If there's one thing I've learnt from Skinner, it's not to accept a dinner invitation from Ricki Lake: 20 minutes to prepare and cook an entire chicken?!?! That sounds like a recipe for some serious E.coli to me. And while we're at it, Ted Raimi isn't so hot on kitchen hygiene either: he fails to wash his hands after manhandling the chicken and proceeds to spread bacteria all over the place.Of course, a bout of serious food poisoning is still preferable to being killed and flayed, which is what Raimi's character, Dennis Skinner, likes to to do hookers, using their skin to create a suit in which he can prance around in the moonlight (a man's got to have a hobby). When Skinner's landlady, Kerry Tate (Lake), becomes close to her loony lodger, the psycho decides that the time is right to reveal his secret to the lucky lass, much to her horror. Meanwhile, Heidi (Traci Lords), morphine-addicted survivor of one of Skinner's earlier attacks, hunts the psycho looking for revenge.Skinner is by no means a great movie, suffering from an erratic narrative and plot details that are left frustratingly unexplained (what is up with Dennis's fascination with water?); it is, however, an entertainingly piece of trash, a sick little psycho flick with a wonderfully over-the-top performance from Ted Raimi, and solid support from Lake and Lords, the latter channelling Meiko Kaji and Christina Lindberg for her role as a vengeful junkie on a mission.The film also features an impressive moment of graphic flaying (courtesy of KNB effects group) that is guaranteed to please gore fans: Skinner slices open his victim's back, works the skin loose, rolls the body over and yanks the skin down off the face (be sure to watch the uncut version of the film: there's an iffy copy on YouTube that is missing this splattery scene).6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for the delectable Ms. Lords, who doesn't get nekkid (for a change), but is still very hot (it takes more than a few scars and a lack of hair to stop her from being sexy).

*spoiler alert* The basic plot of this low-budget horror flick is that a nerdy, Converse-and-khaki wearing guy Dennis Skinner (Ted Raimi) rents a room from Ricki Lake's character, and spends his days as a janitor, or sometimes killing prostitutes. Meanwhile, one of his victims, played by Traci Lords, is busy stalking Skinner and trying to kill him.The redeeming factor in this whole movie is Ted Raimi. He plays Skinner brilliantly. His performance is comparable to that of Anthony Perkins' in Psycho. Raimi is so believable as the nice, adorable guy who ends up being a quite creepy serial killer. Also, being a Ted Raimi fan-girl, his being shirtless for 75% of the movie helped the movie a lot as well, finally having some male eye-candy in a horror movie was awesome to me.Ricki Lake did a good job as the nice, slightly naive landlady, and I thought the relationship between her and Skinner was cute...until the end of the film, of course. Traci Lords was great as well, she was downright creepy as the vengeful (prostitute? i guess? it never says) woman who has been mutilated by Skinner.The special effects are creepily realistic, when Skinner wears his victims' skins I was genuinely freaked out, because they looked so real. It is pretty gory, not much actual killing, just lots of grossness and blood.If you are a big Ted Raimi fan, you will definitely like this film. Seeing him play someone totally opposite of Joxer, Pavel, Hoffmann, etc. etc. is really refreshing and shows his versatility as an actor - he can pull off creepy and sexy as well as nerdy.Skinner is definitely worth a look.

Skinner is a Horror & Suspense Classic that uses the killer's fantasies as flashback scenes. Dennis Skinner (Ted Raimi)a soft-spoken normal-looking drifter(with obsessive compulsions for water & blood) rents an room from Kerry Tate (Ricki Lake) and Geoff Tate-Long-haul Truck Driver (David Warshofsky) while he's out on the road. Geoff leaves Kerry alone all the time due to work, ignores her when he's home, and she appreciates the new stranger's company and attention even though her husband hates him. Dennis finds a job at a local factory and is physically and verbally harassed by a black co-worker who he also skins. At night Dennis roams the streets with a gym bag filled with knifes looking for hookers or women victims to skin, constantly followed by the deformed junkie/hooker Heidi (Traci Lords) who was mutilated by him and is now hunting him for revenge. Dennis is attracted to Kerry and wants to show her the real him so he seduces her then kidnaps and takes her to his playpen to be the next victim/art piece. Heidi tipped-off by her landlord's forced confession find's their house and she and Geoff soon follow to try to save Kerry, but Heidi drugs Geoff as they close in after crashing the factory gates with his Semi-Truck and alerting the night watchman. Will Heidi get her revenge and will Kerry die? Also Stars:Richard Schiff – Eddie; Blaire Baron – Gloria; Roberta Eaton – Sandy;Christina Englehardt – Rachel; Dewayne Williams - Earl ;Time Winters - Night watchman; Frederika Kesten – Suzanne;Sara Lee Froton -Young woman. Ivan Nagy - Directed (former boyfriend of Heidi Fleiss-The Hollywood Madam). music by Contagion, Special Make-Up Effects by KNB EFX Group.

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...