The mid 80’s through the mid 90’s was pretty much the glory days of backyard horror. Most of this ended up being shot on video (SOV) as that made filmmaking more accessible to more people (which lead to so much cool crazy stuff being made), but some filmmakers still managed to get some violent crazy lo-fi horror out on film. One of those is now established microbudget classics is Jon Killough’s Tempe distributed Skinned Alive, which was shot on 16mm and made in 1990.

This film could be described as having a white trash Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe (minus the titular ‘saw). It follows a Mom named Crawldaddy and her 2 spawn Phink and Violet who travel around the country in a van, and kill people for their skin that they make leather out of. They run into some trouble when their van breaks down and a former cop begins to suspect something maybe up with the trio that finds themselves in his town.

I have loved Skinned Alive since I first saw it in the 90’s. It is a completely over the top violent horror fest with some wild humor to boot. The FX for the most part are quite solid, and where they don’t work, they are still fun to watch. The acting isn’t top notch, but it’s fun, watchable, and honestly works for the characters.

Tempe/Makeflix brings Skinned Alive to Blu-ray in a very solid 1:33:1 transfer. It definitely looks like 30 year old 16mm, but the restoration work here is evident, and it looks better than any prior release of the film. Audio is handled with a 5.1 HD audio track, and sounds quite solid. There are a moments where dialogue sounds hollow and thin, but I’d suspect that reflects the original production, and not the restoration. Extras are insane on this set. There are at least 3 different audio commentaries, featurettes that explore the film, the actors and crew behind it (including a memorial for Mary Jackson). There is the VHS version of the film, trailers, interviews, and sooooooo much more. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.