Under The Skin [DVD] [2014]

NOTE: This is a review of the book AND the movie--sort of a compare contrast deal. One of the most haunting stories I've ever read. It's so creative I can barely believe it. Still, slow-motion nightmarishness. A mix of the philosophic and gruesome blood hash death! It gets the Kelly D. Snuff Maximus Award for nastiness and blood drenched slaughter. If they ever made a movie that followed the book strictly, it'd make John Hurt's chest exploding scene seem like Winnie the Pooh getting his head stuck in a pot of honey. Isserley is an extremely surgically-altered alien female who drives around Northern Scotland in search of fresh meat; alien as in outer space—not from Central America or Syria. Not that she or her peers can eat such meat; earthling/vodsel is a delicacy on her planet. It's far too expensive for her class to purchase. They were allotted the “poorer-quality mince, the necks, offal and extremities.” Lovely. Yeah, Isserley is from an unnamed planet choking on its own runaway pollution. The wealthy, "elite," live their entire lives inside and let the lower classes provide their sustenance and riches. Therefore, obviously, Isserley's is a low-level job, but still considered above the drudgery of working in the "New Estates," located in a hideously overpopulated and claustrophobic underground. It’s a more technologically advanced type of Morlock society, if you will. In the mind’s eye they think of themselves as the civilized society, and humans as the “savages.” However, these aliens actually seem to be physically closer to what vodsels call canine. Michel Faber does a great job of translating their native thoughts and communications into English without being the slightest bit intrusive. Interestingly, there’s a category of space traveling elites from her planet that would be labeled here on earth as “tree-hugging environmentalist whackos.” Isserley hates them. In fact, when one of these alien environmentalists comes to planet earth, “Amlis Vess,” he releases three of the captive vodsels which were being prepared for slaughter. After which, there’s a nightmarish, keystone cops slapstick scene wherein Isserley and a meatpacking laborer have to hunt down the fugitive vodsels before they’re found out! It’s cold, and the naked, grotesquely-fattened-by-space-steroids vodsels are shivering and turning blue; their bodies bloated like Michelin men. Their teeth have been pulled and they're castrated for good measure. They can’t talk and only “moo.” S*** drizzles down their overfed, stammering legs. After this Benny Hill saxophone corralling situation ends, the two exhausted chasers look at each other and start to laugh. Unbelievably hellish hijinks, eh? Isserley knows earthlings far better than the elites do. The elites have only heard rumors that vodsels can communicate with any sophistication. When Isserley tours the vodsel stockyards with Vess, one swollen, mewing vodsel writes out the word “mercy” in the dirt floor of their corral. Vess is curious if it means anything. Isserley says “of course not.” She knows that vodesels can write, however. She's watched enough TV to know that. Nonetheless, she misinterprets the word as “murky.” She does not provide information about vodsels to the nobles because she despises “humans” like Amlis Vess. Isserley is not a happy space camper. Her cynicism runs deep. She thinks vodsels are shallow, empty animals. They lacked “siuwil, mesnishtil, slan, hunshur, hississins, chail and chailsinn. They couldn't siuwil, they couldn't mesnishtil, they had no concept of slan. In their brutishness, they’d never evolved to use hunshur; their communities were so rudimentary that hississins did not exist; nor did these creatures seem to see any need for chail, or even chailsinn.” These terms obviously relate to the intellectual and philosophical depth of her civilization. At the very end of the novel, you get a glimpse of the Buddha-like nature of these elements in her culture. Isserley is brutally raped by a serial murdering vodsel in a scene that made me wanna puke. “His penis was grossly distended, fatter and paler than a human's, with a purplish asymmetrical head. At its tip was a small hole like the imperfectly closed eye of a dead cat.” “After a minute with his urine flavored flesh in her mouth, the knife-blade on her neck was lifted slightly, replaced by hard stubby fingers.” “'Murky,' she pleaded.” Thankfully, she hideously kills this scumbag. This ordeal drives Isserley a bit insane, which manifests itself in a temporary gory-maximus-blood-lust; she brings in a sedated vodsel and demands that she be allowed to watch his grisly, thick gouts of crimson castration. This adds to her already complete and everlasting cynicism. Too bad her revenge-by-proxy is taken out on a genuinely good vodsel. Between the grotesque inequality of her culture, and the barbarism of most of the vodsel males she meets on her travels, it would be bizarre if she was NOT filled with hopeless pessimism. The message is pretty clear, male vodsels blow. I have some problems with the book. For instance, the aliens have to know that vodsels can build cars, planes, and even rocket ships. But they don't know if they can write? What the hell was Faber thinking? What the hell were his editors thinking? Unless I missed something, this is an egregious f-up. I could not blame someone for not liking this book because of that major flaw. But I'm a forgiving reader. My philosophy is that in a fictional world, anything can make sense—even nonsense. In art, sometimes pieces don't fit together “correctly” without the “flaws.” It doesn't “sound right.” “Under the Skin,” the movie, doesn't have this “flaw.” It's even more of a feminist story than the book, and the book is plenty feminist. The book's story telling is extremely loud, whereas the movie's story style is deafeningly quite. The cinematic version is made even more chilling because of the stark contrast between the quiet characters and the in-your-face, roaring sound design and score. Also, the movie is fast, the score is not. Silence is a powerful, POWERFUL tool. A book is wall-to-wall, rock 'n roll movement. Of course, a novel DOES give us a lot of information that we have ponder in solitude, and that's a completely in-your-head sort of silence. The final scene reminded me of the burning dowry deaths of the Middle-East, as well as our burn-the-victim-not-the-rapist culture. Both the book and the movie are brilliant, and they complement each other—weirdly.

