Replace

Replace is about a young woman (Rebecca Forsythe) who suddenly develops a fast-spreading skin condition (it looks like she's peeling) and desperately looks for a cure. At least that one aspect of the story. The young woman also has short-term memory loss and slight moments of distorted reality. She meets strangers who say they've already met, including a skin specialist. Is she going nuts? Or is she already there? Let me back up. When we first meet Kira, she's heading to the apartment of a man she met at a bar. They laugh, they flirt, she spends the night. When she wakes up, he's gone, and the skin condition appears. She tries scratching it and picking at it, as one is wont to do, which only makes matters worse. She visits a dermatologist (Barbara Crampton) who prescribes some medication "for the pain." But Kira discovers something really wacked, and completely by accident. She learns that if she peels off some affected skin and then applies someone else's skin to that spot, the new skin will adhere immediately to her body. This contradicts known medicine, as skin grafts can be a very lengthy and painful process. Has she found a cure for her malady? Lest one think this is just about a woman and her need for some good lotion, there's a mindbending twist, a psychological smack in the head for the viewer. It's too wonderful to explicate here, but in the great tradition of these thrillers, not all is what it seems. In fact, little is.

The final twist is perfect. Enough pieces fall into place that Kira's situation makes some sense, although not every question is answered neatly. The script is well written (by Norbert Keil and Richard Stanley), and Forsythe, Crampton, and Lucie Aron (as Kira's neighbor) turn in strong performances. Well made all around.

Kira Mabon (Rebecca Forsythe) is a young woman with frequent memory losses. She slightly recalls Jonas Swierczynski (Sean Knopp), who had one night stand with her and does not remember where she lives. Her next-door neighbor, the lesbian Sophia Demeraux (Lucie Aron), visits her to know whether she is OK, and they befriend each other. Out of the blue, Kira's hand begins to age and deteriorate, and Kira runs to Dr. Rafaela Crober (Barbara Crampton), who takes samples of her skin to investigate what is happening with Kira. She requests a transplant of skin, but Dr. Crober tells her that she needs the results of the exams first. During the night, her skin deteriorates in other areas, and she goes to Dr. Czerny (Adnan Maral) in a hospital to request a skin transplant. He says that it is not possible, and she needs to wait for Dr. Crober. But soon Kira learns that she can replace her deteriorate skin by a fresh one and she starts a crime spree to replace her skin. One night, she breaks in Dr. Crober's office and discovers the truth about her and Dr. Crober.

"Replace" (2017) is a strange movie with an interesting plot, but messy and boring screenplay and direction. The story makes sense after the discovery of Kira about the relationship between Dr. Crober and she, but the slow pace does not help to develop the plot. The conclusion is predictable. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Replace - Maldição de Pele" ("Replace - Course of Skin")

Kira is terrified of getting older and, one day, she notices a strange growth on her finger that starts to spread to other parts of her body, rendering her skin flaky and rough. After seeing a doctor and a specialist who don't seem to know what's wrong with her, she suddenly realizes that replacing her skin with other human tissue can heal her, but it doesn't last forever and she needs more and more victims to heal herself.

On paper, the concept of Replace sounds excellent, but the script is complete mess with characters doing things that require huge leaps of logic. The first 45 minutes are mostly a series of odd decisions made by our heroine which are never explained even when a big mid point twist arrives, trying to make sense of everything we've seen up to that point.

Kira does things like pick up a slice of her friend's foot that's just been injured on a broken wine glass and stick in on her own skin. Why was she lead to do this? I suppose because the script said so. Even weirder is when she leaves her doctor's appointment and decides to take a trip down to the morgue to flay the skin off of a corpse and try it on for size. It's never explained why she jumps to these extremes and it makes for an infuriating watch.

On the plus side, Replace is one of the most beautifully shot indie horror films I've seen in years, but it almost has to be to keep the audience interested in its moronic script and characters. Even horror icon Barbara Crampton can't save this mess of a movie.

Was drawn into seeing 'Replace' with a cool poster/cover, a very intriguing and creative premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

'Replace' is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws those films are present here, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. As a film it's lacklustre, with a plethora of problems (huge ones too) and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There is very little good about it

Lets start with the positives. The scenery is atmospheric and spooky and 'Replace' is surprisingly well shot.

Found too that the acting was not bad, doing their best with disappointingly nowhere near enough material to work with, and that there were a few nice twists that intrigued and weren't telegraphed too early.

Unfortunately, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. The effects are ropy at best.

Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés and no depth whatsoever (definitely one of the worst assets), while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags with very little going on worth caring about. Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense.

There are a good deal of underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. There is not enough threat here and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, it is completely unimaginative and more odd than creepy, with little sense of horror or urgency. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is leaden, inexperience seems to be all over the film. There is no creativity or anything shocking.

As said previously very well, the music, sound and editing are the worst assets. The music is too loud, sounds cheap (may have worked 25 or so years ago but doesn't work here), tries far too hard to generate emotion and is far too predictably placed and often out of kilter. The sound is too echoey and often without warning or reason and makes some of the voices sound strange. The editing is haphazard and affects the coherence of some of the goings on and story structure.

Overall, lacklustre but far from unwatchable. 4/10 Bethany Cox

This was one mixed up movie.

Zero character development, no real plot, not sci fi - but a weird nightmarish fantasy, and wow, very ponderous to watch with the extremely slow pace.

I watched the first 40 minutes, then watched the rest at 2x speed until I saw something that might be interesting (it never was interesting).

I'm a hard core sci fi fan, and will give any sci fi production a chance, regardless of a very low rating here at IMDb, but this is defo one you can pass on.