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Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Under The Skin' (2013)

Certainly a Lot of Skin...

By Reed AlexanderPublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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SPOILERS!!!

And what do we know about my reviews if they start with spoilers? They're usually about shitty movies...

Why does this feel like a revenge rape porn? This is essentially about some strange alien entity that lures men to their death. So, it's basically a ton of scenes with the hot alien chick leading men to their death. Then finally, when she decides she wants to experiment with actually being human, she gets raped and murdered. It's like the director or the writer thinks every woman is essentially out to rob men of their life, and really they deserve the bad shit that happens to them. That seems to be the fucking moral of this flaming dumpster fire of a movie. The alien chick "deserves" her fate because that's what she was doing to men all along.

What kind of fucking movie is that? Was the writer or director so desperate to invent a scenario where a woman deserves to be raped that he literally created a sci-fi horror to justify it? Dude, I've said this before and I'll say it 'til I'm dead. If you're that pathetic, just direct a porno. Don't waste hours of my time with this shit.

What's even worse is that there was actually a pretty interesting movie hidden under that dumpster fire. The alien life form goes from a creature whose sole purpose is to hunt and collect food, to slowly realizing her existence beyond her simple nature, to trying and failing to be human. She has the capacity to emulate human behavior, but has the purpose and instincts of a simple drone. There, right fucking there, is the real fucking movie. But you know what I'm not going to fucking do? I'm not going to sift through flaming toxic waste to try and peel back the layers of your revenge rape fantasy.

This isn't a bad movie. This is a great movie that was ruined by men who are clearly frustrated by their insignificance (and likely intimidated by women to the point of being phobic). There was atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a knife, tension so deep you were gasping for release, cinematography so perfect, each shot was a work of art. Visually, this movie was stunning. Moreover, the acting expressed something completely alien in a way that was gripping and moving. Scarlett Johansson's monochromatic presentation of the entity is literally otherworldly. Everything that we see as normal and take for granted is presented in a way that makes it seems strange and foreign.

The process of the alien hunting down and capturing its prey is just flat out fascinating. And with every victim we're taken a step further into this nightmarish process. From what I can tell, its victims are essentially digested, dissolving everything except the skin, which seems like it's used for more aliens to disguise themselves. There could literally be thousands of these things thriving on the planet for unknown purposes. Or maybe it's just their reproduction. Maybe the innards are fed to babies and the skin is left behind for them to assimilate.

Do you understand how fascination and terrifying this is, just to have it ruined by some contrived revenge rape plot?

And it doesn't even make any sense. Clearly, the alien life form is more than capable of defending itself. It never once acts out of fear or any emotion for that matter. But then at the end of the movie, all of the fucking sudden, it's this helpless, frightened little girl. What the actual fuck?! That plot is just as forced as the sex at the end of this movie. That's an hour and forty five I can't fucking get back.

Fuck the writer, fuck the director, fuck this movie...

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About the Creator

Reed Alexander

I'm a horror author and foulmouthed critic of all things horror. New reviews posted every Monday.

@ReedsHorror on TikTok, Threads, Instagram, YouTube, and Mastodon.

Check out my books on Godless: https://godless.com/products/reed-alexander

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