A stark, hypnotic sci-fi horror film that trades plot mechanics for mood, image, and unease. It’s challenging and often emotionally cold, but its originality, sound design, and eerie visual language make it a standout for viewers who like their genre cinema abstract and unsettling.
Under the Skin
Where to watch: Buy
Movie · Thriller · Science Fiction
Fri · 1h 48m
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Lynsey Taylor Mackay
Overview
A seductive stranger prowls the streets of Glasgow in search of prey: unsuspecting men who fall under her spell.
Director
Jonathan Glazer
Cast
Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Lynsey Taylor Mackay
Curator Review
Verdict
A stark, hypnotic sci-fi horror film that trades plot mechanics for mood, image, and unease. It’s challenging and often emotionally cold, but its originality, sound design, and eerie visual language make it a standout for viewers who like their genre cinema abstract and unsettling.
Best for
viewers who enjoy slow-burn, atmospheric sci-fi horror
fans of arthouse films that prioritize mood over exposition
people interested in alienation, embodiment, and empathy as themes
audiences open to ambiguous, unsettling endings
Skip if
you want a conventional narrative with clear answers
you dislike minimal dialogue and long stretches of observation
you prefer overt scares or fast pacing
you need likable characters or emotional warmth
Overview
Under the Skin is one of those rare films that feels less like a story than an encounter. Jonathan Glazer turns Glasgow into an uncanny hunting ground, using hidden-camera realism, glacial pacing, and Mica Levi’s abrasive score to create a world that feels both ordinary and deeply wrong. The result is a film that is as much about perception and embodiment as it is about predation.
Worth noting
Scarlett Johansson’s performance is crucial because it starts as pure surface and gradually opens into something stranger and more vulnerable. The film is fascinated by the gap between looking and understanding, between appetite and empathy. It’s not interested in explaining itself, and that refusal is part of its power.
Bottom line
For some viewers, the film’s abstraction will feel alienating rather than profound. But if you respond to cinema as texture, atmosphere, and controlled discomfort, this is a strikingly original work that lingers long after it ends.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Karsten (4.5★) · 4927 likes
Never in a million years did I think a movie that would make me contemplate my existence would also have Darude - Sandstorm in it.
DirkH (5★) · 4273 likes
I love it when a straightforward story gets a unique treatment. Glazer's film is deliberately alienating, visually and aurally arresting and singularly engaging. I say the latter with no small amount of reserve as it asks a lot of its audience making it difficult to click with. But click with it I did. Glazer opens with the birth of Johansson's character. In a beautiful visual sequence, we hear her find her voice followed by a rather disconcerting scene in which… more
shannon (1.5★) · 3820 likes
yeeahhhhh i'm way too dumb to understand films like this so i'm gonna go watch a seth rogen movie
demi adejuyigbe · 3181 likes
didn’t think this was all that freaky until i got home and checked wikipedia and learned that Scotland is a real place