Movies
Fear Itself Review: Episode 1.8 ‘Skin and Bones’
This afternoon B-D writer Tex sent in his latest review of NBC’s Fear Itself (all reviews), which continues every Thursday at 10/9C. Inside you’ll find a review of “Skin & Bones”, which was written by Drew McWeeny & Scott Swan (“Masters of Horror”) and directed by Larry Fessenden. When a cattle herder returns home to his family after being lost in the woods for days, he just doesn’t seem the same. Soon, a terrible mortal struggle ensues against the terrifying monster possessing him.
Fear Itself Review: Episode 1.8 ‘Skin and Bones’
Director Larry Fessenden can’t seem to escape the supernatural grasp of the Wendigo. In 2001, Fessenden turned a feature film about the mythic cannibalistic creature. Now working from a script by Scott Swan and Drew McWeeny (CIGARETTE BURNS, PRO-LIFE), Fessenden returns to his favorite Native American beastie and lets him loose on a rural family farm.
Doug Jones (HELLBOY II) takes sabbatical from his usual prostheticly camouflaged characters to play Grady, a man—more or less—who after disappearing in the mountains near his horse ranch for 10-days returns emaciated and looking a little bit like one of the Gentlemen from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Hush. What Grady brings back with him is a kind of infection, but not the normal kind. His soul is infected by the Wendigo and it won’t be long before his wife, kids and ranch hands all appear to be food for the frenzied beast.
Jones is the star—front and center—of this episode and he looks terrible! The normally gaunt and angled actor is still virtually unrecognizable under blacked out eyes and rotten teeth. He’s so thin; he looks like he could kill you with his collarbone. It’s horrifying and yet, Jones is such a presence that even when he’s sleeping you can’t take your eyes off of him.
It’s too bad that Doug Jones in all his ragged glory can’t save SKIN AND BONES from becoming nothing but another uninteresting entry in FEAR ITSELF—but for one side note…and not a positive one.
You see, this episode is the first one I felt completely gypped the audience on an action sequence. The film’s final shotgun blast to the face takes place off-screen and unfortunately, this time, shooting around the exploit felt out of place and incorrect. I’m sure had it been filmed as expected that the network would have been forced to cut what should have been a violent dénouement or suffer the FCC wrath and sponsor walkouts. I completely understand and accept that a MANIAC-styled brain blast is not what Proctor and Gamble wants running right before they try to sell you some Pampers! But, damnit, it’s what I want to see and what I think genre fans expected to see if we forgot for a moment that “The Peacock “was running the game.
Still, one shot (ahem) does not kill an entire episode. No, SKIN AND BONES fails mostly because it’s boring. Jones scenes are great acting exercises but in the end they service a script that has no sense of foreboding and no new elements to titillate viewers imaginations. In the end, I’m glad Jones hit a home run with his performance, but he really just wound up taking one for a team that failed him at every other opportunity.
4/10
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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