The Skin I Live In is a Disturbing Horror Film with no Hero in Sight

The Skin I Live In is hands down one of the most disturbing horror films I have watched among the horror genre. We follow the story of man, a doctor named Robert Ledgard who is wanting to conduct a special skin grafting called transgenesis, but it is illegal to perform such surgery among the healthcare system. Despite this outcome, Robert has already been secretly conducting his own experiment on a woman in his home, who is staying in his home against his will. 

This woman's name is Vera, who is required to stay in one room, isolated from the world, while wearing a special skin suit to keep her skin in place. Robert comes home, and finds that Vera has attempted to end her life. He fixes up her skin, while Vera is begging him to end her life, but Robert does not listen. 

Robert's servant, named Marilia, is aware of his hostage, and begs the doctor to kill her, angry that he had given this woman his wife's face. For some reason, Robert decided to give Vera the face of his dead wife, after performing this surgery on her. Robert disregards Marilia's worry, and leaves the home for a brief moment. Marilia's son suddenly appears at the home, named Zeca. He is dressed like a tiger, because he had been in an event known as the Carnivale. 

She lets him in the home to greet her son, only to quickly regret her decision when she sees on the news that he has been caught committing a crime. Zeca panics when his mother won't protect him, and he ties her up on a chair. Then he sees the screen, that the doctor uses to monitor Vera. Zeca gets excited to see this woman, and runs upstairs to get to Vera. 

She tries to fight him off, as he jumps her, and we learn that Zeca had an affair with Robert's dead wife, who had received horrible injuries from a fire, who had shortly ended her life in front of Robert's daughter. Zeca is confused with how she is still alive, but he does not care, and only wants to torture her. 

He drags Vera back into her bedroom, where the torture ensues. Robert comes back home to find Marilia tied up, and he quickly runs to the bedroom to kill Zeca. Vera hugs Robert in terror, as he holds onto her. Vera later learns from Marilia as they are cleaning up the crime scene, that Zeca and Robert are half brothers, but they don't know about each other. Marilia curses her own womb, believing that she was meant to give birth to two evil sons. 

Vera and Robert try to spend time together in bed, but Vera is not able to, due to the torture that Zeca had inflicted upon her. Robert agrees, and they lie in bed together, and we start to get a flashback moment among the two of them, that takes place six years ago. 

It turns out that neither Robert nor Vera are exactly good guys either. 

Vera is actually a man named Vicente, that had tortured Robert's daughter.

Shortly after the death of Robert's wife, he is trying to move on from the trauma of losing her, and raises their daughter, Norma. She is now a bit older, and they are attending a big party, there to have a good time. Norma meets Vicente, and they leave the party to spend time together. Vicente had taken pills, and he was acting a bit crazy, while with Norma. Even she had taken something, and while they are making out and attempting to have intercourse, Norma screams. 

Vicente panics and knocks her out, leaving her there in the woods. Robert finds her in a shocked state, and he vows to take revenge, when he sees Vicente escape from the property on his bike. Vicente goes back home to his mother and Cristina, a friend of the family. He makes a dumb comment that he would like to see Cristina in a specific dress that he is holding, and she tells him that maybe it would look good on Vicente. 

Later on, while Vicente is heading somewhere on his bike, he is confronted and attacked by Robert on the road. He is kidnapped and taken back to his home, where he is starved for a while, before being forced to undergo surgery. Robert is able to convince a friend of his about Vicente wanting to be a woman, and they perfrom sex change surgery on Vicente. 

He then learns why this is being done to him by Robert, and he attempts to try and tell him that he did not mean to hurt Norma, but Robert does not listen. He proceeds with giving Vicente his dead wife's face, and this conflict eats up within Vicente. He attempts to end his life, but Robert is able to save him. Vicente stays in the home for six years straight, as Vicente keeps up with how long he has stayed a captive. 

We also learn that Norma had died as well, because she went insane after her torture, believing that her own father had something to do with her pain. She later ends her life, just like her own mother had done. 

We cut back to the present, and now Vicente and Robert are now living in harmony.

Ever since Vicente had been saved by Robert, he was now indebted to him, willing to become his wife. Vicente is now able to walk freely in the home, and was even able to go on a shopping spree with Marilia. Robert is confronted his old friend that helped him conduct Vicente's surgery. He is pissed off that Vicente is now missing, and he suspects that Robert had something to do with his disappearance. 

Vicente comes back home, and talks to Robert's friend, telling him that he wanted the surgery, and is now happy being Vera. The friend appears weirded out by the obvious relationship between Robert and Vicente, and he leaves them alone. Later on that night, Robert and Vicente are spending time together. Vicente offers to get something to help them sleep together, since he is struggling to have sexual relations with Robert after what Zeca did to him. Robert agrees, and he lets Vicente leave the room. Vicente picks up the gun that Robert had stored in his desk, taking it back to the bedroom.

He kills both Robert and Marilia, finally able to escape from the home. 

He returns back to his family, who are still working in the clothing shop. He speaks with Cristina, and he reminds her of that random conversation they had six years ago, about that specific dress that Vicente had pointed out to his friend. He was now wearing this dress, as he tells Cristina everything he had gone through. They both cry, as Vicente's mother comes over to them in confusion, and he tells his mother that he is her son. 

The film abruptly cuts to black here, ending the movie. 

This movie is one of those stories where you will struggle to feel bad for either of the characters. The four main characters are all so evil. They each committed horrible actions against each other, making each of them impossible to redeem. 

Robert lost his entire family and decided to have Vicente take the place of his wife, as a sick form of revenge for what he did to Norma. 

Zeca was the reason why Robert's wife had died, and he proceeded to torture the new Vera straight away, literally after he arrives to the house. 

Marilia was aware that Robert and Zeca were her sons, never told them about each other, and she played a part with their evil actions. 

Vicente had tortured Norma, and it led to Robert's madness. 

The Skin I Live In is a conflicting film where every main character is the villain, and you will not know how to feel about either of them by the time the film ends. 

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Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn