Peter Peel (Brandon Salkil) is a brilliant scientist who has just foud
a cure for cancer - and it's just about time too, because his own cancer,
which he has kept hidden from everybody for years, pretty much starts to
eat him up. Of course, his serum is still untested, but ... Pete has
also one big weakness, and that's his scientific partner Alice (Erin R.
Ryan), who he's madly in love with - and even though she cares for him a
lot, she doesn't love him back. And now she won't allow Pete to use his
own serum to cure himself ... well, of course, Pete doesn't listen to her
reservations and - well, the serum works curing his cancer, but it also
dissolves his skin, he gathers the ability to spew acid, and he grows
hungry for human flesh. His current girlfriend (Allison Egan) and his
financier (Dave Parker) soon fall victim to his urges, but he can't bring
himself to kill Alice as well. So he locks her up in his attic, and
despite his atrocious looks and his new-found urge to kill, he tries to
win her over - something that quickly leads from him making her dinner to
him tieing her to an operating table - and from here on, things can only
get worse - which they do ... The Ballad of Skinless Pete
is a very unusual, weird but wonderful blend of body horror and love
story, that might be more than a bit reminiscent of David Cronenberg's The
Fly, but brings its romance to a much more intimate level (also
due to budget restraints of course, that work for the movie for a change
though), and while still quite campy (and consciously so), the movie is
not as over-the-top as most of director Dustin Mills' other movies but
despite all the blood and guts has a lot of heart to it. Of course, it
also helps that leads Brandon Salkil and Erin R. Ryan are really up to
their roles and show just the right kind of chemistry, while the
nervousness of the whole story is perfectly mirrored in the unsteady
camerawork. A really cool and unusual piece of film, recommended!
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