Director: Julian Richards
Writer: Robert D Weinbach (Screenplay) Brian Harper (Novel)
Starring: Danielle Harris, John Jarratt, Casper Van Dien, Rae Dawn Chong, Brad Harris, Valerie Harper
Plot: Wendy Alden, a young secretary in Portland lacking in self- confidence becomes victim of a savage killer who has claimed the lives of a number of other women. Somehow Wendy finds the resources of courage to fight back and escape.
Tagline – The Perfect Killer Had Met His Match
Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Skin Collector starts as the Griffin (Jarratt) a serial killer has started picking off the vulnerable women in Portland, starting to play games with Detective Delgado (Van Dien) and Detective Burdine (Chong), until his latest victim Wendy Alden (Harris) escapes this grasp.
Franklin Rood isn’t going to let Wendy escape him and a dangerous game of cat-n-mouse starts between the two, where Wendy needs to find a way to survive and come out of the shell she has been stuck in.
Thoughts on Skin Collector
Characters & Performances – Wendy is a secretary that does lack her own self-confidence that has just started to come out of her shell, when she becomes the target of a serial killer, needing to fight back and figure out how to survive the situation, she does learn that she has lived a similar childhood as the serial killer, giving her a chance to feel sympathy for him. Danielle Harris in the leading role continues her position as the character that needs to overcome a serial killer, making for someone who can fight back with ease. Franklin Rood is the mild-mannered serial killer that has been working on killing women, with his latest target being Wendy, he shows us just how unstable he is, going from calm to controlling to murderous in an instant. John Jarratt is known for his role in Wolf Creek, which will show us just how easily he can step into a psychotic character. Detective Delgado and Burdine are the two trying to find the serial killer, filling in most of the information about who he really is. Casper Van Dien and Rae Dawn Chong fill these roles well through the film, even if they are mostly filling in the blanks.
Story – The story here follows a young woman that gets targeted by a serial killer, which will see her needing to finally stand up for herself to fight back and survive the calculated killer. This is a cat-n-mouse style horror thriller, with the killer needing to go through his own routine to get his satisfaction. We get the basic idea of how twisted the killer can be, but we hold back on the violence, we don’t seem to get much time focusing on his process, this is the same for Wendy, we get a phone call to highlight her problems, but otherwise, we don’t see how much damage has been done to her early life, showing the fighting back being more of a revelation. When it comes to the battle between the two, it is all tidy with how it unfold, leading it to everything in the final battle, even if it does seem to end softly for what the killer is meant to have done before.
Themes – Skin Collector is a horror thriller that will have the dark side of the serial killer’s mind, which does have a twisted desire that gets revealed slowly.
Release Date: Feb 15th (DVD & VOD)
Final Thoughts – Skin Collector is an easy watch cat-n-mouse style horror thriller with genre queen Danielle Harris shining.
