Pornonomy Reviews: Skintight

Skintight (1981)

Directed by:
Ed DePriest

Starring:
Annette Haven
Connie Peterson
Cris Cassidy
Lee Caroll
Lisa De Leeuw
Mai Lin
Maria Tortuga
Starr Wood
Aaron Stuart
Billy Dee
Blair Harris
Mike Horner
Michael Morrison
Paul Thomas
R.J. Reynolds
Randy West

I thought I had this review pretty well written while I was watching Skintight. That is, until the last twelve minutes. I was going to say that Skintight seemed to be cobbled together with scenes from (at least) two different movies: a light-hearted film that focuses on a sex therapy clinic, staffed by Annette Haven, Lee Carroll, and Maria Tortuga, and a film in which Paul Thomas deals with a fiance saving herself for marriage with leather and chain fantasies springing from a fetish magazine.

The last scene (in which Paul Thomas rapes Maria Tortuga) ties both directions together with a darkness and intensity not even barely hinted at earlier in the film.

The way the film (and it's seemingly contradictory tones) comes together in the end leaves me with two (seemingly contradictory) opinions:

1. The film is a hot mess that was put together on the fly (or there's a director's cut out there with an additional 30 minutes that makes sense from beginning to end), or

2. Skintight is a bit of auteur genius that has more in common with Cronenberg's Spider or Herzog's Bad Lieutenant than with Deep Throat or even Behind the Green Door.

If it's the former, then I can at least say that it's worth checking out for a great opening credit sequence (on par with Triple Xposure), and the film rates a C-.

If it's the latter, though, Skintight is the most mind-bending adult film I've seen since the excellent Neon Nights and rates an A.

At this point I'm pretty much split 50/50, and I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to firmly come down on one side or the other.