I would like to start by saying i am a fan of films that are "different". I don't need a million gunshots or explosions to entertain me. I am not set on good guy vs bad guy and good guy winning. I like thought provoking films; i enjoy them much more than the soul sucking films that are manufactured on a daily basis. So i was intrigued by this one. The trailer was dark and seemed full of suspense. The critics had made bold comparisons with Stanley Kubrick, which in itself is a massive compliment. And as someone who lives in Scotland it had a little sentiment to it. But for me it was dull. Every time i thought it was going to pick up the pace, it decelerated. It was so slow it may as well have been going backwards. There are far too many scenes that are prolonged. I am fully aware of its intention to focus on aesthetically driven scenes. But 5/6 seconds is enough to appreciate it, not 10/15 seconds. At some points i thought the reel had maybe stuck and was expecting a CineWorld employee to come pacing round the corner to explain that there was something wrong. It just pauses at points that don't need that much attention. I am also aware of the symbolic nature the film carries. It is clearly a film you need to look further to understand it in more depth. That is fine; i welcome that, but the problem is that it does this without conviction. I don't need to see the masses of drunkards who swarm Sauchiehall Street 20 times. What is the purpose? To let us know that we, as people, blindly walk through life intoxicated not appreciating the finer things in life? That Under the skin we are empty? I assume that is a candidate for its meaning. Scarlett Johansson doesn't have a lot to do in this film; basically make small talk and get naked, all the while with a plain face. And considering how ridiculous the Scottish actors are made to look, maybe she is due some credit for maintaining that straight face. There are a few things that bug me however; like she can walk down your average staircase, but panics with a spiral staircase. There is a definite point to this film, but with the layout, with there being no real culmination, no real explanation, it leaves you feeling you have been robbed of a film that could have been more. Could have told a better story. And for any Americans who watch, not all Scottish people talk like that, or wear horrible purple shirts, unnecessarily tucking them into our over elevated jeans. We don't all support Hibs and when a van is parked not all of us will gang up and try to break into the van. So feel free to visit. It is a nice place after all. Although the film had some stunning scenes and promotes Scotland visually, it doesn't exactly put the people in a great light. I wanted to enjoy this film, but i couldn't. I wanted to agree with comparisons with Kubrick, but i certainly won't. You can throw arguments of it was beautifully crafted or had symbolic serenity, but at the end of the day it is slow, uneventful and lacked culmination.

This movie is confusing because it seems to start somewhere in the middle of the story. Reading the book is essential for understanding this movie. And even then the movie is mostly about what happens after the end of the book. There is some tie ins to the book but some of those are subtle. This movie only loosely matches up with the book. At end of the movie the main character crosses paths with someone who is like she herself was at the beginning of the book. The ending of this movie is bizarre. The special effects are creepy and do capture some of the main points from the book. This is the first time I ever read a book where the story is continued in a movie of the same name.

The title of this review bears repeating: The first clue to understanding this film is its title: "Under the Skin" and that's figurative as well as literal. Note: if the Scottish brogue is difficult to understand in places, turn on the English subtitles. Then again, fully understanding everything said isn't required, it's carefully observing what you're seeing that's essential. This UK (more specifically Scottish) film was directed by Jonathan Glazer whose other feature film of note is the 2000 UK gangster movie, Sexy Beast. Not knowing quite what to expect, within the first two minutes I was reminded of the famous Monty Python Flying Circus sound bite used to introduce the next and completely unrelated sketch: “and now for something completely different . . .” Those who insist on an expository narrative should turn away and go elsewhere as they’ll be naught but thoroughly frustrated within the first fifteen minutes. It is best characterized as a cerebral, surrealist mystery drama with a sci-fi theme. It’s definitely not a sci-fi action thriller, or a horror movie with jump scares and a gore fest. One look at Rotten Tomatoes shows enormous numbers of critics, not just a few, “get it”, but significant numbers of the general public don’t. Those that do not are not ambivalent either. They tend to outright despise the film, using vitriolic language and repeated scatological expletives to voice extreme displeasure. The cause is undoubtedly because this film is unlike 99.99% of contemporary English-speaking Occidental cinema. It’s not a 3rd person expository narrative and has near zero dialog. Hence, also, the large number of one star reviews here. This movie requires patience as it’s a slow burn, but in retrospect there’s a very valid reason.It also requires paying attention from start to finish, and remembering details about what’s already been observed that remains a puzzle piece that hasn’t fit into the final picture yet. There is very little dialog. The screenplay was inspired by Michel Faber’s 2000 novel with the same name, but anyone familiar with the novel will realize very quickly the movie is not an adaptation. It strips the novel down to its abstract core, using its main plot elements and theme while jettisoning narrative details. Those that have seen David Lynch’s surreal films will recognize the surrealist nature of this one immediately. It’s not symbolic though. What you see is what you get. The narrative is linear. However, the pieces of information aren't necessarily delivered in an order in which they’re immediately useful. The movie starts out with what seems to be the genesis of something that results in someone attempting to make phonetic sounds and pronounce simple words, as if it’s a literate person who’s having to learn how to speak to express thoughts with a vocabulary they already possess. It ends with examining a human eye; IIRC, it has a green iris. Then we have a scene in which a motorcyclist (Jeremy McWilliams) retrieves a comatose woman hidden just off the side of a motorway and puts her into the back of a van where a naked Scarlett Johansson strips off the woman’s clothes and puts them on. She then drives off in the van, going to a shopping mall to buy more clothes and makeup. We get the impression she’s unfamiliar and inexperienced with this. It’s followed by her driving the van around Scotland, picking up young men by asking directions, or for other help, and offering them a ride, using her strikingly beautiful appearance to attract them. She’s seeking single men that live alone. Should be clear quickly that they wouldn’t be missed very soon if they disappeared. Rather than give us a 3rd person objective narrative, Glazer and Walter Campbell, his co-writer, want us “under the skin” with Johansson, experiencing the world and its inhabitants subjectively in the 1st person, as she does. The first major clue we’re given is the movie’s title: “Under the Skin”. It’s the point of view we’re being given throughout: from under Johansson’s skin with her. This wasn’t immediately obvious to me at the start. I strongly suspected this at about the shopping mall scene. What the film portrayed made much more sense. This POV was quickly confirmed and then reinforced through to the end. A few scenes flip to 3rd person, but they’re obvious as we’re not with Johansson. Any time we’re with her, we’re in 1st person. Going any further would introduce spoilers. The reveals are slow, but eventually there’s hardly any mystery left. The reality of what’s transpiring is simple and straightforward, but Glazer isn’t going to hit the audience over the head with it. What may seem confusing behaviors are very blatant clues about what this unnamed woman is. The one thing I will provide is this: step outside of being human as if you’re not (social needs, emotions, ego, id, libido, etc.) and contemplate wondering what being human would be like by observing and interacting with them. Then think about most of Johansson’s behavior when she’s out it public. She knows how to communicate well, but she’s a stranger in a very strange land that doesn't have any social or emotional responses, or empathy in common with anyone around her. She is serving a specific purpose and providing a service for the motorcyclist under his supervision (and there are a few more motorcyclists later). The big reveal, in which all the pieces should fall into place occurs in the denouement at the end, but it shouldn't come as a big surprise either. For me it was confirmation of what I was ready to bet the farm on, although the nature of it was unexpected. Glazer doesn't answer all the questions with the denouement, but it’s better if he doesn't, as we’re still under her skin in the last few seconds. It’s left for us to go from there in whatever direction we wish, but for Johansson's character, her story is finished, and that’s what this film is about, her story. Sometimes leaving the larger story open is much more powerful, and IMO that’s the case here. These things didn't come to me immediately at the end. I had to think about this film for a while. Cross David Lynch with Stanley Kubrick (2001) and Andrei Tarkovsky (Solaris) and add a little Rod Serling DNA. For those who are willing to take on a film that is much different from the mainstream, to paraphrase a few lines from "Kubo and the Two Strings" before pushing the play button: If you must blink, do it now. Pay careful attention to everything you see and hear, no matter how unusual it may seem. And please be warned, if you fidget, if you look away, if you forget any part of what you see, even for an instant, then the story will surely elude you. John

One of the best movies I've seen in many years. And I watch a lot of movies. The hatred and indifference in the reviews here on Amazon is ironic. This is a movie about "the other" in society... a movie which revels in the dark confusion of identity. It is about what being different feels like. So it does not surprise me that so few people can appreciate it. We are a culture who goes to movies to see something comfortable and recognizable. Even when we meet strangers from another land or planet in our movies... they all seem to act and talk just like us, right down to their pre-packaged marketing dialogue phrases: "I'll be back." How reassuring for people and particularly Americans... who like to always think they know it all or can fight every enemy (alien) with our innumerable weapons. "Where are the guns?" audiences wonder? "Where is the fast-paced, choreographed, slow-motion fighting?" Or perhaps, "Why aren't all the characters speaking English and explaining everything that is happening, WHILE it is happening?" "Where are the funny catch phrases?" "Where are the sex scenes with the hot actress who I just saw in the tabloids?" "O help me please! It is not ALL being explained to me! I don't know who to root for because they're not wearing opposite colored jerseys!" they cry out... having been spoon-fed all this repetition for years by the Hollywood machinery where OTHER (weird) cultures, genders and attitudes are all boiled down to the same (usually male) "American" ideals. "Movies all need to look and feel like MEEEE!!" It is pretty ironic. This is a beautifully photographed, edited, and directed movie. There is nothing wrong with a movie being slow paced, I feel, provided there is ample material within the pacing to contemplate and explore. And there is here. This is a welcome return to movie making as a thoughtful often perplexing odyssey through repressed emotions and strange ideas. The story in this (yes, there is one if you actually pay attention) is oblique and mysterious. The story gently overlays cultural questions which are really quite close to home for all human beings when we look into the eyes of someone outside of our own heads... who we must admit we don't really know. And that can be a bit uncomfortable but it is certainly worth thinking about. If those kind of ideas don't interest you, then go watch a Star Wars... (I hear they're making another one.... which will be SO very different than the last six but with all the WAR parts still intact.)

The rave reviews on the cover (NYT, WaPo, LA Times) were misleading. It was at times "mesmerizing"...brief times. It had some wry ironic moments, like when the victims were being disassembled by the black ooze, their erections were that last things to disappear after their insides were totally gone...except the head. The head was the very last. You might have thought, if you're doing it, as "they" presumably were, to gain information about humanity, the head might have been first. Nope. That would bones and guts. But you aren't made of black ooze so maybe you don't get their logic. The style of the movie, visually and score-wise, is 1960s pretentious art movie. They were fun, this is fun. But most of it is filmed "straight" and makes essentially no sense. The few moments of pathos stand out: When the first (presumably over-human and so paralyzed by the overseer) girl is having her clothes stripped off by SJ so "she" can get dressed, as ScarJo is ready to disappear a solitary tear leaks out of the eye of the discarded girl. That was beautiful. But the set up is all art film--belonging to a world where logic does not apply. When you see the guys disappearing into the black (Nanite?) ooze that SJ walks on like a mirror, and especially when you see the ooze flush into the bizarre red boiler door slot, you think: Ah, they're getting info about us. BUT: SJ starts out flirting and conversing to perfection with her intended victims. Driving perfectly. Knowing how to navigate Scotland perfectly. Far more attuned to life among the Scots than, say, an American tourist. I had to turn on the English subtitles to understand what some of them were saying. She got it all fine. But she also understood standard English perfectly "out of the box". And the murderous overseer spent his time riding around recklessly on a motorcycle, searching for her perhaps, as though a species that can construct Scar Jo out of black ooze is unable to come up with Lo Jack to track her when she goes rogue. So on the one hand, a fair amount of it--doing homage to the aforementioned 60s art flicks--was beautiful and portentous. The basic organizing idea was stupid and half-baked. Scar Jo, as always, is good to watch. Some moments really stood out...possibly enhanced by the general absence of anything much going on plotwise. Those moments (aside from SJ being disrobed...yes, it's there, but no, it's not worth getting for that. She's a beautiful woman with or without clothes, it was not prurient) included the tear, the dissolved guys with hard-ons left, SJ looking at herself very humanly after first having sex, and the rape scene where the logger tears the faux flesh off the underlying android? Replicant? Black Ooze mannequin? and it sits holding SJ's peeled-off face in its hands, and the eyes blink at it. Nice touch. Some other nice touches, the black ooze Johansson initially buckles its seat belt religiously--but after getting "human" enough to release the neurofibromatosis sufferer it felt compassion for--it doesn't. It becomes just like the rest of us scofflaws. But part and parcel of the whole effort, she/it also doesn't buckle up at the very first. So that probably wasn't intentional. Bottom line: There are pretty shots, there is a quiet atmosphere of imminent revelation, there are some subtle moments of humor or pathos, but at the end of the day, it is beauty signifying nothing. We even have a shot of the murderous biker doing an homage to "Interstellar" for no reason at the end. If you live in a state with legal pot, it might be a great flick to light up and zone out, muttering every now and then "Oh....Wow.....man......." Some of the images will stay with you. And after awhile you'll probably have forgotten it didn't make sense. It wasn't trying to, it was just about atmosphere. And it did have atmosphere. In spite of its structural/conceptual flaws, Scar Jo is good enough you can watch it, and it's played straight so it's not irritating. But if you want something that has meaning, look elsewhere. If you're looking to zone out in a sensory world of drifting imagery, this will do it. It's not happy, nothing good happens unless you count the rapist possibly saving humanity, but it is eerie and fitfully lovely.

Um. Wow. It's really weird to see how many horrible reviews this movie got... way out of proportion to any positive reviews. Personally, I absolutely loved it. Best movie I've seen in a while. I don't know what everyone else was expecting. Action movie or something? Or I guess some of them were expecting a closer interpretation of the book (which I haven't read... yet). I can understand disappointment at a movie edition, having been burned by that a few times, but I'm also pretty good at treating the movie and book versions of things as completely separate entities, if the other still has merit. This does. It's slow, very slow-paced. But never for an instant boring. The premise (which probably differs completely from the book, hence the disappointment I guess?) is essentially about a monster, caring nothing for those she manipulates and beguiles, who gradually becomes self-aware, grows the beginnings of a conscience, and a curiosity about herself and the world around her. This simple idea is played out at a deliciously serene pace (with some decidedly sharp-edge moments), letting the movie's imagery speak as much as possible. The first half of the movie seems to be devoted to demonstrating how utterly without empathy or concern for any human being she is - boundlessly monstrous. And then a moment arrives where she seems to begin to understand what she's doing, at a level she had not, and leaves to find herself, and try to pick up the pieces of her confusion, and cope with the unconquerable differences between herself and the people that she would otherwise allow to become part of her life. The end is tense, and a little surprising (but not very - there are shocking moments in the movie, but not ever really surprising, as the was telegraphed loudly from the second the movie begins), and possibly anticlimactic... but seems fitting anyway. I enjoyed the whole ride quite a bit. So, bottom line: if you loved the book and are hoping for a movie version of it, my impression is you'll be disappointed. If you're easily bored/distracted and require constant stimulation, this is not your movie. If you like horror movies that don't depend on constant shock-value, but rather subtlety, suspense, revulsion, with a few shocks peppered more tastefully, then you may love this, as I did. (I also loved the Swedish movie "Let The Right One In", which I think could be compared in some ways stylistically with this).

I bought this on the recommendation of other google reviews. I don't mind Scarlett Johansson mostof the time. I loved Ghost in the Shell. She was really great. I found Lucy the same way, on a review. Not as good as GitS, but not bad. Then this. Ugh...Where do I begin. First off, everyone for the most part is talking with a Scottish accent. I don't have anything against that, but I have a hearing disability, so it's pretty rough. I hate subtitled films with a passion, but I had no choice but to utilize them. Second, I don't think the instrument has been invented to measure just how slow this movie crawls...Ugh... You could drive to the car wash, get a deluxe wash and come back and you wouldn't have missed much of the movie plot. Third, did I say plot? Because seriously, I don't think it really reveals itself until nearly the end. Again, UGH. I think they were going for some new girl version of The Man Who Fell To Earth. But to be honest, I think they missed it by making the pace of the movie so slow and the vagueness of the movie so large. I usually keep every movie I buy, but I would have no issues dropping this one in the drop box at the local thrift store. If you are a glutton for punishment, go ahead, but be forewarned. I will say one positive thing about the movie and that's about the Scottish countrysides that were filmed. Not the city views, but the landscapes - beautiful, moody, captivating and the best part of the film.

Bra! Men hade uppskattat om filmen haft rätt aspect ratio som den är inspelad i. På den här Blu ray-utgåvan visas den i 16:9 istället för 1.85:1.

劇中にほとんど台詞が無いので、インポート番でも問題ありませんでした。

Je moet eerst even wennen aan deze vreemde SF film. Maar het intrigeert, dus je blijft kijken. En je wilt natuurlijk niet een compleet naakte Scarlett Johansson missen. Moedig van haar.

In his 2000 debut Sexy Beast, Jonathan Glazer burst onto the scene with all the swagger and verve of a young Tarantino but instead of capitalising on that success, the music video director made only one more movie (2004's underwhelming Birth) in the next decade and a half. However, despite the lack of hands-on practice, his new film is nonetheless marked by the kind of reach and maturity that, back in 2000, we all would've hoped he'd be showing right now. Based on Michael Faber's novel, Under the Skin is a stunning piece of science fiction cinema that lives up to the genre's loftiest promises in the manner 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dark City, and Primer do. It begins with an alien (an extraordinary Scarlett Johansson) assuming the guise of a human female in order to lure lonely men (played by unwitting non-actors who thought they were genuinely being picked up and who the crew filmed with hidden cameras) back to her apartment where human reality and that of her species' morph into a gateway from the former to the latter. The purpose of this seduction is revealed in one remarkable scene that will chill you to the bone - without giving too much away, let's just say it's a process that someone or something else takes care of while Johansson's alien predator goes back out on the prowl. But with each foray into the world of humans and each victim she brings back, something changes within her that causes her to crave a fuller range of human experience. Within this stripped down narrative, Glazer achieves two equally daring and intangible objectives. Primarily, he offers an examination of human existence as an alien construct but within that aim is the ostensibly narrower but infinitely broader goal of pondering the oft-dodged question of what alien consciousness might amount to. He does this not through abstraction or surrealism but through a dramatic realignment of the traditional realism in which movies are shot. It is this regard that comparisons to Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky are warranted. Like Kubrick does in the closing sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Glazer (albeit to a lesser extent) methodically probes what experience might be to a sentient being of an incomprehensible nature (incomprehensible to us). A creature born to and framed by a different reality and vastly different dimensional constraints. This is what so many sci-fi films avoid dealing with because it obtrudes on any traditional notion of narrative. But through Glazer's ability to detach from the standards of character perspective and meticulously frame a new kind of perspective around Faber's vision, an intriguing marriage between the two is achieved. Central to the project's effectiveness however is Johansson's bravery and strength as an actor. She not only carries the film as the only significant character but she builds a character every bit as nuanced as the reality which Glazer gives her to inhabit. A level of technical proficiency is equally crucial here for one misstep along the way and the delicate tangibility of that reality could shatter. Thankfully, that's what we get. There's a stark beauty to Daniel Landin's cinematography that complements the bleakness of the subject matter and Mica Levi's ubiquitous but unobtrusive score provides an appropriately haunting quality. It all adds up to a profound meditation on existence that reaches deep into the psyche. It's cerebral and stimulating but, as is often the case, it's also extremely disturbing. Anything that makes us abandon our archetypes of understanding always is and so anyone looking for a mainstream science fiction movie should be warned away. This is as bleak a film as you'll ever see and so it works less as a piece of entertainment as it does a work of art. Even those who appreciate such an endeavour may not be inclined to revisit it too often, such is the level of discomfort it can generate. Not to worry, though, because Under the Skin isn't a film you'll forget easily.

liked everything