10 Twisted Horror Movies That Go Way Too Far
2. The Skin I Live In
It feels as though within the horror genre, there is a constant state of trying to top what has come before in terms of either violence, gore, or simply making an audience feel uncomfortable. This was something that The Skin I Live In succeeded with back in 2011.
The Spanish film, based on Thierry Jonquet's 1984 novel Mygale, is loosely reminiscent of Frankenstein, given the experiments conducted on subjects, in this case, unwilling, by Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas). This goes a step further than even Victor Frankenstein, though, and heads more into the bizarre.
Involuntary human experiments aren't exactly new in cinema, from Mary Shelley's aforementioned classic to The Human Centipede, but here Ledgard went a step further to sexual assault and forced gender transformation. Invasive and torturous on a completely new level.
Of course, art is subjective, and what some people find horrific and in the poorest taste, others can also find horrific and in the poorest taste, but in a good way. Quentin Tarantino has received a lot of blowback in recent times for his unprovoked attacks on certain movie stars, but when he labelled The Skin I Live In as one of the best films of the century in 2024, it was put on the map more than ever before.