Mysterious Skin
Mysterious Skin is a 2004 coming-of-age drama film written, produced, and directed by Gregg Araki, adapted from Scott Heim's 1995 novel of the same name. The film tells the story of two pre-adolescent boys who both experienced sexual abuse as children, and how it affects their lives in different ways into their young adulthood. One boy becomes a reckless, sexually adventurous prostitute (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), while the other (Brady Corbet) retreats into a reclusive fantasy of alien abduction.
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| Produced by | Gregg Araki
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| Written by |
 written by
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| Screenplay by | Gregg Araki
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| Story by |
story by
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| Based on | Mysterious Skin
by Scott Heim |
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narrated by
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| Edited by | Gregg Araki
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| Animation by |
animation by
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layouts by
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backgrounds by
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color process
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| Running time | 105 minutes
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| Language | English
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| Budget |
budget
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| Box office | $2.1 million
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Neil: I think she's mad at me because I owe her like 3 letters.
Eric: Yeah, her last P.S. is "Tell Fuckface to write me."
- Gregg Araki said in an NPR interview that he shot all of the scenes with the child actors in such a way that they did not know the sexual context of their abuse scenes, and only during editing did he make the movie appear to show children being abused or witnessing abuse.
- The logo for the fictional show "World of Mystery" is the same as the logo for real-life production company "World of Wonder".
- The movie that Brian and Eric are watching in Eric's bedroom before Brian's mom enters and disrupts their "studying" is The Dead Next Door (1989).
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt wore blue contacts and Brady Corbert wore brown contacts to match their actors who played their younger roles.
- Each of the youths in the film is based in part on the life of Scott Heim, the book on which the film is based. Scott claims to have seen a UFO with his family, excelled in school, and lived with his single mom after a divorce (like Brian). He announced baseball games (like Neil) and his infatuation with cosmetics and British goth pop made him the subject of death threats (like Eric).
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