New On Demand from Opening Image Productions and Miracle Media!
Directed/Written by Mico Montes.
Check out the trailer here!!
BARE SKIN is an anthology of sorts as it is about a support group coming together for the first time. Now, in the really real world, the first session should be less about learning the backstories of each person that leads each member to the group and the focus should be on trust building team exercises, so people can build the confidence and trust of the group to share these extremely personal experiences. But since this is a movie, BARE SKIN skips past that and forces each member to reveal the deeply personal and scarring trauma that led them to therapy. This makes the film an anthology, sort of, as it tells each member’s story. While some of them are simply alluded to, others go into great detail as to what each person endured.
This leads to the film’s first issue and that is the fact that it is just shy of two and a half hours long. That’s a lot of time to commit to any movie, let alone a low budget anthology. I get it. There are five people in the group and for each person to have their own moment, trauma, and psycho babble session assigned to it—that takes some time. Still, I think the runtime works against this film, as it does seem to try to respect the therapeutic aspects most of the time. It’s admirable, but a good solid edit, knocking off about forty five minutes would help this film immensely. There are scenes like the trust building session and the time when the group takes a break that could be whittled out altogether for a more succinct viewing without cutting out something too important.
I like the way one member’s issues tie into others. There is quite a bit of attention to linking these backstories together that I liked. On their own, these traumatic vignettes might not work. But if one doesn’t grab you, there’s another one coming along shortly. Most of the stories need fleshed out, which is ironic since this is such a long movie.
The stories can be summed up in about a sentence. The first is just a brief snippet about a group member who lost his home to a fire and now, seems to be an arsonist who doesn’t like to have possessions. The second is about a group member who witnesses the death of her husband at the hands of a kinky, leather suit wearing madwoman. The third is about a group member who cowardly leaves his best friend to die at the hands of a violin-playing killer. The fourth group member tells about how he was captured and placed in a well for an extended amount of time and how he got out. Finally, the last of the group reveals a story of how she was sexually assaulted in her home by a door-to-door salesman and how it scarred her life. Each story is accompanied by the mousey therapist, played by Rachel Alig, giving her two psychological cents about their trauma, as well as reactions from the group that wouldn’t be allowed in any therapeutic session such as “That’s fucked up!”
This makes for a rather surface level film that never stays around one story long enough for investment. I think if one or two of the group members would have been edited out, the film would have been able to delve a little deeper into each member’s trauma, as well as make for a more digestible runtime. The final moments of BARE SKIN attempt to tie the stories together, which I saw coming about halfway through, that not only kind of trivializes the problems of each member, but never really delivers on some kind of satisfying finale.
In the end, I liked the short stories of each of the group members. Some of them were quite disturbing and delivered some unsettling imagery. I especially liked the violinist with a razor blade on his bow and the leather fetish scene was nice and perverted. And Rachel Alig delivers a really solid performance as the therapist as she embodies the mousey, damaged soul that most therapists seem to convey, unfortunately. As a whole, I don’t think BARE SKIN delivers, but I do think it has its moments that make is a mild recommendation.
