Step aside Kill Bill, because the most truly gruesome movie of the year has arrived. Quentin Tarantino may pour on the fake blood, but Marina de Van's debut feature gouges it out frame by wince-inducing frame. The writer-director plays a woman who accidentally cuts open her leg after tripping in a friend's backyard. She grows so fascinated by the disruption to her skin that she explores it and "helps" the wound stay fresh--with the aid of knives, forks, screwdrivers, even her own teeth.
In this quietly shocking love affair, the mutilation has a distinctly sexual feel. Her pleasure is intimately tied to her own agony, and there's no place to go but deeper inside. The inevitable unhappy ending notwithstanding, it's one of the strongest, most horrifying debuts of the year. See this skin flick if you think you can stomach it.