In 2005, Gregg Araki (The Living End, The Doom Generation) adapted Scott Heim’s Mysterious Skin. The 1980s-based film delves into the aftermath of the sexual abuse of two boys, and their very different reactions to what happened. In the first point of view, Neil (Joseph Gordon Levitt) examines the psychological fallout within the subculture of sex work and abuse from a male perspective. While the second story strand focuses on Brian (Brady Corbet) who has both suppressed the traumatic incident and also built personal mythology involving alien abduction and UFOs. Before delving into Brian's story of trauma and alien abduction, let's look at Araki, himself, and his reasoning for making this film.
Gregg Araki, who was dubbed the poster boy of New Queer Cinema, is one of those voices in popular culture deemed transgressive for his investigations into provocative topics. An auteur who transcends what many filmgoers consider morally palatable or regarded as safe. Araki's intention with Heim’s source material was to make an empathetic, sensational-free movie and explore sexual violence and the consequences in a well-balanced way. "It’s a combination of things. In general, there’s a more serious, ‘mature’ sensibility at work in Mysterious Skin. I’m at a different place in my life," Araki told Damon Young during an interview in 2006. "I don’t think I could have made Mysterious Skin ten years ago when the book was sent to me for the first time. At the same time, I’m not at a place in my life where I’m going to make The Doom Generation, either. My films are really an evolution, a snapshot of where my head is at a certain time."
The audience first meets Brian as a young boy when his sister finds him huddled in a closet in their home. He is hiding, his eyes are glazed over, he’s in shock, and his nose is bleeding profusely. He has no recollection of the previous few hours. The last thing he remembers is sitting on a bench at his Little League game. He starts to wet the bed and repeatedly gets nosebleeds. Over time, he begins to piece together what might have happened that night and, with little evidence, comes to the conclusion he was a victim of alien abduction. What we are aware of is Brian supplanted the actual memory with a false one. A defense mechanism to deflect attention away from the very real pain that recognizing such a brutal act would bring into his life.
Alien abduction narratives didn’t really enter mainstream public consciousness until the 1980s. It was around this time when the movement gained credibility by dint of the renowned psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize winner John Mack kick-starting a serious, academic study of the UFO phenomenon and alien abductions. ‘Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Hopkins—along with historian David Jacobs, writer Whitley Strieber, and psychiatrist John Mack—published bestselling books, gave talks and did interviews detailing the accounts of individuals claiming to have been kidnaped by extraterrestrials and forced to undergo traumatizing medical procedures. Interest in these tales eventually helped inspire films like Fire in the Sky and the television series The X-Files. It makes perfect sense Brian would gravitate toward the cult of flying saucers.
Brian’s obsession escalates when he is made aware that the UFO phenomenon has an adjacent culture of people just like him. He seeks out help from isolated farm girl Avalyn (Mary Lynn Rajskub) after seeing her make a television appearance about her own ordeal with intergalactic interlopers. Avalyn shows him evidence that aliens have visited her farm (a mutilated cow) and she insists on him putting his hand inside. This triggers another memory, not like the others, and he has a visceral, uncomfortable reaction. Some of the memories he is unconsciously masking are starting to come to the surface. Avalyn comes by Brian’s house and when she attempts to seduce him, he has an almost violent reaction to her groping him and he throws her out. Statistically, most people who claim they’ve been abducted by Aliens are regular people with no indication of underlying mental health problems.
When he discovers a picture of the two of them as boys (Neal and him) playing in Little League, he attempts to track him down and instead meets Neal’s frenemy and cool goth Eric (Jeffrey Licon) and they become friends. Neal is in New York City with his friend, Wendy (Michelle Trachtenberg). Eric introduces him to music and violent horror cinema, and they begin college together. For a little while, Brian forgets about aliens, his occult obsession, and Avalyn, who has started to stalk him; instead, building a rapport with Eric based on mutual interests. He is happy, investing in healthy interests in film and music, and not tied to the past. Eric’s friendship is a way of retreating into something good and safe. Until one night Eric points out that Brian’s illustration of an alien is wearing sneakers. And the obsession he has been nurturing makes perfect sense.
In a heartbreaking conclusion, Brian finally comes face-to-face with a badly bruised and beaten Neal, They return to the house where the abuse took place and Neal reveals to Brian what really happened that night. He holds Brian, whose nose has started bleeding again, and the screen fades to black as Christmas carolers sing outside. Art, friendship, and his obsession with getting to the truth of his lost time were what sustained Brian, maybe replacing one bad memory with another less terrifying one prevented psychological damage. After all, not knowing was saving him from the most horrific thing he'd ever experienced.
We aren’t often given a glimpse into sexual violence as it relates to men and how it manifests later in life. Araki (and Scott Heim) took it in a sensitive and thought-provoking direction by including a character and the phenomenon of alien abduction to address a darker truth, without needing to resort to sensational storytelling or shock tactics. Brian's outcome was both plausible and cathartic: Following one terrifying belief eventually helped him process an even more terrifying one.