Film

Deerskin

A man buys his perfect deerskin jacket and his life spirals into delusion, crime, and violence. It's a darkly comic fever dream about obsession as psychological collapse—watches like a fever, funny and horrible in the same breath, for people who love unhinged cinema that doesn't apologize.

TMDb rating3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy deadpan absurdist comedy where a ridiculous obsession is played with a perfectly straight face, and you like a joke that keeps escalating until it turns unsettling.

Skip it if you need warm, likable characters or a plot that builds steadily; this is thin on story, and its oddness may start to feel like one long joke.

What it asks of you: Seventy-seven minutes, unhurried but never padded; you'll need to accept a flat, deadpan tone that seldom winks at the audience.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Nightcrawler2014

A man's ambition metastasizes into something inhuman and unstoppable. Like Deerskin, it's a portrait of toxic fixation that's both grimly funny and genuinely unsettling, with a lead performance that's mesmerizing in its wrongness.

But It's bleak and nihilistic without offering any redemption or warmth. If you want to feel better about humanity, this isn't it.

Nightcrawler poster

Happiness1998

Todd Solondz finds grotesque comedy in suburban despair and broken people. Same tonal audacity as Deerskin—willing to be repulsive and funny simultaneously, never letting you settle into one emotion.

But It's genuinely revolting in places, dealing with pedophilia and sexual dysfunction unflinchingly. Some subjects don't deserve comedy; many will feel this crosses that line.

Happiness poster

The King of Comedy1982

Scorsese's savage dissection of obsession and deluded ego. A man consumed by a single idea, humiliated and desperate—it has Deerskin's dark comedy and its portrait of someone disappearing into fantasy.

But The protagonist is so pathetic and cringe-inducing that watching him is genuinely uncomfortable. That's the point, but it doesn't make it easier.

The King of Comedy poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Deerskin

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Possession1981

Both are formally unhinged descents into psychological collapse where the camera follows a character down into delusion without offering perspective or safety.

Zulawski's marital nightmare is a screaming, grotesque fever dream about obsession, jealousy, and the violent dissolution of a relationship. Wildly different genre—horror instead of dark comedy—but identical in tone: unhinged, surreal, and willing to be grotesque.

But It's deliberately alienating and avant-garde, with a monster so rubbery it borders on ridiculous. Also graphic violence and sexual content. Not for audiences who want coherence or comfort.

Possession poster
More like this (7)

American Psycho2000

A man defines himself entirely through consumer goods and appearances while spiraling into violence. It shares Deerskin's pitch-black satire about materialism as a path to madness and murder.

But It can feel dated and heavy-handed. The satire sometimes announces itself rather than trusting the audience to feel the disgust.

American Psycho poster

Under the Silver Lake2018

A man obsessed with unraveling a mystery descends into paranoia and delusion. Wildly unhinged, funny-sick in its tone, with that same sense of watching someone dissolve into their own conspiracy.

But It's nearly three hours of increasingly baroque weirdness with no clear payoff. Patience required, and some will find it self-indulgent.

Under the Silver Lake poster

Synecdoche, New York2008

A man's artistic vision and personal life collapse into each other in a surreal spiral. Dense, darkly comic, and genuinely disorienting—demands you sit with existential dread while laughing.

But It's intellectually exhausting and willfully obtuse. If you want clarity or catharsis, Kaufman isn't offering it.

Synecdoche, New York poster

A Serious Man2009

The Coen Brothers turn suburban malaise into cosmic horror-comedy. Not about obsession, but about the creeping wrongness of ordinary life—same tone of watching reality become hostile and absurd.

But Nothing is resolved or explained. The film ends in ambiguity and dread, which some find profound and others find pointless.

A Serious Man poster

The Double2014

Ayoade adapts Dostoevsky into a paranoid, monochromatic nightmare about a man's unraveling identity and desperation. Darkly surreal and comic, with that same sense of watching sanity crumble.

But It's deliberately artificial and theatrical, shot in high-contrast black and white. The stylization keeps emotional distance, which some find cold.

The Double poster

In a Lonely Place1950

Bogart plays a violent, unstable man whose reputation and rage consume him. A classic psychological portrait of obsession and paranoia, proof the premise is timeless.

But It's slow by modern standards and the misogyny is period-authentic but hard to watch. The film isn't unaware of it, but awareness doesn't erase it.

In a Lonely Place poster

Kung Fu Hustle2004

Both demand viewers stay off-balance, mixing genres and tones without warning, trusting the audience to keep up with constant tonal whiplash.

Stephen Chow's stylized action-comedy has the same tone-juggling audacity: genuinely violent and genuinely funny, absurd but committed, always surprising in register. Proof obsessive, heightened cinema can come from anywhere.

But It's a kung fu action film, tonally wild, often silly. If you approach Deerskin as serious art film, this will seem like candy; the connection is attitude, not subject matter.

Kung Fu Hustle poster

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