Skinned Deep (Blu-ray) R

Special effects artist Gabriel Bartalos makes his directorial debut with the purposely campy, low-budget gorefest SKINNED DEEP. When a vacationing family on a cross-country trip get a flat tire in a backwoods hamlet, they are offered help by a local woman whose kin turn out to be a pack of demented killers. As the unsuspecting visitors are brutally murdered by the likes of a plate-throwing dwarf (LEPRECHAUN's Warwick Davis) and a disfigured boy (Jay Dugre) with an enlarged brain on the outside of his head, the sole surviving daughter (Karoline Brandt) struggles to escape before she becomes the psychos' next victim. Paying homage to horror classics TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE HILLS HAVE EYES, Bartalos's cult classic in-the-making offers ample doses of gory special effects and tongue-in-cheek humor.