Like with I See You, Knives And Skin explores the dark underbelly of small town American, this time leaning heavily on Lynchian influences, especially from Twin Peaks, which will become obvious to anyone as soon as the film starts. It begins with two teens about to have sex out in the woods, things go south, turning violent, and the girl is left behind, and no one has seen her since. That girl is Carolyn Harper (Raven Whitley), and the film touches on how her disappearance affects some of her classmates and family.
The comparisons to Twin Peaks is hard not to make considering how much writer/director, Jennifer Reeder, wears those influences on her sleeve from the purposefully stilted dialogue to the oddball characters, and the tender touch that allows for dark humor to shine through, but never at the expense of the characters themselves. While Lynch may be the biggest influence from a storytelling perspective, the film draws a lot aesthetically from Gregg Araki, making a great use of a strong, highly saturated color palette, transgressive situations, and a melancholic, dreamlike atmosphere that blankets over the entire film.
Despite those influences lingering pretty heavy, Reeder does a pretty good job at bringing a personal touch and flair to these otherwise familiar archetypes and story beats. Thematically, the film deals a lot in how young women learn to navigate a patriarchal world that doesn’t make things easy for them, and is quick to react violently to women simply expressing their personal agency. The heightened dialogue comes close to making these ideas feel on-the-nose, but it ends up feeling oddly appropriate given the strange tonal tightrope that Reeder walks on with the film.
Aside from its atmospheric flourishes, Reeder makes several other bold stylistic touches. One that I found quite affecting is the use of pop music covers done by the cast, such as a class of an all girls chorus singing “Our Lips Are Sealed” by The Go-Go’s, or one of the characters singing “I Melt With You” by Modern English while lying in bed alone. Sure, some of the song choices can feel a touch obvious given thematic relevancy, but it does bring a weight to what is going on in the lives of these characters. The costumes are also striking. Ever character has a very distinct look, some even having a homemade quality to the clothing that makes them stand out and speak to who they are on the inside.
Admittedly, there were points in Knives And Skin where the film was a tad too befuddling with its surreal imagery, but at no point was I ever bored. The performances from a mostly unknown cast is spectacular. Jennifer Reeder, who is only on her second feature film after 2017’s Signature Moves, takes big, ambitious swings. While I’m not sure everything totally hits, there’s maybe one too many ideas crammed into its dense 101 minute runtime, I was consistently captivated by her stylized filmmaking and the empathy she has for her characters. It most certainly won’t work for everyone, either because it’s too weird, or because they simply can’t get past the Lynchian influences, but it’s a deeply evocative piece of filmmaking from an artist that is way too timely and fascinating and entertaining to ignore.