Critic Reviews

Knives and Skin presents an unsettling mix of girlishness, macabre, sweetness, and despondency best encapsulated in a nail polish color sported by one of the characters: Rotting Corpse. Its humans are alien, its script is bizarre, its visuals are gauche. But this so-wrong-it’s-right feminine dirge puts the “fun” in “funereal.”

This movie rocks.

Puts a forward-thinking feminist bent on the Riverdale school of neon Twin Peaks fetishism

Awash in Christopher Rejano’s neon-hued cinematography and punctuated by Nick Zinner’s eerie synth soundscapes, Reeder’s meandering tale is a fever dream of ideas.

A different editing rhythm (and a less narcotic musical score) would substantially change the personality of this movie, for better or worse.

It’s entirely too scattered, sacrificing coherence, loaded down with characters who are more clutter than carriers of plot and substance.

It is manifestly unfair to compare the work of a near-universally admired auteur to an odd, ambitious independent film, but Knives and Skin owes so much to David Lynch, particularly “Twin Peaks,” that it feels wrong to pretend it exists in a vacuum.

The film gets so lost in its affected idiosyncrasies that it stops probing any discernible human feelings.

Like the songs sung by its young cast, Knives and Skin feels like cinematic karaoke, lacking in authorship or deeper meaning. The cast, two actresses in particular, give it their all, but it is an aggressively hollow experience.

The positive qualities lie in the surrealistic film’s bold cinematography, distinctive use of music, and diversity of cast, though that’s not enough to redeem this tedious viewing experience.