Scarlett Johansson’s Extremely R-Rated Thriller Will Drag You Through The Abyss

By Robert Scucci
| Published 4 seconds ago

If you’ve ever heard somebody talking about entering a fugue state and have no idea what the hell they’re talking about, you should point them to 2013’s Under the Skin. In it, Scarlett Johansson is a sort of traveling serial killer who abducts unsuspecting men in her van, brings them into a jet-black, liquid hellscape, and then does the unthinkable with their bodies. The entire plot plays like a fugue state in the sense that we’re witnessing an unnamed protagonist drive around endlessly, losing track of long stretches of time, coming to terms with the horrific acts she commits, and continuing on her journey once she gathers herself.

I watch, read, and listen to a lot of true crime, and while Under the Skin leans heavily on sci-fi, there are parallels that are hard to ignore. If you’ve read anything about Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes, you know that he’d have to get blackout drunk before getting to the slicing and dicing because somewhere deep down, he was ashamed of what he was doing. Canadian serial killer Robert “Willie” Pickton, who was suspected of murdering 49 women but only charged with 21 and convicted of six, stalked his victims by driving his truck around Vancouver, waiting for the perfect opportunity.

The Female And Her Crimes

Known only as the Female, Scarlett Johansson is a woman of few words in Under the Skin. She spends her time driving around, luring men into her van under false pretenses. Sometimes she acts like she’s looking for directions, and sometimes she plays the good samaritan card, offering men rides to their destinations. Those who take the bait end up being seduced by the Female into an endless, murky black void of unknown origin. There, these men get submerged in the muck and their bodies collapse in on themselves. Naked, afraid, and in some form of suspended animation, the men disintegrate, and then the Female moves on to her next target.

The entire film operates on these interactions, and there’s not much else to the plot. Watching the Female go from place to place forces you into the fugue state being depicted, as there’s no real way to clock the timeline or how long she’s been operating like this. Between the stylish, mysterious abyss scenes and the scenes set in the real world, it’s impossible to tell if this has been going on for days, weeks, or months. What we do know is that somewhere along the way, the Female starts to feel empathy, which leads to her undoing.

Clear Themes, Muddled Motives

While Under the Skin’s ending is very open-ended and vague, and also one of the most wtf moments I’ve seen in a minute, its themes were not lost on me. Continuing with the serial killer analogy, one thing that’s made crystal clear is just how differently men and women experience the world. In most cases, women are rightfully guarded when walking alone at night because they’re on heightened watch for predators. Statistically, they’re more at risk of being abducted. Men, on the other hand, have no qualms getting out of the cold and into a stranger’s van, which in the film is the worst possible thing they can do because it means certain death.

This role reversal, compounded by the fact that all of this abducting pretty much happens out in the open, exposes just how vulnerable we can be if we put too much faith in a perfect stranger. Conversely, the Female’s moments of empathy almost make her sympathetic, which is dangerous because she’s demonstrated time and time again what horrific acts she’s capable of.

Until the third-act reveal (again, wtf) the dark void scenes remind me of the fantasy worlds that serial killers are known to have, like Jeffrey Dahmer’s “Infinity Land.” And like with Dahmer, we’re never really informed of the Female’s motives. She clearly has some sort of insatiable urge to kill, and she takes her victims to this mysterious place that’s either a real alternate dimension or a manifestation of her subconscious, but outside of that, we’re left in the dark as to why she acts the way she does.

Under the Skin is a total vibe piece like 2010’s Beyond the Black Rainbow. It doesn’t tell a story in the traditional sense, but rather thrusts a visceral experience onto the viewer so they can feel just as uncomfortable as the people being depicted on screen. It’s a heavy watch, but beyond cool to look at when things get existential. Just know that you’ll probably remember life before viewing this film and life after it, because it’s a very intense watch.

As of this writing, Under the Skin is streaming for free on Tubi.