Filmmaker Gregg Araki’s shock tactics have frequently raised eyebrows and heckles, and for a while, during the late ‘90s, he threatened to become the oldest angry teen not actually a member of Sonic Youth. Though Mysterious Skin revisits many familiar Araki themes (sexual deviancy, rape, alien abduction, fucking the pain away, terminal youthful boredom, you know, the usual…) – it’s a far cry from the addled nihilism and indiscriminate buckshot of his earlier movies.
Adapted from Scott Heim’s white-trash goth novel, Mysterious Skin follows two Kansas teens traumatised by events in their childhood. Neil (Gordon-Levitt, once the runt of the Third Rock From The Sun clan) is a cynical 18-year-old rent-boy (even best friend Michelle Trachtenberg says he has “a bottomless black hole where his heart should be”) with a taste for recklessness and a lot of problems. Brian (Corbet, last seen in the truly vile Thunderbirds), meanwhile, is a lonely misfit who believes he was abducted by aliens. This very mid-western obsession ultimately brings the boys together and a dreadful secret is revealed.
Those with an affection for the LeRoy oeuvre, with its stark dissociated emotionality and leanings toward pretension, will find much to enjoy in Mr. Araki’s dreamy, disturbing film. Indeed, there can be little doubt that Mysterious Skin is the director’s most accessible and accomplished work to date. His visual style, once reminiscent of the underwater efforts of a Tourette‘s patient, has given way to something polished and hallucinogenic, while the furious Ginsberg inspired howl underlying movies like The Doom Generation has matured into something macabre, yet strangely tender.
Still, don’t assume that this is an Araki movie you can watch with mother. Mysterious Skin deals with sexual abuse in a manner that will almost certainly prove too complex for most sensibilities, and if you’re the type to get freaked out during scenes of violent male rape or mutilated dead animals, best stay away. Wussy.

Running Time 99mins. Cert 18. Opens May 20th.