AustLit

Set twenty-five years after the original film, the series follows the new generation of far-right activists and the anti-fascist groups who oppose them.

A contemporary re-imagining of Shakespeare's Macbeth, constructed as a struggle for power among Melbourne gangs. The setting is contemporary Melbourne and the dialogue is delivered in Australian accents, but the script largely uses Shakespeare's text.

Leonard sublets his house to Phil and Jessica, a young couple who spend most nights surrendering to the abandonment of love-making. Leonard and Phil are seemingly unalike, but each has a deep need to dominate and control their relationships with women. When Jessica becomes pregnant and Leonard meets a woman with an unknown past, both men find themselves wanting to exert their power in a way that is no longer appropriate.

A dark portrait of barely sympathetic, disaffected youth, Metal Skin tells the story of four social misfits whose greatest thrill is putting the pedal to the metal and drag racing their problems into oblivion. Against this background of fast cars and empty lives, the four develop a strange and complex relationship. Central to the narrative are Psycho Joe, a petrol-head with limited social skills who lives with his mentally ill father, and the womanising Dazey, whose girlfriend suffers physically and mentally for his hobby. Joe and Dazey first meet at the local supermarket where Joe has just been employed after years of unemployment. Into the mix comes Savina, a Satan-worshipping witch. While interested in Dazey, even though he is 'taken,' Savina finds herself having to fend off Joe's hopeless advances. The nihilism of these young characters, coupled with parental disputes, leads to various tragedies.

Some reviews of Metal Skin suggest that it draws on the tropes of Arthurian legends, linking the film's title to a quotation from John Boorman's 1981 Excalibur.

Hando and his best mate Davey are the leaders of a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray during the 1980s. Living off the dole, they inhabit a disused tyre shop draped with Nazi flags. When Gabe, who is running from a sexually abusive relationship with her rich father, becomes Hando's girlfriend and joins the gang, she inadvertently creates tension, because Davey is also attracted to her. After beating up a Vietnamese youth, the skinheads are forced to escape to a disused warehouse when his friends retaliate. It's here that Hando plots his revenge. Gabe pursues her own vengeance, by leading the gang to her father's house. When Hando kicks her out, she gets even by telling the police where the skinheads are hiding. Hando, Davey, and a recalcitrant Gabe subsequently take to the road.

(Source: Australian Screen)

'The portrayal of a painfully impossible liaison between a 16 year old boy and a 43 year old woman pushes beyond naturalistic observation into subjectivity as emotions run out of control. Emotional and physical enclosure suggested by the spareness of the verbal exchanges and the strong sense of place (the outer west of Melbourne) adds to the feeling of inevitability.'

Source: Trove. (Sighted: 18/12/2013).