Skin & Bone
2022 · 17m · USA
Directed by Eli Powers
Tones: contemplative, dark, surreal
A drifter named Christian takes a job on a secluded farm run by a reclusive woman named Serene, only to suffer horrifying visions of men trapped inside the bodies of animals — a folk horror reimagining of the Circe myth in which predatory men are transformed into beasts.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Amanda Seyfried as folk-horror Circe transforming bad men into animals on a banjo-haunted farm. The myth-update concept is fun; with Seyfried-Sadoski headlining it's basically a calling-card film, which is fine.
A Circe-myth folk horror with Amanda Seyfried as the Serene farm-owner — Powers stages therianthropic revenge against predatory men. The mythological framework is rich, though the Witch/Midsommar comparisons suggest familiar register.
Amanda Seyfried executive producing and starring with Thomas Sadoski in a 17:14 Circe-myth folk horror where banjo playing functions as supernatural harbinger — the literary-classical frame plus the banjo as warning instrument is a precise tonal choice. Production weight visible.
Reviews
Powers does an excellent job transforming an expansive rural estate into a claustrophobic prison.
A menacing horror about the ongoing presence of the past... excels in its darkest moments where Christian's visions see him coming face to face with the farm's animals in encounters rife with Lynchian unease.
Festivals
- Tribeca Film Festival 2022
- Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2022
- Woodstock Film Festival 2022
- Aspen Shortsfest 2022
- Palm Springs ShortFest 2022
- Provincetown International Film Festival 2022
- Indy Shorts International Film Festival 2022
- Riverrun International Film Festival 2022