Though best known to the world at large for their collaborations with Bruno Mattei and highly distinctive solo films like Troll 2 and Monster Dog, husband and wife filmmakers Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi headed in a direction that proved far more palatable to local critics and audiences when they hit the '90s. Teste Rasate, or Skinheads, struck a chord with many younger viewers upon its release and proved to be popular in the few venues where it played, eventually becoming a cult favorite on Italian home video. Inevitably as with other negative depictions of fascism it also earned admirers among those it obviously didn't endorse, a la American History X, and it remained almost entirely unseen outside Italy until its 2025 release from Severin Films as part of its very wide-ranging (to put it mildly) roster of the Fragasso-Drudi catalog.

Living in a lower class area of Rome, young Marco (Tognazzi) is intrigued when he sees a skinhead fascist leader known as the Führer, Saverio (Base), violently intervening to stop a mugging attempt at night on the street. Despite having a Black girlfriend, Zaira (Gueye), he follows the gang back to their base and, despite being initially rejected, works his way into their company. In the process he starts to partake in acts of vandalism and terrorizing of immigrants, eventually graduating to targeting the shop of a Jewish jeweler (Suspiria's Bucci) with unexpected consequences. Warned by his mother and those close to him to turn back, he continues to fall under the sway of the fascists until it might be too late.

Well acted and featuring an atmospheric electronic score, Skinheads does an effective job of portraying the dangers of its politically extreme subject matter which, alas, is still extremely relevant today. For the most part it avoids any overt sermonizing, and the actors do a solid job with their roles and evoking a strong sense of menace where necessary. Fragasso isn't a particularly flashy director and makes an occasional misstep here (especially a ridiculously staged sex scene that doesn't work at all), but he keeps a firm hand on the material and delivers a chilling finale that packs a nice punch.

Given this has very little video history, Severin has done an excellent job bringing this to Blu-ray in 2025 with an immaculate 4K-sourced scan from the camera negative. Nothing to complain about here; detail and colors look excellent throughout, and the DTS-HD MA 2.0 Italian stereo track has a lot of presence with the music spreading out nicely when played back in surround. The optional English subtitles are also solid. In addition to the trailer, the disc also features "In the Name of Hate" (91m8s), a documentary about the film and its legacy with Fragasso, Rossella, actors Tognazzi, Base, and Stefano Molinari, composer Sergio Cammariere, art director Claudio Bissattini, editor Ugo De Rossi, uncredited replacement director of photography Nino Celeste, stunt man Massimo Vanni, and prop master Vincenzo Luzzi. It's about as thorough a look at the film as you could imagine, starting off with how the couple wanted to restart and rethink their careers, the significance of the overlooked 1982 film Difendimi dalla notte with some of the same participants, the impressions of Fragasso as a director, the casting process, the extent to which some of the actors got into character and felt discomfort with some of their scenes, an encounter with real Nazis during the shoot, the public reception, the attempts to give the film a noir feel, and thoughts on it today. There's also some making-of footage from the set scattered in as well, and it makes for a fine companion piece.

Reviewed on July 25, 2025