‘Bare Skin’ VOD Review
Stars: Rachel Alig, Torrey B. Lawrence, Ariana Livingston, Ryan Wayne, Alberto Henriquez, Gabrielle Salinger, Avery Norris, Cassie Ghersi, Igor Grbesic, Christina Kroell, Joey Ariemma, Eric Charles Jorgenson | Written and Directed by Mico Montes
I have to admit, when I started Bare Skin I noticed it was about two hours and twenty minutes, and my heart sank a little. That might be a little dramatic, but it was gone 9pm, and I have watched enough low-budget genre films to know they generally don’t need to be too much over an hour and a half. Of course, there are exceptions; I enjoyed both of the Terrifier sequels, for example. So I was going to give Bare Skin a chance (although that title doesn’t help much either!).
In Bare Skin, several victims of extreme trauma meet in a group therapy session to share their experiences with each other in a safe environment and to hopefully overcome. This being a horror movie, of sorts, though means that this doesn’t go quite to plan. This story actually helps with the run time because the film becomes a bit of an anthology movie, as we get to see each character’s traumatic experience in a kind of short film as they begin to talk about it. This very much helps to break up the movie, but it differs from many other anthologies because the ‘wraparound’ segment, the characters talking in session, takes up as much time, if not more, than the short films.
Each story is different enough from the last that you never feel like they are too similar, and while there are no duds, there’s also none that really stand out as much better than the rest. The range from house fires to sexual assault (be warned, there are a couple of short but obviously uncomfortable rape scenes) to murder. The one that I will probably remember more than most was the ‘violin murderer’, as I shall call him. The guy plays beautiful violin music while attacking his victims with the bow at the same time. It’s pretty much as odd as it sounds, but isn’t quite as silly as you might expect… and it kinda works well. The music and sound design during the whole movie were very good, and I was surprised to discover that this is the director’s first full-length feature.
The whole film is quite a brave move from director Mico Montes. Yes, partly because of that run time ( I promise I won’t mention it again), but Bare Skin takes on some difficult subjects and manages to not look or sound low budget either. The cast choices were good, and everyone put in solid performances. None of the main actors had an easy task here; there are plenty of difficult, emotional scenes, with lots of dialogue, and it never becomes tedious.
The ending will be seen coming by plenty of seasoned movie-goers, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn’t dampen the ending if you do see it coming, plus there’s plenty that happens after the reveal.
So, I didn’t have to worry really. Could Bare Skin have trimmed some fat and been a little bit shorter? Almost definitely. But, I’m kinda glad the director didn’t. It doesn’t drag at all. The format keeps the viewer entertained throughout. This is a most impressive movie from the first time director.
*** 3/5
Bare Skin is on digital platforms now, courtesy of Miracle Media.
