In Their Skin

In Their Skin

Starring Selma Blair, Joshua Close, Rachel Miner, James D'Arcy

Directed by Jeremy Power Regimbal

The Story:
Married couple Mary (Selma Blair) and Mark (Joshua Close) are trying to re-kindle their marriage after the tragic death of their young daughter by going to a secluded house with their son Brendon (Quinn Lord).  One morning they meet their eccentric neighbors - married couple Bobby (James D'Arcy) and Jane (Rachel Miner), and their son Jared (Alex Ferris).

Although Mary wants time alone with Mark, he invites his neighbors to dinner, and find that they're very off-putting, asking a lot of personal questions and not being very forthcoming about their own lives.  When Jared attacks Brendon, Mark kicks the family out, thinking they'll never see them again.

Unfortunately, the neighbors are more deranged than Mark thought, and now they want Mark and Mary's lives - and will stop at nothing to be the perfect family.

The Synopsis:
Horror movies spread the gambit, and most of them aren't very frightening to me on a personal level.  When I go camping, I'm 0% sure I'll run into a long-dead machete-wielding killer with mommy issues.  When I sleep at night, I fully don't expect some guy in a red and green sweater and fedora wielding a clawed glove to kill me.  Horror gives the suspension of disbelief, but there's a certain type of horror that's downright frightening, and that's the kind that can actually happen.

"In Their Skin" is a home invasion horror film that parallels a Hitchcock thriller in that there's the tension from the start that slowly winds like a corkscrew before finally unleashing all the terror you'd expect.  Unlike other horror films, "In Their Skin" is frightening not because of jump scares or accelerated music, but because this is something that could actually happen - and probably has.

The film centers on mirrored families, and the cinematography equally parallels that.  There's scenes where the families are sitting at the dinner table, across from each other, and it looks like a mirror image.  Even when the husband gets up, the other husband does as well, and it's filmed beautifully in its creepiness.  You can clearly tell from the onset that the neighbors want to be like Mary and Mark, and their extremely odd behavior is an indicator that they're not normal in the head.

The underlying dread is woven throughout the start, and slowly unravels until someone takes the spool and completely yanks it apart, amping the tension from zero to a hundred in seconds.  What started out as the most awkward dinner ever escalates to violence, kidnapping, murder, and more.  It almost becomes unbearable to watch not because it's awful, but because it's so unnerving.

The heart of the film lies in the six characters we see on screen, and even though these actors aren't completely household names, they each give powerful performances.  Selma Blair is the most well-known, but not even she has been able to really hit it out of the supporting role category and own a film, but she does here as Mary, the matriarch of the good family who harbors deep sadness over the loss of her daughter, and her disintegrating marriage.  Yet all that goes out the window when her family's lives are at stake, and she becomes a forceful wind of vengeance.

Equally Joshua Close, as Mary's husband Mark, finds his inner strength through the turmoil.  He harbors even deeper guilt over his daughter's death, and is scared that he's loosing his family.  He goes from a timid man to hero during the ordeal, becoming the father and husband Mary needs him to be.

On the other end of the spectrum, James D'Arcy and Rachel Miner are completely unnerving as the film's antagonists.  D'Arcy's Bobby is a psychopath who thinks Mary and Mark have the perfect life, and therefore wants it for himself.  He goes from awkward and clumsy to deranged and psychotic at the flip of a hat, and D'Arcy completely owns his performance.  Equally Rachel Miner plays Jane with a mixture of youthful innocence and pure insanity, as she envies Mary's life and wants to be her, but also seems to lack the mental capacity to fully understand what she's doing.

The only downside to the film is the climax, which seems to come out of nowhere, effectively ending this dramatic standoff within seconds, and it felt like I suddenly switched over to the ending of a Lifetime movie.  It's unfortunate that the film ends in this way, as the events up to it was filmed so masterfully.

The film does tackle the issue of jealousy, and how we see the world through rose-colored glasses.  Bobby and Jane think Mark and Mary have the perfect life, due to seeing their lavish house, their well-behaved son, and prestigious jobs, but they don't see the cracks that lie underneath, and proves to all of us that no matter how perfect we think peoples' lives are, they're putting on an act to hide the true sadness that lies beneath. 

The Summary:
Providing a slow burn that swells to a full-on fire, "In Their Skin" fully uses the talents of the four main actors to their strengths, providing a truly terrifying home invasion tale that's creepy, unnerving, and unrelenting.

The Score: A-