Poor Jake Feldman (Meatloaf Aday) is a sleazy furrier sweatshop owner who has fallen on hard times; his employees don’t know what they are doing, and lately the pelts he has been getting to manufacture his product don’t match up to his high standards. In addition to his business problems, he is infatuated with a sexy Foxy Brownesque lesbian stripper Shana (Ellen Ewusie), who he just can’t help blowing his money on. Bring in John Saxon (Nightmare on Elm Street, Six Million Dollar Man) as Jeb “Pa” Jameson and his understudy. They are trappers, well schooled in the art of skinning raccoons. They have found the primo spot for trapping coons, and the quality of their fur is second to none. The only problem is that the pelts are cursed by a gypsy swamp queen, and they cause those who come in contact with them to go bonkers. Before so and so realizes this, he places a call to Meatloaf to come and meet him to sell him the pelts. When Meatloaf finally gets his pelts, he decides to make the best fur ever for the object of his desires, and to ultimately win her love, or body for one night. Everyone who comes in contact with the pelts all meet an untimely gory death, all to beautiful music as if the sirens of Homer’s Odyssey are luring them in.

At first I was enjoying the low down and dirty back alley antics of the characters, and after all, it was made by Argento. The cinematography and music created a dark and dingy environment that I feel strangely comfortable in. It had the feel of classic David Cronenberg and David Lynch (in some of his darker moments) for the first 20 minutes or so. Even the doomed raccoons have an eerie presence. Imagine my description and throw it into the style of a grind house feature of the 1970’s, and there you go.

This should sound promising for most, but it fails to amount up to something memorable. There really wasn’t a likeable character at all, everyone except for the fur shop’s laborers who were just fodder for the curse. The curse aspect of the story was straight out of Pumpkinhead or Thinner, just a bunch of recycled ideas. It all descends into an over the top, how much can I out-do the last death sequence gore fest production. Each death gets more drawn out and unbelievable. Don’t get me wrong, there are some very imaginative and original deaths, but there isn’t much else there.

There was some deliberate bad acting by Meatloaf, who isn’t half bad if he’s in a good movie (Fight Club), and there is plenty of sex, nudity and blood for all. I would have enjoyed a little more humor like in the first third of the movie, it held my attention. Horror can be scary, it can be fun, but it can’t be boring. At least it was only an hour long.

As far as the DVD extra features are concerned, there is no director’s commentary for Argento and the rest are just standard features.