Popular reviews

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  Review by xBombenhagelx ★★★ 8

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  If you're only going to watch one film where a human fucks a fish creature, then you should watch The Shape of Water. But, if that's your bag, and you're going to watch a second film in this genre, then your best bet is to go with the 1980 Roger Corman classic Humanoids from the Deep. If, after all that, you're still hankering for more, then Cold Skin is here to meet your weird fish sex needs.

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  Review by Joel Haver ★★ 9

  As someone who will often spend up to an hour trying to pick a movie, watching a friend scroll Prime Video and randomly turn on the first thing they saw blew my mind. None of us had heard of it and we hadn’t even decided to watch a movie. Just, blam, movie now. Which one? This random ass one presented to us by the algorithm. I don’t know if I admire such careless spontaneity or if it scares me.

  Movie itself was bland, but it does a great job expanding the sex with weirdly hot fish people genre.

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  Review by Kaijuman ★★★½ 4

  Hooptober 9: It’s in Space Now 

  “We are on a tiny island of what we know, surrounded by an ocean of what we don't.”

  Now that’s the life. Isolated away from the world where you can live your life banging your fish girlfriend.

  I’ve been hounded by coworkers demanding I watch this for months and I certainly get why. As a lover of water based horror films, H.P. Lovecraft, and isolated locations, this is right up my alley.

  It’s like Assault on Precinct 13 just replace the police station with a lighthouse on a barren island and the gangs with hordes of fish people. That sounds awesome to me.

  The build up to the first attack is grand. Our main…

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  Review by Mario Melendez ★★½ 1

  I stumbled upon the existence of Cold Skin days ago when I entered the Letterboxd App because I noticed that a follower had made a review of it.

  When I saw the poster and the synopsis I was very intrigued to see it, which ended up encouraging me to do so.

  The film is an adaptation of the novel by Albert Sánchez Piñol (which like other films based on a book of which I have written reviews on the site I haven't read its literary version either 🤷). The plot takes place on a lost island in the middle of the ocean, two men defend themselves, night after night, sheltered in a lighthouse, from the siege of some strange sea…

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  Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★★ 3

  It starts out similar to The Lighthouse which was the only movie I've walked out of (using Movie Pass). Cold Skin was mainly style over substance until the end when it started exploring the idea of who were these mysterious creatures that appeared. Overall, it left me feeling a little "cold", but it wasn't bad.

  Vegan alert:
  -Crab legs
  -Animal skins
  -Violence upon creatures and humans

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★½

  The year is 1914, the planet is about to crack open under the bloody strain of World War I, and a nameless man played by British actor David Oakes (“The Borgias,” “Victoria”) is sailing towards the ends of the earth in order to get away from it all. Xavier Gens’ “Cold Skin” never tells us much about who he was, or what inspired him to run from it — the film eschews even the hazy background information that Albert Sánchez Piñol provided in his 2002 novel of the same name — but it’s clear that this sturdy, unremarkable bloke has no further interest in violence.

  In fact, our hero is so eager for serenity that he’s decided to abandon human…

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  Review by DreamScape40 ★★★½ 1

  Though this was interesting.

  You got..
  The Lighthouse
  2 men.. one of them being Ray Stevenson .. So cool!
  Humanoid sea creatures

  Action builds up not long into the opening there and keeps steady for the most part and has some slow bits. The end there was a mix for me.

  Overall, not bad. I enjoyed it.

  🌊

  - Previous watch:
  Amazing Mysteries Dinosaur Extinction

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  Review by HeWhoCanDigIt ★★★ 1

  Darwin was wrong.

  No birds on a remote island in the middle of watery nowhere? Not a good sign. The only other inhabitant -Gruner, caretaker of the lighthouse- spells trouble as well. A man as cold as the weather there. Third red flag? When what looks like a webbed hand or foot appears underneath the door. This job is not going to be peace and quiet for Friend. On the contrary. Sea creatures, toads, the demons of Atlantis! And they are all after him. Except one. The caretaker keeps a female in his lighthouse. And he doesn't treat her well. To say the least.

  The polar atmosphere makes you feel chilly, Ray Stevenson is terrific as madman Gruner, the attacks…

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  Review by Travis Lytle ★★★½

  Xavier Gens' "Cold Skin" is a cool, little surprise of a film that combines macabre and fantasy in its story of men battling isolation. Finding its protagonist taking up residence in a remote, oceanside lighthouse, that man soon learns that his new home is rife with dangerous secrets. Story points will remain vague here, but the narrative has clear hooks. Gens supports that story with a production that mixes solid performances, sufficient special effects, and evocatively overcast cinematography. Taking its time and not telescoping its revelations, the film bursts into gripping combination of adventure, horror, personal drama, and fairy tale that is chilling and potent.

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  Review by Matt ★★★ 3

  In equal parts a frustratingly shallow parable of man's arrogance towards nature and her fauna and flora and a wonderfully tense mystery with a tendency to veer awkwardly to the predictable. You could enhance the viewing experience by imagining the story as a prequel to The Lighthouse too, which would address both films' issues with their lack of any real lore - I couldn't help but want a few more answers to the many questions that were asked by the time the credits rolled.

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  Review by Jayson Kennedy ★★½

  A weather observer far removed from civilization on the shores of the Arctic quickly discovers he's not alone. Not only do swarms of strange creatures emerge from the sea by night, but a wildman Ray Stevenson inhabits a nearby lighthouse fortified against the attacks.
  
  Unmistakably European b-grade fantasy that's reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft's The Lurking Fear. Okay, not really, more like the 1997 film adaption Hemoglobin (Bleeders) starring Rutger Hauer. Well, specifically that film's conclusion of characters barricading in a lighthouse against malformed goblins crawling across the rocky shores below.

  That's mostly the thrust of Cold Skin; two men with eventually opposing views of the enemy, that look like amphibious variants of The Descent (2005)'s creatures, fighting back CG hordes. Nice photography and a picturesque location that often looks unreal, but ultimately as wafer-thin emotionally as director Xavier Gens' other features. Watched via Sony's DVD.

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  Review by haley ★★★

  well, this is a very unique movie. beautifully shot and the acting was good, it was just a bit underwhelming. it's watchable but i wanted a horror movie and this was more of an action movie with an anticlimactic ending. definitely one of those movies you should go into with low expectations.