reason to watch this flick, in my humble opinion, is for Ted Raimi. Why is this guy not a star? He really gets into his performance in this film. I have always enjoyed him on Xena but Skinner gives him a chance to run with a lead roll. He's a really good actor! And to top it all off he's super cute and his body is sound as a pound! Yowzers!!!!

No, not really! But it's up there. Everything about this movie is bad. The "plot" makes no sense at all, it leads nowhere and the effects are there, but are nothing special. Ted Raimi and Lakes performances are almost acceptable, but Lords "performance" is the worst ever. I have seen vaccum cleaners with more talent! I can not warn you enough about this crap. And DO NOT buy the DVD from Simitar! There is only one thing worse than the picture quality and the sound, and that's the cover illustration. Holy s... it's ugly. Only 81 min. and NOT 90 min. as it should have been. I have only seen one movie worse than this: Jesus Franco's Oasis of the Zombies... So stay away from both...

Ted Raimi is Dennis Skinner, a friendly, grinning wacko who kills women, skins them and wears a suit made of their stitched-together flesh. He rents a room from lonely housewife Kerry (Ricki Lake), who's glad to have some company since her moody trucker husband (David Warshofsky) is always gone. Meanwhile, Heidi (Traci Lords), a depressed, soft-spoken, scarred, limping morphine addict who managed to survive an attack years earlier, balances her time in a grimy hotel room shooting up, crying and plotting revenge. This is a dark, dreary, depressing and often awkward film and I hated it when I first saw it. However, I gave it another chance and am glad I did. Aside from the top-notch KNB FX work, it takes place in a unique, graffiti-tinged decaying urban hell landscape, has a great score from Contagion and plenty of clever movie references if you're looking for them. There's one odd and powerful moment in this film, where Dennis is talking to the shell of a victim he's just killed and skinned about his traumatic childhood and rubbing the hands of the deceased along his face for comfort. Moments like these, done with some thought and care, lift a film like this right up out of the gutter. I completely disagree with the potshots made at Traci Lords. Many people just cannot put their perceptions of her behind them long enough to even consider the fact she's capable of giving a competent performance. I found Lords to be more than just a little competent in this particular role. It is by no means an easy or flattering part to have to play, but I thought she played it very, very well. Speaking of unflattering portraits, you can learn more about director Ivan Nagy by viewing HEIDI FLEISS: Hollywood MADAM. Score: 7 out of 10.