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‘I can wipe out a world in a minute.’ 

The serial killer film is a tough one to get right. For every Silence of the Lambs and Zodiac, there are a million Gacys and Karlas. The Skin Collector (originally called Shiver back in 2012 when it was made, which is a much better title and actually fits the movie) treads a fine line between this kind of movie and the more far-fetched stalk ‘n’ slash horror. Indeed, at times star Danielle Harris must have wondered whether she’d returned to her old Halloween days where she first found fame.

Kicking off in Sunland, California 12 years ago, we’re introduced to murderer Franklin Rood (John Jarratt from the TV version of Wolf Creek), who takes a shine to a waitress in a diner. After turning down his offer of a date, he catches up with her in the car park after work – after fantasising about all the nasty things he’s going to do to her.

Cut to Wendy (Harris) who is being given a hard time on the phone by her mother (Rhoda Morgenstern herself, Valerie Harper). Bullied into asking for a raise at work, Wendy chickens out but soon has other problems when she becomes the new object of Rood’s affections. Soon people are dropping like flies around her, victims of ‘The Griffin’ as Franklin wants to be called for no particular discernible reason other than leaving a totem of the mythical creature in their hands. Can Detective Delgado (Starship Troopers’ Casper Van Dien) work out what’s going on and put a stop to the mayhem?

With a tighter focus and more explanation of why Rood is doing what he’s doing (this is based on a book by Brian Harper, so maybe we get some of that in there?), this could actually have been quite an effective chiller. Jarratt actually makes for quite a creepy bad guy, especially when he goes full on loon, and Harris is totally believable as a woman who’s been put down all her life and must take control of the situation in order to survive.

But The Skin Collector suffers from not quite knowing what it wants to be. Some of the action scenes, as I say, look like they’ve wandered in from Scream and just what was the reasoning behind the new title when Rood’s MO seems to be collecting heads not skin? Maybe to capitalise on books/films/TV shows like The Bone Collector? I’m not quite sure.

Verdict: There are some genuinely creepy moments and the finale – which again feels like it’s been drafted in from another movie – is satisfying in its own way. It’s just that you’re left feeling like you’ve had a fast-food burger rather than a steak. ‘Catch me before I kill again.’ 6/10                           

Paul Kane