Metal Skin

Metal Skin is a 1994 Australian film written and directed by Geoffrey Wright, starring Aden Young, Tara Morice, Nadine Garner and Ben Mendelsohn. The film follows the lives of four adolescents in and around the blue-collar Melbourne suburb of Altona.

Synopsis

Melbourne, 1994. Joe (Aden Young) lives with his mentally-ill father (Petru Gheorghiu) in working-class Altona. A shy misfit whose great love is hotted-up cars, Joe gets a job at a supermarket where he is befriended by fellow revhead Dazey (Ben Mendelsohn), a confident womaniser at the crossroads with his girlfriend, Roslyn (Nadine Garner). Savina (Tara Morice), a devil worshipper who works with Joe, feigns interest in him to get closer to Dazey. When Joe discovers Savina’s deceit he embarks on a violent and tragic rampage.

Reception

Despite generally positive reviews and selection in the 1994 Venice Film Festival, Metal Skin proved a disappointment at the Australian box office when it was released on 4 May 1995 where it grossed $883,521. Australian critic Andrew Howe praised it as "a dark, arresting ode to suburban hopelessness" however Todd McCarthy writing in Variety described the film as "so overwrought and unrelievedly grim that it comes close to playing like a parody of teenage angst movies."