A number of Grade-Z horror icons like J. R. Bookwalter and Dave DeCoteau were involved with this turkey. The leads are played by non-actors Mary Jackson, Scott Spiegel and Susan Rothacker. The result is exactly what I deserve for haunting a dying video store and buying its used tapes for five bucks a pop. A homicidal mother and her two grown childrenthe Crawdaddy Clan, no less--all look the same age as they travel around butchering and flaying convenient victims. Then their van breaks down and they're forced to stay with some equally weird country yokels. Mother Dear, a scraggly-haired, wheelchair-riding one-eyed wonder, is rude to her hosts and eats like a wild hog at the dinner table but the nerds let her stay anyway. The son and daughter are grubby, foul-mouthed, incestuous and so inept that most of their victims don't die the first time, so we get to see some of the same people hacked on more than once. The dopey hosts don't catch on to what their guests really are until just before they're murdered and hung up to dry. This is one of the most scatological horror films ever and there's not one likable, normal or even rational character in the whole picture. The acting is over-the-top, the writing and plot are negligible and most of the production values are rock-bottom but SKINNED ALIVE, if nothing else, lives up to its name. Except for one fake hatchet murder the numerous splatter effects are convincing and there actually is one live skinning with the killers playing with the peeled hide afterward. In the best scene a Jehovah's Witness walks up to Mrs. Crawdaddy and asks "Are you happy with your life?" She pulls a Colt .45 and blows him away. Maybe she isn't so bad after all.
Review of Skinned Alive
