Following hot on the stiletto heels of female-led body-horror hit The Substance, comedy thriller Skincare also centres on a female protagonist – in this case facialist Hope Goldman (Elizabeth Banks) – who is dedicated to the pursuit of youthful appearance. This effort is far more grounded in realism than The Substance (it even sports a “based on a true story” tag at the beginning), but there is a similar blackly comic vibe at play, which makes it both fun and full of cringe moments that echo the Demi Moore-Margaret Qualley gorefest. At the very least, Banks proves herself equal to The Substance’s leads when it comes to projecting barely concealed anxiety and desperation under a thickly madeup facade. Her Hope is in some ways a far more interesting – not to mention plausible – character than the cutout caricatures played by Moore and Qualley.
Hope runs a small salon in Los Angeles, successful enough by this stage in her career to appear on local TV, where she takes the opportunity to shill her new line of serums, moisturisers and assorted slap, attracting some celebrity clients over whom she duly fawns. But she’s behind on her rent, a fact her sinister landlord (John Billingsley) and right-hand woman Marine (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, always a treat) keep reminding her of. One day, she notices that another facialist, Angel (Luis Gerardo Méndez), has set up shop across the mall’s pedestrian precinct, which sends Hope into a tizzy of passive-aggressive posturing.
After she and Angel have somewhat heated words, Hope discovers her tyres have been slashed, and later someone hacks her identity and advertises that she’d like to be fantasy-raped on adult hook-up sites, which brings dodgy visits from prospective partners. When a new acquaintance, handsome and sexually ambiguous Jordan (Lewis Pullman), steps in to defend her, Hope is desperately grateful. But is Angel, who likes to spend his free time wailing karaoke at home, really behind the hacking and criminal damage?
Perhaps because of the true-story origins of the material, the plot makes interestingly absurd swerves with unlikely coincidences and bizarre occurrences, in ways that recall Coen brothers farces such as Fargo – although director Austin Peters doesn’t quite have the same mastery of tone the Coens have. (Who does?) But Skincare is a worthy contribution to the growing microgenre of female-led beauty-themed horror, and some of us out here are ready for more.
• Skincare is on digital platforms from 11 November.
