The Skin Stapler Review
Tainted Pact’s grindhouse adventure The Skin Stapler follows a grotesque serial killer, his victims, and the detective hunting him across Carrion City.
The Skin Stapler. Credit: Tainted Pact / Assemble Entertainment
Tainted Pact’s latest horror game, The Skin Stapler, is a grindhouse adventure. Rather than the survival horror gameplay of their last couple of games, this is more of a narrative adventure. I appreciate the grindhouse horror vibe the game goes for, but it lacks the wit, energy, and trashy irreverence that made my recent favorite The Lacerator so much fun. It simply isn’t as engaging and the humor never lands.
The game follows the killing spree of the titular Skin Stapler, a deranged psychopath who flays his victims and staples their skin to the walls. Over the game’s episodes, you alternate between playing as one of the killer’s victims and Clint Eastwood-coded Carrion City PD detective Dick Slater investigating the murders. It all leads to Slater and his rookie partner, Robbie Knock, confronting the Skin Stapler.
The story fell flat for me. It’s sluggishly paced and poorly written. Some individual sequences stood out, particularly an episode where a woman goes about her job at a bowling alley while the killer lurks nearby disguised as a customer. He’s always in the periphery, then creepily disappears when you look away. The jokes come off like a 13-year-old’s impression of what grindhouse horror looks and sounds like. Watching a customer mime jerking off a cream-filled donut so it sprays in their face isn’t funny or clever the first time, and definitely not the third. There’s no sense of comedic timing, either; if this was a movie, I’d say it needs a better editor. The amateurish voice acting doesn’t help, with a bunch of streamers cast in most of the roles.
The Skin Stapler. Credit: Tainted Pact / Assemble Entertainment
The Skin Stapler. Credit: Tainted Pact / Assemble Entertainment
The gameplay is repetitive and boring. Several chapters fall into simplistic workplace sim mechanics: make convenience store hot dogs, make donuts, work in a bizarre blood bank. The investigation segments as Slater are even less inspired, consisting of finding “hidden evidence” at crime scenes. These are just slides, notes, and other clues stuck to the backs of objects, revealed by picking them up and rotating them around. Every investigation follows the same pattern: find the clues, then use them to open a lockbox left behind by the killer to taunt you. It’s overly simplistic busywork that’s never rewarding. I could also do without the game’s timing-based events. At least they’re impossible to fail; you just try again until you get it.
The PlayStation-era inspired art direction is fittingly grimy. Carrion City is a decaying, squalid place, like Gotham but even more dilapidated. I like the game’s look. The character models are a bit mixed, but the killer’s Joker-inspired white face and rictus grin are quite creepy, and I couldn’t help but admire Slater’s look as a mix between an aged Pierce Brosnan and David Lynch in an oversized trench coat. I truly loved it.
I really enjoyed the other games I’ve played from Tainted Pact, and was excited for The Skin Stapler based on the trailers. The developer clearly has a deep love for its inspirations, but The Skin Stapler fails to capture what makes them special. There just isn’t anything there to support the excellent visuals. It was a letdown, a truly uninspired take on VHS grindhouse. Even at just under three hours, it felt too long, and I wouldn’t recommend buying it for its $15 price tag.
The Skin Stapler
The Skin Stapler captures the grime and sleaze of VHS grindhouse, but misses the wit, energy, and trashy irreverence needed to make it work.
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