Altered Skin is a medical thriller, directed and written by Adnan Ahmed, that tells the story of an American engineer Craig living in Pakistan caring for his wife who contracted a virus during her hospital round that ends up being caught up in a pharmaceutical conspiracy. BITS 2018 is the film’s world premiere.
Medical thrillers are not all that frequent but a few have had success. Altered Skin comes somewhere middle. The execution is clear-cut and straight forward, starting off in the first act setting up the story and detailing what’s happened to bring us to the main point of conflict. The second act then focuses on the suspense and mystery of it all, and just like any thriller, builds up the unanswered questions in keeping its audience curious so that when the third act comes along, it unravels its last reveal. Standard movie plotting. Thrillers thrive on how well these setups in mystery work, establishing the shocking yet logical fundamental twists. In some ways though, with Altered Skin, that is one of the reasons it slightly miss the mark. It’s missing the “wow,” and while the production is solid and the suspense builds well, the pacing lingers and we’re stuck with what feels like unnecessary bits.
There’s a large cast with the focus on Craig, played by Robin Dunne, who for some reason is very rigid in the part. It never quite feels convincing. Maybe it’s the script and dialogue that gets slightly clunky; maybe it is the sheer number of characters that shuffle around, failing to create enough depth or connection to make me care about anyone of them. Or maybe it’s the flow that sometimes throws in some horror that never seems to fit in right, at times, keeping things slightly contrived and eventually predictable.
However, all is not lost. What works best is the Pakistan setting and some impressive effects, both audio and visual. The movie victims also have a zombie-like sort of nature to them that also manages to do as intended, seriously adding to the mystery. Altered Skin has its flaws, but it also has does its thriller promise right, packed with some intense moments that sting. It’s just too bad the build up to some of this is just too generic, tapping a bit of the potential for something better.
Blood in the Snow (BITS) Canadian Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, November 22nd at the Royal Cinema in Toronto, Canada and runs until November 27th. It celebrates Contemporary Canadian horror, genre and underground films. While the festival only runs a few days, it is filled with not only full-length feature films but also two collections of short films as well as industry panels and a web series showcase. You can find the festival schedule here.
The world premiere of Altered Skin will be showing at BITS at The Royal Cinema on November 23rd at 7:30pm.