We're sure that when this six-year-old phantasmagoria of leather, leashes, latex and looniness first debuted, it seemed oh-so-spectacularly inspired in its fanciful abstractness (According to the box cover, Hustler named is one of the top 10 adult movies of all time … and hey, we made it an Editor's Choice.) But hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and with the new look provided by this DVD release, Skin 11 appears mighty blotchy.

More than anything, the production just comes off as dated, with its "shutter blinds" transition effect between scenes and its use of hokey digital picture monkeying for no real reason (i.e. negative art, stop-motion, incessant shifting between color and b/w, etc.). Not helping the cause is the DVD's low-res, often washed-out-looking transfer.

But then there's the absolutely ridiculous recurring voiceover narration, always garbled through a tinny, reverby electronic echo, and always going a little something like this: "You are only one note in this human symphony. Fuck and it will make music. Us two notes both really, really, really dissonant, and both of us really out of key. It feels good to fuck when you have no harmony. Shut up!" Ahem, may we propose the reverse.

Perhaps the most telling sign that this installment of the decadently fetishistic Skin series may not be the crowning masterpiece it once was hailed as is the no-frill, sub-par DVD it's been given. For such a significant achievement, shouldn't it at least have been lavished with, say, a still gallery?