In Their Skin

In Their Skin (formerly "Replicas") is Regimbal's directorial debut, but armed with a strong cast and a solid screenplay, he creates a web of worthwhile scenes that will stick with the viewer. Perhaps misguidedly toying with the horror genre early in the film, he chooses the focus on the drama, the characters and story and let you decide if you are endeared, amused, scared, uneasy, entertained or otherwise.

Regimbal stays with this beautiful ambiguity for most of the feature and gets fine-tuned performances from his story and character-driven cast that allows for the "replicas" to reveal themselves slowly, but surely. The suspense is high and the dark humour as well. A beautiful piece with a slow burn pace. We left the Montreal FantAsia screening and director Q&A with more questions than answers, but with deep satisfaction of exploring a compelling concept with complexity, dexterity and depth.

The only difference between this movie and Funny Games is in this movie it is a psycho family, some nudity and sex scenes and a few more gunshots. Other than that I couldn't believe this movie script didn't get thrown out as a complete knock off of Funny Games.

Now if you have not seen Funny Games, then I suggest you pick your villain. If you want to see two psycho young men torture a normal wealthy family, go see Funny Games. If you want to see a psycho lower class family torture a normal wealthy family, see this movie.

Both movies have great casts and great acting but I would have to give this film a slight edge in that category. However, when it comes to the disturbingly psychopathic factor in the villains, I give that edge to Funny Games.

All in all, don't waste your time like I did with this movie if you have seen Funny Games. Definitely a good experience I imagine for those who haven't.

I hadn't heard of this movie until I was scrolling through an online site, so I thought I'd kill a bit of lockdown time and watch it. Starts with a scene on a bridge, a guy in his underwear struggling to get away from someone. He falls and is killed by an unknown assailant. Cut to the Hughes family travelling to their vacation cottage, clearly struggling after the death of their young daughter. Quick stop at a gas station and the attendant tells them they're early, the usual families aren't due for a couple of weeks but one or two have arrived.

Early next morning Mark Hughes hears a noise and goes outside to find a family outside his house, they explain they are leaving him some firewood. Mark is initially rude to them, but softens and caves in to their suggestion they call back later for a meal.

What then ensues is pretty predictable, the pushy Father, the timid - mentally challenged even - wife and the creepy son, try to find out about the loves of the Hughes. As the evening progresses tempers become frayed and the Hughes ask their guests to leave. Following that we're talking a straight home invasion movie. There is quite a bit of brutality, a pretty gross forced sex scene (because everyone is watching) and a couple of revelations.

It's very predictable, and you kind of wonder why the Hughes would even invite these awful people into their home. The Hughes' son is a drippy, teddy bear clutching nine year old who clearly has issues, whilst rhe son of the other family is quite possibly the oddest, creepiest bad actor ever.

I enjoyed it, probably wouldn't hurry to watch it again but it's a good movie. Selma Blair and James D'Arcy outact everyone else on the screen.

A lot of the press for this seems to be categorizing it as a "home invasion" thriller, and while it certainly fits the profile, I kind of like that I came into it (without having dug my way into the "R" section of the program yet) thinking it was going to be something a little more fantastical. That's fine; it had me looking at the characters for signs of weird behavior which was awarded in spades.

No matter what's actually going on, this is a tense little movie that establishes its atmosphere early - and finds ways to balance gloom and something intrusive while doing so. Director Jeremy Regimbal does a pretty nifty job of playing the two families in the movie as mirror images of each other, showing them tightly wound and then letting loose in the final act without ever letting the tension go slack.

Good stuff.

(2012) In Their Skin PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

Starring Joshua Close who was also credited for writing the story along with the director Jeremy Power Regimbal. He plays Mark along with his wife (Selma Blair) and son settling down into a remote home somewhere along the highway. And suddenly get imposed upon by another family unexpectedly named Bobby (James D'Arcy) and his wife and kid, and then the next thing you know this dysfunctional family started terrorizing them for no apparent reason. Low budget and has been done before from such movies as "The Strangers", "The Last House On The Left" to "Funny Games". Do we really need to see a much lower budget variation of those movies.