In My Skin

Without deploying reductive backstory or simplistic psychology, this fearless movie -- easily the year's best debut feature -- illuminates Esther's pathology as an extreme response to the mind-body split.

As unrelenting an exploration of isolation and dissociation as Roman Polanski's "Repulsion."

As psychological drama, In My Skin falls short. But as pure horror, it's unforgettable.

The results are unsparingly perverse and oddly spellbinding.

The movie surely owes something to Polanski, Cronenberg, et al., in its use of an apparently placid, upper-middle-class setting as the background for perverse horrors, but De Van's fearless, high-wire performance is uniquely its own.

Spectacularly grotesque and literally nauseating, even for this usually intrepid moviegoer, In My Skin is among the more disturbing films in this blood-drenched cinematic season.

A bloody mess.