Skinned Alive

(1990) **

Crawldaddy and her 2 demented adult children Phink & Violet are on their way to a leather and tanning convention. On the way they are killing and skinning anyone and everyone they meet for their hides. They plan on making leather goods out of them. Although Crawldaddy is their Mom she wants her children to call her Daddy for some reason. Their van breaks down in a small town and they are told by Tom, a local mechanic that it won't be fixed until morning. Tom invites them to stay at his house with himself and his wife Whinnie. During their stay they kill a delivery guy & a Jehovah's witness. Paul is Tom's neighbor, a drunken, divorced, down on his luck ex-cop. When he meets Crawldaddy's clan he doesn't like them a bit, he finds them suspictious & weird, duh. All hell breaks loose when Phink tells Crawldaddy he forgot to take the dead hitchhiker out of the van. Tom discovers the skinned body and is attacked by the family, it's up to drunken old Paul to save the day.

Would you like to read my Watchtower magazine?

I would have to catagorize this film in the so bad it's good column. Crawldaddy reminded me of Witchy-Poo from HR Puffnstuf (showing my age again) from the moment she opened her vile mouth. The film quality, the music & the terribly bad acting are so spot on for a 70's b horror flick that I had to confirm the 1990 release date on imdb just to be sure it was accurate. There are plenty of kick to face shots, which made me laugh every time. Funniest thing is that Tom & Whinnie invite Crawldaddy to a big barbeque party. The big party consists of Tom, Whinnie & Crawldaddy and there is no barbeque, just spaghetti, fried chcken & mashed potatoes. Even though there was no shortage of gore the grossest thing in the film is Crawldaddy devouring that meal, totally disgusting. Sorry guys no gratuitous boobie shots either, the closest you get is Violet in a leather bra while making out with her brother, yuck. So it was good for laughs and that's about all. Oh yeah, of all their victims I think only one of them was actually skinned alive.