After the accidental death of their six-year-old daughter, the Hughes family escape their busy upscale suburban life and head to their isolated cottage for some quality time.

An evening with their friendly neighbours is suddenly interrupted when one mans obsession with perfection escalates into a violent struggle.

This forces the families to go beyond what they ever thought they were capable of in order to survive.......

First off, never get friendly with a man who drops off wood for no reason outside your door at an unearthly hour. He is going to be a nutter.

Secondly, you are going through the grieving process, why invite a family round for dinner?

This, and many other questions go unanswered in this mundane, wannabe house invasion thriller, which tries to hark back to Funny Games, and Desperate Hours, but just becomes desperate.

The characters are boring, wholly unlikable, and bitter, and by the second act, you couldn't care less who survives and who buys it.

The acting is mundane, Blair looks like she's been dug up, and the rest of the cast falter.

Stick with Haneke's Funny Games, either version is better than this.

This is another home invasion film. Mark (Joshua Close),Mary (Selma Blair),and their son Brendon (Quinn Lord) get away to their summer home when their daughter is killed in a car accident. While at their retreat they meet Bobby (James D'Arcy),Jane (Rachel Miner),and their son Jared (Alex Ferris). They get together for dinner where Bobby asks all kinds of questions and exhibits a high creep factor. This aspect was done very well as you can sense the creepiness in scene and characters.

There is of course the later hostage situation and from the title and write up you know that these people want to take over the lives of the occupants. They did a lot to try to set this up, but I just didn't feel it like the creepiness. The problem with this film is that it lacked character. The characters were creepy, but were not colorful. Because the family was so bland, with Selma Blair looking gaunt, like a heroin addict, I didn't really care if they lived or died. In fact I was hoping they got knocked off early because they were boring. View at your own risk.

Parental Guide: F-bomb, sex, nudity (Selma Blair).

OK! From the off I have to say I'm hardly the right person to take as gospel as regards a review for yet another home invasion movie. I have grown increasingly jaded with this sub-genre of horror, it seems that every year a handful of these type of movies get trundled out and suckers like me keep watching in the hope of finding a gem amongst the rough rocks.

In Their Skin isn't a gem, in fact it's not exactly a must see frightener, but it at least tries to add something to an already stagnated sub-genre of film. Namely an identity theft angle that veers away from the usual "oh they are just psychos or hoodies" line of thinking.

There is a raft of reviewers out there in internet land drawing comparisons to this being a Funny Games knock off. Now regardless of how I personally feel about Hanneke's work, is that what people are doing now? Fans of his film(s) expecting a Selma Blair, Joshua Close, Rachel Miner and James D'Arcy starring movie to take home invasion horror to a new level? When it's directed by an unknown? Really?

For an hour writer and directer Jeremy Power Regimbal favours the slow burn approach, and it works because the cast are very committed, and in the case of adult villains D'Arcy and Miner there's some bona fide creepiness about their respective mannerisms. It's only when things shift away from rumbling unease into psycho/sexual territory that the fledgling director loses control and sinks to formula conventions to get his shock and awe.

Not a must see, but in the context of boorish fodder like The Strangers, or higher budgeted fluff like The Purge, then this is well worth a look by those not expecting a whole new dimension of home invasion horror. It does have merits that doesn't waste your time, and beside which, James D'Arcy in this looks uncannily like Norman Bates, so that has to warrant a look! 6/10