Skew (2011)
Starring: Rob Scattergood, Amber Lewis, Richard Olak
Writer: Sevé Schelenz
Director: Sevé Schelenz
Synopsis:
Simon, Rich and Eva are on a road trip to attend a friends wedding. Simon has brought a camera along to document their entire excursion. Rich and Eva do indeed find this both annoying and awkward, but ultimately go along with it. Well, messed up shit starts to happen after Rich hits a coyote on the road. This kick starts a number of unexplainable events that pit the three friends against one another, with Simon filming all the while.
Rant:
I'm sure a lot of peeps are done to death with all the found footage flicks, and I'm sure that said particular sub-genre never did anything for many peeps in the first place. I happen to be a big fan of this stuff, and I'll sit through a hundred shit fests to find a good'n. Well, I have to say that Skew is a pretty good'n. Sevé Schelenz has the pacing on point. The mix of drama and creep factor is fluent. What I liked most is the hint of turmoil brewing in the leads right from the get-go. Sure, it's obvious that they are all close, but there's something not right going on, and being able to watch it all unravel through Simon's lens is every bit as interesting as the horror aspect of Skew.
I can't promise that you're going to get anything terribly new out of the film, but Schelenz definitely cares about his work. If asked to sum up what this movie reminds me of, I'd have to compare it to The Last Broadcast with a bit of The Ring thrown in, and I mean that in a complimentary way.
In order to bring up one of the few slight qualms I have with Skew, I must take you into heavy spoiler territory here, so here goes:
****Spoilers****→There's a scene in the film where Rich, Simon and Eva get pulled over by a police officer, and it has to do with a little food mart they stopped at earlier. The officer asks them to follow him back to the police station. Once there, we go from Simon's handycam to surveillance cam inside the interrogation room. That's plausible. I can believe that the policeman wouldn't allow Simon to carry his handycam inside the station. What I thought was weird is that Skew is one of those “Three friends go somewhere and never return, here is their footage” type movies, but somehow the surveillance footage is included. How is that even possible, other than it being edited in by whomever found the footage? Ya know, that's probably the answer, but I just thought it was kind of odd. Anyhow, minor problem.←****Spoilers End****
For playing a character that is behind the lens for the whole movie, Rob Scattergood turns in one kick ass performance as Simon. There's a moment that really knocks this character out of the fucking park, where he tells Rich his reasoning behind filming every second of their trip. This little scene allows you to develop a great deal of sympathy for the character. Amber Lewis as Eva is equally impressive. She comes off kinda vague at first, or at the very most, bitchy. Later, you find out why, and she ultimately becomes quite likeable. I thought she was crazy hot, additionally, but that has nothing to do with the performance, hah. Richard Olak as Rich sadly didn't do much for me. His whining and anger and drunkenness just seems kinda stiff and unbelievable. Well, 2 outta 3 aint bad.
I received Skew as a screener, thanks to Sevé Schelenz. For anyone interested, it's currently streaming on Netflix Instant. Recommended for fans of found footage films, and while I found a few things to nitpick, the film's revelation had me hitting replay and thinking about it for a considerable amount of time. Gotta love that.
